Lest we forget Gwen Stefani is married to a Brit, it turns out that her kids were already huge Paddington fans before their mom teamed with Pharrell to sing "Shine," the hit single off the Paddington film's soundtrack.
While Zuma and Kingston are now a whopping 6 and 8 and aren't quite as into stuffed bears and books about talking, marmalade-favoring bears as they used to be, Gwen is hoping that her youngest son, Apollo, will be getting his own Paddington bear soon.
Asked whether her kids are excited about the film, which opened in U.S. theaters today, Stefani told E! News in an interview yesterday, "My kids are half-English, so we've been going to London their whole lives, and the street that they film on is the street right behind our house. So when you're watching the film, we keep going," she added, bobbing and pointing, 'There it is! There it is! There's the street!'"
Aw, so the Stefani-Rossdale family and the Brown family are neighbors!
Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins play Henry and Mary Brown, who along with their kids take into the furry visitor from the deep jungles of darkest Peru. Ben Whishaw is the voice of Paddington, having replaced Colin Firth after the film was initially shot.
"It's really exciting for them," Gwen continued, talking about her kids, "and also in the film, they did such a great job of taking everything English, and all the little details of being English...like ‘Oh my gosh, that's the same ketchup thing they have there.' Every little detail, and all the acting is just so great in the movie. Just the feeling of it, it has such a good tone, the whole film...It was really fun to be part of it and the fact that the kids can recognize where they come from…plus we're in it and they're such a huge fan of Pharrell," she added, gesturing to her fellow judge on The Voice.
"I definitely play all of the songs that we do for [my kids], they have a huge opinon," Gwen said. "Children really know if songs have that magical thing or not—they are very clear if it doesn't. "They're like, 'That one's not good.' You're like, ‘Whoa!'
"But not this one," she added, referring to "Shine." "They liked it."
Wow, tough crowd! So which one of their mom's many, many hits is their favorite? Watch the clip and find out!