Clarkson opened up about her divorce from Blackstock in a new appearance on the 'We Can Do Hard Things With Glennon Doyle' podcast.
Kelly Clarkson is opening up about her divorce from Brandon Blackstock.
During an appearance on the We Can Do Hard Things With Glennon Doyle podcast on Tuesday, the singer got real about the end of their marriage, and revealed what kept her from leaving for so long.
"My ego... [I thought,] 'I can do this. I can handle so much.' My ego is, 'I can control my actions, I can control my reactions, I can do this and I can reach this person and I can get through.' It becomes a little bit of your ego that gets in the way," Clarkson shared.
A child of divorce herself, Clarkson said she didn't want to see the same thing happen to her children. The 41-year-old daytime talk show host shares son Remington, 7, and daughter River, 8, with Blackstock, whom she divorced in 2020 after nearly seven years of marriage.
"If I'm being completely honest, we don't want to do what we saw done," she continued. "I don't want my kids to be those kids at school."
Clarkson, who was just six years old when her parents got divorced, said her children were at the forefront of her mind when making the decision to walk away from her marriage.
"It's a little different -- they grew up here and it's a very progressive city. But in the South, there was, like, two of us with divorced parents in our class. So it was very different," the "Since U Been Gone" singer said. "Even when you come down to, like, daddy-daughter dances and you don't have anyone show up. You have to think about all of those things and you play it out differently in your head too."
She viewed herself as an afterthought, but ultimately realized that being selfish in the situation was the best thing she could do for both her and her family.
Clarkson added, "You try so hard and you think, 'I do not want to do that to her, I don't want to do that to him' -- that you never start thinking about yourself. That's why sometimes to be selfish was important to me."
"I felt limited. And I don't feel like that's the truth for all marriages, I just think that was my case," she added of the marriage. "To say that's just his fault, that's my fault for allowing that to happen. That's my work as well. It could also be limiting because as in love as I was, I just wasn't ready. Maybe the other person wasn't either and you try to make it work but it doesn't."
After she filed for divorce in June 2020, the parties finally struck a settlement in March 2022 following a contentious battle. Clarkson has only just recently released music surrounding the split, something she said she was hesitant about doing at first.
"I was just crying, like, a lot," Clarkson told Nancy O'Dell on TalkShopLive about making music largely inspired by her breakup. "Ending a relationship, you know, that’s gone on for years. You have children. It’s so involved. There are so many layers to it. ...I just wrote a bunch of music, like two and a half to three years ago. And then I think the thinking came in when it was like, what’s appropriate and inappropriate."
For more on Clarkson, check out the links below.
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