Kelly Clarkson Shares Her Decision to Begin Antidepressants Amid Divorce

Kelly Clarkson is speaking candidly about her mental health amid her divorce from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock. The “Since U Been Gone” singer opened up about her decision to take antidepressants on Wednesday’s episode of Las Culturistas, a podcast from iHeartMedia and Will Ferrell’s Big Money Players Network, sharing that she was really struggling emotionally after filing for divorce from Blackstock in June 2020.

“I looked at my therapist and I was like just couldn’t stop sobbing – I couldn’t stop crying. I was like I can’t, I cannot do this,” the 41-year-old artist said. Her therapist then urged her to think about going on antidepressants while she weathered her divorce. “My thing was, I just, I can’t smile anymore for America right now. Like I’m not happy and I need help,” Clarkson said. “And it was one of the best lessons because she kept trying to convince me she was like, ‘Girl, you’re doing a lot and having to balance a lot,’ and trying to put my best foot forward in front of my kids like, I was like, ‘I can’t do it.’”

The Grammy winner was initially hesitant but did decide to begin taking Lexapro, which is a decision she doesn’t regret in the slightest. “It was, honest to God, the greatest decision ever, I wouldn’t have made it. And then by the time you wean off of [the medication], it’s like … I handled what I couldn’t handle then and now I have time and space and I took like the whole summer off,” she explained, adding, “It was a really good lesson in, like, ‘You need to put your ego aside, and everything aside.’ When someone’s trying to help you … listen.”

Clarkson previously opened up to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 earlier this month, admitting that she didn’t exactly handle her split “gracefully.” The American Idol winner explained, “Behind closed doors by myself, it was not… Just to be brutally honest, I did not handle it well.” She continued, “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.”