Fergie and Josh Duhamel have been together for nine years and by all accounts, they seem to be having a great marriage. But things haven’t always been smooth waters for the duo. In fact, nine months into their marriage, the Black Eyed Pea singer and the actor were hit with gossip magazine tales of infidelity on Duhamel’s part.

“It was difficult,” Fergie confided to Oprah on the Next Chapter, airing this Sunday on OWN.

“When you go through difficult times, it really makes you stronger as a unit, as a partnership. It does for us, anyways. Our love today is a deeper love, definitely.”

Fergie added, “We’re stronger today definitely because of anything difficult that’s happened with us.” She continued, “We deal with it, we communicate; communicating’s the most important thing.”

Duhamel also joined in on the interview and explained why the marriage works even after all this time of being together. “Obviously I love to watch her perform and I love all the music,” Duhamel said. “I was attracted to her initially because of…how sexy she was and the hotness, but we haven’t been together for nine years because of that. It’s because she’s, you know…we grew up in very similar ways, you know?

“We’ve both had to work for what we got. We’re both Catholic. There were a lot of things that were really compatible between us. But at the end of the day, she’s just an amazing girl.”

An amazing girl indeed, with an awesome smile. Check out these pics of Fergie from this week taken at The Grove / Farmer’s Market in West Hollywood after her interview with Extra: