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Kelly Clarkson filed for divorce from her husband Brandon Blackstock in late 2020, and she has been open about her feelings about the process since announcing the news on The Kelly Clarkson Show.
Clarkson was speaking with superstar and former Voice coach Alicia Keys as well as author of Untamed, Glennon Doyle to talk about the hardest parts of going through a divorce. Clarkson previously said on her show that she wanted to be as open as possible in order to help people through their own divorces.
The conversation was originally unaired on the Kelly Clarkson Show, but the whole clip has since been uploaded to the YouTube channel and aired on a later episode of the show so viewers could see Clarkson talk about her divorce.
Clarkson Says the Hardest Part of Divorce is Her Children
In the conversation, Clarkson shared that there were many hard parts about getting divorced, but she had the hardest time with involving her children in the process.
“I’m obviously going through [a divorce] right now, It’s horrible,” Clarkson said. “There are so many hard parts. The hardest for me is the kids, that’s the hardest for me. You know, I think as women, especially, we’re trained to take it all on and you can deal with it and you’re fine, but it’s your babies you’re worried about.”
Doyle said that was also the hardest part of her divorce because people are trained to avoid a broken family at all costs.
“One day I was looking at my daughter and I thought, Oh my God, I’m staying in this marriage for her, but would I want this marriage for her?” Doyle said. “And if I would not want this for her, then why am I modeling bad love and calling that good mothering? And the reason is because we’ve all been trained to believe that a good mother is a martyr.”
She said that she knows that’s “the worst legacy we can pass on to our kids.”
Clarkson Says She Was Inspired by Doyle’s Book
In her book, Doyle says that she left her marriage because she’s a good mother and not in spite of that fact. She said that she didn’t want her children to be burdened by her own “unlived life.”
Clarkson said that is her favorite part of the book, saying that it opened her eyes to her own marriage at a time when she needed that.
“It was that thing I needed to see to make a step in my life,” she said after telling Doyle she didn’t want to put the responsibility of Clarkson’s divorce on her.
She added, “I realized, this isn’t happiness and we both deserve better. Neither one of us would want this for our children. Reading that line so hit home for me, not selfishly, but for the family. It’s like, I don’t want this for everyone in this scenario right now.”
Clarkson thanked the author for her wisdom and said that it truly changed her life.
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