Kelly Clarkson’s Ex-Husband Reportedly Told Her She Wasn’t Sexy Enough for ‘The Voice’

Kelly Clarkson’s divorce from ex-husband Brandson Blackstock may be final, but new information about the split continues to surface. In a new report from the New York Post, a past deposition from the singer-turned-talk-show-host revealed that she accused him of telling her she wasn’t “sexy” enough to be on The Voice. The claims were made to a California labor commissioner in 2022, with the official ultimately ruling in favor of Clarkson and ordering Blackstock — her former manager — to pay her $2.6 million for “unlawfully procuring deals that should have been handled by her talent agents.”

During her legal testimony, Clarkson stated that she had wanted to be a coach on for many years, and that she had shared this desire with Blackstock, according to court documents. However, she says he told her that NBC network executives were not interested in her because they were “looking for a more sex symbol type” such as Rihanna. Clarkson went on to testify that tha Blackstock allegedly told her the network “had to have someone that was black. … They had to have a diverse thing.” 

Blackstock also allegedly told her that she couldn’t be on the show because she and then-coach Blake Shelton “were too similar.” Clarkson’s attorney, Ed McPherson, asked her how she was able to remember the specifics of this conversation and she replied, “Well, a wife doesn’t forget a time she gets told she’s not a sex symbol, so that stays.” Clarkson eventually landed on The Voice, joining as a coach for the 14th season, in 2018.

Clarkson and Blackstock reportedly first met in 2006, while he was married to Melissa Ashworth. Blackstock shares two children with Ashworth: daughter Savannah and son Seth. The pair divorced in 2012, the same year he began dating and became engaged to Clarkson. They married in 2013 and share two children: a daughter named River and a son named Remington. Clarkson filed for divorce from Blackstock in June 2020, with the divorce being finalized in August 2021.

Earlier this year, during a conversation with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, the former American Idol winner opened up about he divorce from Blackstock, admitting that she leaned on some “bad habits” in the aftermath of their split. “I don’t know how people get through anything like that,” she confessed, “because I’m not going to say I did it gracefully.” Clarkson continued, “Behind closed doors by myself, it was not… Just to be brutally honest, I did not handle it well.” She went on to say, “I had many sessions with just my friends of… I couldn’t even speak. I was crying so hard… even before separating. There were just a lot of now unhealthy habits you recognize or habits that you recognize that you didn’t see before. Hindsight is a lot easier.”