Singer Kelly Clarkson won hearts after her iconic win on the first season of American Idol in 2002. Ever since, her career has been on fire. Currently, she's hosting her own daytime talk show — and doing an amazing job with it. But not all has been fun and easy in her life. Kelly is also in the middle of a divorce from Brandon Blackstock.
The two were married for seven years, and many thought they'd last even longer. And that's possibly because Brandon is involved in Kelly's management team. Kelly admits that she was initially taken with Brandon from their first big encounter.
"We were just in a room together, and then he came up and said he was from the same hometown as me and I was like, 'Oh, we're so getting married,'" Kelly reportedly told Ryan Seacrest, reports Cosmopolitan. "I was so that girl. When he became single, I was on the prowl."
But after two kids and lockdown, Kelly and Brandon lost their spark.
The two got engaged just 10 months after they started dating. But in May 2020, Kelly's fans grew suspicious of trouble brewing after she listed her Los Angeles home for $9.995 million. Just a month later, she filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason why.
But because the couple has two children together — a girl named River Rose and a boy named Remington — the split is trickier. It's also tough because it's fair to assume that Kelly also formed a strong bond with Brandon's children from his previous marriage.
Kelly had the chance to talk about co-parenting with Khloé Kardashian, who's going through something similar with her ex, Tristan Thompson. "You speak about co-parenting, and I'm doing that right now too," she told the reality star on her talk show. In a way, seeing celebrities open up about these difficulties in their lives may make other women who've separated with children feel less alone.
"It's tough," Kelly sympathized. "I know with me and Brandon, it's just a difficult thing because we're in different places, and it's like, we both agree on the main things, but it's hard thing when you're not together all the time, for me personally." Having come from a family unit, it can be much trickier when you're both back to managing your own schedules individually.
That said, Kelly made sure to emphasize that she and Brandon were in the same place when it came to what's important. "As long as you make sure it's about the children and their best interests, then we're both on board," she said. It's good to know that they still have the same priorities.
Kelly's also seemingly been going through a journey of self-discovery throughout this period of time. It's possible that while in the relationship, she realized she didn't reach her full level of happiness, or the full potential of who she is as an individual. But she seems thrilled to learn new lessons along the way.
"Even at 38, I feel like I'm always changing and progressing — in a good sense, in a good way — and I always want to make sure I'm being the best version of myself," she said, reports People. "My mom's been telling me since I was a kid: 'You are who you surround yourself with.' You want to make sure you're surrounded by people that also want to be the best versions of themselves and also want a good common goal for everyone, not just themselves, right?"
"People could be bad for you in a certain time," she said. "And I think that everybody just goes, 'Oh, well that means they're bad.' Well it doesn't necessarily mean that, it just means that you're on different paths. And I think that that's OK. Everybody's on a different learning curve, and everybody's learning something different at different times."
From prior comments that Kelly made about Brandon, it seems like the two still have a pretty heavy involvement in each other's lives. Or at the least, Brandon seems supportive of all of the work Kelly has done to keep her family safe and her show running in the middle of a crazy and unpredictable year. She's never said one harsh word about him.
"My husband is now a lighting technician, an audiovisual technician, a director and he's also playing cowboy on our ranch," she said not long before filing for divorce, reports People. "He's got his hands full. We both, definitely, have our hands full. It's not just this job, it's [my] TV show and making records. We're all still making records. It's a lot of new things happening for us, and we're trying to get it done."
Throughout the relationship, Kelly admitted that she felt an attraction to Brandon that she never felt with anyone else before. "This isn’t a downer to anybody I dated before him, but I’m just going to be real: I never felt like, honesty, sexually attracted to anybody before him," she said. "And I’m not downing my exes. You know, everybody's different. But there was something about him."
So what happened? According to a source from Entertainment Weekly, their marriage had been shaky for some time. "Kelly and Brandon had been having problems for several months and were making a conscious effort to work things out," the source said. "They both hoped quarantining away from LA in Montana would help them work things out in their marriage, but instead, the change in environment was actually detrimental."
"The constant time together seemed to make an already challenging situation worse," the source added. Kelly and Brandon weren't the only couple who faced challenges based on this unexpected, stressful extra time together. Many had to face truths about their marriages and relationships during these unprecedented times.
Luckily, Kelly Clarkson has a good head on her shoulders. She understands that this is a learning moment for the whole family, and that things will get better soon. After all, as she often belts out, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
