Kelly Clarkson Said She "Cried So Hard" She Couldn't Speak Amid Her Divorce from Brandon Blackstock

"Just to be brutally honest, I did not handle it well."

Kelly Clarkson is getting "brutally honest" about how she handled her divorce from Brandon Blackstock — and, it wasn't easily. 

In a new interview with Zane Lowe on Apple's Music 1 podcast, Kelly opened up about the good, bad, and the ugly from her split with Blackstock in 2020. "I don’t know how people get through anything like that because I’m not going to say I did it gracefully. Behind closed doors by myself, it was not," she admitted, adding, "Just to be brutally honest, I did not handle it well."

Clarkson, who was married to Blackstock for seven years, revealed there were times that she "cried so hard" that she "couldn't even speak" while they were separating. She continued, "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."

Related: Kelly Clarkson Says Her Divorce Wasn't an "Overnight" Decision

Before the couple ultimately called it quits, they tried "to make it work" with therapy, but Clarkson said she "knew in my heart it wasn't going to." "I think when you finally go, 'I can't fix this. I can't,' there's no amount of hope that will, or trying or whatever. It actually is freeing," she said. "It's incredibly sad. It's a dark place, and fetal position on the floor crying. There's so much loss with that and I'd never experienced grief like that, but I also think it's very freeing."

Kelly also wanted what was best for their two children – River, 9, and 7-year-old Remington — even if that meant separating the family. "We have two little kids watching us," she said. "And you don't want to set that example for, this is what they're going to set the bar for. I'm like, I don't want my kids to be in this relationship. I want them to aim higher." 

Now, looking back on her decision three years later, Kelly is happy she went through with the divorce. "At the end of the day, we're all fine. We're doing fine," she explained. "Everybody's finding their own lane and we're figuring it out and it's going to be fine."

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