Gwen Stefani Proves the Value of Public Insecurity

With her new solo album (and new relationship), Gwen Stefani proves the value of public insecurity.

- Lindsay Zoladz

At the turn of the millennium, Gwen Stefani and I both had braces. I was 13, she was 30, and she and her band, No Doubt, were preparing to release their third album, Return of Saturn, named for that horoscopic event that occurs once every 30 or so years, when the titular planet occupies the same place in the sky it did when a person was born. This is supposed to be, astrologically speaking, a time of great upheaval and emotional confusion in one’s life, and accordingly Stefani dyed her hair Lisa Frank pink and got adult braces. “I always told myself when I got rich,” she said about her orthodontics in Harper’s Bazaar a few years ago, “that’s the first thing I’d do.”