Stefani's School Woes

The 39-year-old star - who is now mum to sons Zuma, 10 months, and three-year-old Kingston with rocker husband Gavin Rossdale - has enjoyed a wildly successful career with the band and as a solo artist.

But Stefani admits she is still haunted by her fear of exams, because she was convinced she was talentless.

She tells America's Elle magazine, "School was just really hard for me. I didn't want to fail I wanted to be smart! But I was really dreaming, like drawing my boyfriend's name on my notebooks. It was such a disaster. It's so sad! It makes me sad when I think about it. I still have nightmares about tests.

"I never had any kind of ambitions. I just thought I was going to have babies... When I found out that I could write songs, I felt like all of a sudden I'd found myself. Like, really, this power that I had that I never had before. It was amazing to have something that I could do after the whole school problem."