Kelly Clarkson Explains How ‘Huge’ Divorce Affected Her New Music

Kelly Clarkson is opening up about the new music that’s on its way following her “huge divorce” from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock. The Kelly Clarkson Show host opened up about how the end of her nearly seven-year marriage in June 2020 has influenced her career on Apple Music’s The Global Chart Show with Brooke Reese Wednesday.

“Everybody knows the huge divorce I went through, and it’s been, like, two years and not easy with kids,” The Voice coach said. When it comes to her career, Clarkson said of eventually releasing new music, “I’m just navigating what I’m comfortable with releasing. So, it’s just a hard thing to navigate. It’s coming. I just got to get my crap together. I just got to figure out what I’m going to release. I’ve never had this difficult of a project.”

Clarkson and Blackstock, who share two children – daughter River, 8, and son Remington, 6 – settled their divorce earlier this year. The “Since U Been Gone” singer was granted primary custody of the children, but Blackstock, who also is father to two teens from a previous marriage, will have custody of his younger children one weekend a month where he lives in Montana. 

As she moves on to the next chapter of her life, Clarkson legally changed her name to Kelly Brianne, explaining to PEOPLE in March, “I just got divorced, so I had to drop my married last name. I just kept my middle name for my personal life. I’m still Kelly Clarkson.” Despite the way her marriage ended, Clarkson said on the Love Someone with Delilah podcast in December that she has no regrets about her past relationship.

“I regret nothing. Even unfortunate things that happen in your life or hard things, ’cause we can do hard things,” she said. “But also I feel like that’s what shapes you, it’s what makes you a better person, it’s what makes you recognize: OK, I missed those red flags, I missed that, I ignored that on purpose,” she noted, sharing that she almost named her next album Red Flag Collector. “I mean … I’m just collecting them,” the American Idol alum joked. “I was apparently wanting to do some kind of exhibit with a lot of them.”