Inside a century-old church in Pasa­dena, California, Blake Shelton sits alone on a faded wooden pew, praying. Smoke and lights are pumped into the darkened sanctuary as a camera circles, filming the video for his latest single, “Let Him In Anyway.” It’s a ballad about a recently deceased best friend whose eternal salvation is in doubt, but the director has an idea to inject some optimism into the song that is not suggested by the lyrics. He instructs two crew members to open the church doors as the song concludes, letting in streams of Cali­fornia sunshine that hint at an answered prayer.

“I try to make all my decisions by listening to what everyone else has to say,” Shelton tells Forbes. “We’ll go edit it—and if it works it works, and if it doesn’t, nobody besides you ever knows it happened.”

The 49-year-old country music superstar describes all his ventures with similar aw-shucks humility. But those he works closest with say not to underestimate the business savvy of a man who has recorded 31 No. 1 country radio hits, opened a national chain of restaurants, launched a Hollywood production company and amassed a personal fortune that Forbes estimates at more than $200 million.

“Even though he plays this folksy good ol’ boy, he’s a smart dude. I have a lot of respect for his intuition,” says Colin Reed, Shelton’s longtime friend and executive chairman of Nashville, Tennessee–based Ryman Hospitality Properties. “I think he really enjoys this persona he’s built over the years, and it’s natural—but I think he thinks about it a lot.”

In many ways, Shelton’s career has been defined by the tug-of-war between show business and the life of hunting, fishing and farming he prefers in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, where he lives on a sprawling ranch with his wife, pop star Gwen Stefani. “I don’t even care if I miss an opportunity by not responding to a text or a phone call,” he says of his time there. “It’s really the only way I can maintain some sanity.”

Balancing his personal and professional lives was much easier before 2011, when Shelton was chosen as one of the coaches for a new singing competition show, The Voice, NBC’s attempt to unseat Fox’s ratings juggernaut American Idol. The Voice quickly became the top-rated show in prime­time, and Shelton was its breakout star, with fans falling for his quick wit and odd-couple chemistry with the other coaches, particularly Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine.

As different artists shuffled in and out of the four coaches’ chairs, Shelton was the anchor for The Voice’s first 23 seasons, churning them out at a pace of two per year between 2012 and 2023 and by the end earning an estima­ted $26 million annually from the show. It coincided with the most prolific stretch of his recording career as well, as he released 20 No. 1 songs over those 11 years, including the multiplatinum hits “God Gave Me You,” “Boys ’Round Here” and “God’s Country.” In 2021, Shelton sold his stake in those master recordings to BlackRock-backed catalog investor Influence Media Partners for an estimated $50 million.

Around that time, Shelton received a text from his business managers. Early in his career he’d asked them to inform him when he’d made enough money to to sustain his lifestyle without working, and one day they sent him a message—adorned with fireworks animations—telling him he was set. Ever since, he says the less time he has to spend thinking about money, the better.

“If you start talking to me about [financial] stuff in a meeting, I start hearing birds chirping in the background. It’s not that I don’t care,” he says, pausing. “Maybe it is that I don’t care, actually. I’ve learned over the years to stay in my lane.”

It was Reed who first pointed out the entrepreneurial potential of Shelton’s popularity. “You should think of yourself as a brand,” Reed remembers telling him. The two went into business together after Shelton’s divorce from country singer Miranda Lambert in 2015, purchasing her clothing boutique in Tishomingo and transforming it into a branded restaurant and bar named for one of his signature songs, “Ole Red.”

Backed by Ryman Hospitality, Shelton has opened five more Ole Red locations, including ones in Nashville, Orlando and Las Vegas. Forbes estimates the arrangement pays him around $400,000 in royalties each year, increasing each time the partners open in a new city. Reed says he has tracked Shelton’s career progression by the mode of transportation he arrives in for their annual hunting trip to Mississippi. Twenty years ago it was a beat-up pickup truck; now it’s a Gulfstream G450.

Yet Shelton’s rising celebrity came at a cost. Tabloids relentlessly chronicled his divorce from Lambert and subsequent relationship with Stefani, whom he met on The Voice and married in 2021 (the couple decorated an entire bathroom in their home with wallpaper from their tabloid covers). Between the unwanted attention and the demanding schedule, which required him to cram recording sessions and touring into the months between eight-week TV productions twice a year in Los Angeles—a place both geographically and spiritually far from Oklahoma—Shelton says he experienced major burnout. “[The Voice] was the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” he says now. “It was just too good of a job to walk away from, until one day the frustration outweighed everything else.”

He left the show in 2023 and his longtime label Warner Music Nashville a year later, and spent nearly two years doing nothing.

“I just turned it off and went to the house,” he says. “I don’t think anybody really thought I would indulge like that, when I said I’m going to the farm, and I’m just going to the farm. And that is truly what I did.”

It took a call from Post Malone in 2024 to lure him back into a recording studio, where the younger artist’s enthusiasm while collaborating on “Pour Me a Drink”—a song that has now been streamed on Spotify more than 250 million times—inspired Shelton to make music again. He worried that audiences had moved on from his more classic country sound but signed a new record deal with BBR Music Group in September 2024 and put out an album last year with a single, “Texas,” that brought him back to No. 1.

He has even returned to television, albeit on his own terms. Alongside former Voice producer Lee Metzger, he founded Lucky Horseshoe Productions and hopes to make what Metzger calls “shows for flyover states.” Their first project was the country music competition show The Road, created with Taylor Sheridan—the heartland hitmaker behind Yellowstone and Landman—and they have a half-dozen other scripted and unscripted projects in development, including a documentary on country legend Keith Whitley.

And while his upcoming residency in May at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas may seem like a clear departure from the slow life he craves, Shelton says he prefers sleeping in the same bed each night, and can connect with audiences on a more intimate level in the smaller venue. Smaller, at least, than his wife’s shows down the Strip at The Sphere on the same nights. “I just hope there’s enough people in town that I can at least get a few scraps,” he jokes.

Going forward, Shelton says he’s reluctant to take on new ventures that could spread him too thin, but that doesn’t mean he lacks ambition. He says he wants to open new Ole Red locations and produce more hit shows, making those businesses “as big as they can be.”

“Now that I’ve gotten to this point in my life,” he says, “if I’m giving up some time in Oklahoma, it needs to be for something that I know is going to count.”

© Forbes