Gwen Stefani Struggled to Balance Tour and Secret Baby  1/8/07

Pop superstar Gwen Stefani found touring while pregnant with her first child Kingston was more challenging than she imagined - she spent many nights sobbing uncontrollably backstage.

The No Doubt singer felt sure she'd be able to juggle the pressures of a solo tour while hiding her impending motherhood in 2005, but she quickly realized she'd taken on too much.

In an interview in the upcoming issue of Elle magazine, Stefani says, "I thought I was going to be one of those Mother Nature girls. I figured, 'I'll just squeeze it out, 'cause I'm really strong and I work out and stuff.'

"I would be seriously crying before I went onstage. I didn't know how I was going to get through the tour, putting on nine costume changes on a stage in front of 12,000 people every night. And I didn't want people to know (I was pregnant).

"I didn't want to become The Gwen Freak Circus Show - watch it grow onstage."

Stefani finally became so overwhelmed by the pressure of keeping her pregnancy a secret on tour, she told fans at a Florida gig in December 2005 that she was with child and asked them to sing her song Crash loudly so her unborn baby could hear them.