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 realised she'd taken on too much.
In an interview in the upcoming issue of Elle magazine, Stefani said: "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.