Kelly Clarkson Reveals She ‘Didn’t See’ Brandon Blackstock Divorce ‘Coming’

Kelly Clarkson didn’t see her divorce from Brandon Blackstock coming, she admitted as she addressed her split head-on for the first time during Monday’s episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show. The Voice coach opened up about her breakup for the first time since filing to end their marriage on June 4, but told her audience she won’t be saying much more going forward in order to protect her children, daughter River Rose, 6, and son Remington Alexander, 4, as well as Blackstock’s kids from a previous marriage, Savannah, 18, and Seth, 13.

“As you probably know, 2020 has brought a lot of change also to my personal life,” she said as she returned to the talk show studio for the first time in months. “Definitely didn’t see anything coming that came, but what I’m dealing with is hard — it involves more than just my heart, it involves a lot of little hearts.”

“We know the best thing here is to protect our children and their little hearts,” she continued during Monday’s show. “So I’m usually very open and I usually talk about everything but in this case, I will talk a little bit here and there about how it affects me personally, but probably won’t go too far into it because I’m a mama bear and my kids come first.”

Clarkson added that while everyone keeps asking her if she is OK, the answer is yes, especially while using music as a way to channel her emotions during this difficult time. “When I got upset when I was a kid I had a problem saying how I felt and my mom told me to start writing,” she said. “And that’s actually how I get my feelings out, so I probably won’t speak about it too much but you definitely will hear it musically.” It’s that tendency that helped the American Idol star become a songwriter. “Music has always been my outlet to get through difficult times and this year I’ve been listening to a lot of music and I’ve also been writing a lot of music as well,” she continued, revealing that this week’s shows would be dedicated to music and musicians.

The singer did say previous to Monday that she would be releasing a very emotional album next, telling Sunday Today that it will be “the most personal one I’ve ever released.” It “is basically every emotion you experience from the beginning of a relationship to the end of what it is now,” she said. “It’s been very therapeutic for me. It’s very honest.”