Kelly Clarkson’s Advice to Her Younger Self Is Startling in Light of Her Divorce Filing
The news this week of entertainer Kelly Clarkson filing for divorce from her husband of seven years, Brandon Blackstock, came as an absolute shock to her fans.
The couple seemed perfectly happy in recent weeks filming her daytime talk show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, at their ranch in Montana alongside their children.
Clarkson’s words to her younger self, which she shared earlier this year, are even more meaningful now after the sad news of the end of her marriage.
Clarkson was just joking 6 months ago about the couple’s active sex life
In 2019, Clarkson chatted on her daytime show with 2018 The Voice winner Brynn Cartelli during the digital segment, “Ask Me Anything.” Each one got to ask the other, well, anything.
The 16-year-old singing competition winner innocently asked Clarkson about her pre-bedtime routine each night. It made for an awkward exchange between the two.
“What is the last thing you do before you go to bed every night?” Cartelli asked the “Catch My Breath” singer. “Is there one thing?”
Clarkson was caught off guard and hemmed and hawwed before getting honest. Cartelli, unsure if she wanted to proceed, said, giggling, “Oh, no. Do I not wanna know this?”
“Well, Brynn,” the Stronger singer began as Cartelli laughed, “I was single for many years so, I have children [now], and how one makes children is generally what I do before bed — that’s not a lie. That’s real! And it’s not weird, it’s natural.”
The couple met through Clarkson’s agent and has two children
The Kelly Clarkson Show host met her husband through her manager, Narvel Blackstock, now her father-in-law. Brandon and Kelly knew one another but sparks flew between them when they met again at the Super Bowl in 2012.
Clarkson was very familiar with Brandon Blackstock’s family, not only through his father/her manager, but also through her husband’s stepmother, the legendary performer Reba McEntire, who is a dear friend of Clarkson’s.
“Brandon is my manager’s son. I’ve known him for six years but he was married for most of that time,” she told The Daily Mail in 2012. “Then, suddenly, there he was at the Super Bowl and he was single…”
In four years, the couple’s married life was a whirlwind of activity.
They connected in January 2012 and by December of that year were engaged. In October 2013, the couple wed and then welcomed their first child, River Rose, in June 2014. Two years later, their family grew with the birth of their son, Remington Alexander.
Now, eight years after their romantic first moment, the couple looks as though it is done, with Clarkson filing for divorce from her husband.
Her advice to her younger self earlier this year
In January 2020, Clarkson was asked by InStyle about the advice she would give her younger self, knowing what she knows now.
If anything, her words take on weightier meaning considering that she has filed for divorce from her husband of seven years.
The singer touched on a life lesson that has stayed with her: that one simply can’t change or rescue another person, and that they and they alone are responsible for their own actions. In light of her divorce filing, it sounds like a message to someone she knows.
“I would tell my younger self to stop trying to save or fix people,” she revealed. “I spent a solid portion of my life trying to justify others’ actions, and it was exhausting to say the least. People have to help themselves. I am not that powerful. No one is.”
It will have to be seen if the couple goes through with the divorce and if a prenuptial agreement was in place at the time of their wedding.
