Blake Shelton & Gwen Stefani paying instagram users for relationship PR?

I know that hardly a day goes by without a mention of omnipresent pop culture couple Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, but today we’ve got a story packed with intrigue and shenanigans! Many of our commenters have remarked that the relationship between the pop/ska princess and the country singing cowboy is about as convincing as the Whitney Houston hologram. Well, you may be onto something, as evidence suggests that Gwake’s PR people may be paying social media influencers to promote them.

The Cut’s Allie Jones put on her Nancy Drew hat when she saw d-list faux celebrities and Instagram-famous individuals posting gushing endorsements for Gwake and their (still awful) single, “Go Ahead and Break My Heart” on Instagram.

What raised the red flag were a pair of posts which sounded like they may have come from somebody’s publicist. The first came from former Bachelor contestant, Becca Tilley. Tilly, who has over 700,000 followers, featured a shot of the couple singing their new duet at Blake’s album release party back on May 9. You can see the performance, if you haven’t had enough of them making goo-goo eyes at each other, below:

This is strange as this happened a few weeks ago and Becca just posted this on Sunday. Becca wrote, “I have a weird obsession with these two right now!! Watching the whole performance for @iheartradio at iheartradio.com/hondastage — heart eyes!!!!’ 😻 @blakeshelton @gwenstefani.” Curious.

Soon afterward, The Hills alum Stephanie Pratt posted another photo from the same event with the same overly excited commentary (and pretty obvious promotional shout-outs), captioning the photo, “Saw these two cuties in concert w @ginaa_a … they are my new fave couple!!” she wrote. “Love 💟 you can watch Blake’s performance at iheartradio.com/hondastage”

If this is true – and there’s been no confirmation or comment from Gwake’s camp, that’s kind of sad, and it does call the authenticity of the relationship into some doubt. Maybe they are in love but have realized what a auditory train wreck the song is. Blake’s still giving us “Aww, shucks,“ telling Entertainment Tonight, “I just like being with her, but when she’s all dolled up and we go places, it’s always fun for me. If she was here right now, not one person here would be looking at anybody else but her. It’s just cool to know that’s who I came here with.” He even wrote the song “A Guy with a Girl” from his new album If I’m Honest for her…that is, if he really is being honest! Blake made an appearance on Ellen recently and, to add more fuel to this latest fire, joked, “The last year of my life has been nuts, it’s been crazy, I just figure if all the magazines are going to cash in on me, I might as well too.” Hmmm…

I get Blake and Gwen doing self-promotion on Instagram, but having third parties publicize their relationship and song is all kinds of tacky. Is anyone else rethinking their stance on these two after these interesting accusations? I have to admit I am – and I like both of them. Sick of them, yes, but I don’t dislike them. I’m very curious to see how this plays out.

Thanks to Jezebel for the tip! Photo credit: Getty Images, WENN.com, Instagram

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