Divorce is hard enough without the added pressure of being a public figure. And though Kelly Clarkson appeared to have it together following her 2021 divorce from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, to whom she was married for seven years, she says that “behind closed doors” she was a mess.
During an interview on Apple Music 1, which dropped June 21, the singer told host Zane Lowe, “Just to be brutally honest, I did not handle it well.
“I had many sessions with just my friends [where] I couldn’t even speak,” she continued. “I was crying so hard, even before separating.”
The 41-year-old, who shares two children with Blackstock, explained that the road to separation, then divorce, was a difficult one, and that there wasn’t “one moment” that made her realize she needed to move on.
“It’s gradual,” she said. “And that’s what people tell you too. I mean, it’s interesting, because this album starts off with a song called ‘Skip This Part.’ And I literally say, ‘Can I skip this part?’”
Though Clarkson experienced doubt during the initial separation process (“It’s like, ‘I’m out,’ and it’s like, ‘Wait, I’m in.’ Because love makes you do really incredible things and incredibly stupid things.”), she says, “I think I knew in my heart it just wasn’t going to [work out].”
As for what her ex thinks about her new breakup album, Chemistry? Clarkson assured Lowe that Blackstock won’t be blindsided by anything. “We did have a little text exchange about it,” she said, but noted that she didn’t “know if he’d care.” (One has to imagine that partners of famous singer-songwriters forfeit their right to care about how they’re depicted in songs when they enter said relationships.)
But, Kelly Clarkson added, she assured Blackstock that she didn’t “diminish us down to one [thing].”
