After nearly seven years of marriage, Kelly Clarkson filed for divorce from husband Brandon
Blackstock on June 4, 2020. The singer, who shares two children with Blackstock, cited
"irreconcilable differences" as the reason for their split, according to documents obtained
by The Blast.
Sources told E! News that many people were shocked by the news. One insider said,
"It came out of nowhere. It's all so sad for the kids. They were always such a loving family.
It never seemed like they had any issues."
The pair tied the knot in October 2013, a year after they began dating and seven years
after they first crossed paths at a rehearsal for the County Music Awards, People reported.
At the time, Blackstock was still with his ex-wife, Melissa Ashworth.
When he and Clarkson met again at the Super Bowl in February 2012, the pair jumped into
a whirlwind romance, the Daily Mail reports. Clarkson and Blackstock welcomed a daughter
named River Rose in 2014 and a son named Remington Alexander in 2016.
So what went wrong? While the news surprised some, other insiders say the split had been
coming for a while.
Following her pregnancies, the singer declared on the Elvis Duran Show in 2017,
"I'm so glad I never have to be pregnant again."
It seemed the couple's family was complete, Blackstock, a music manager, also has two
children from a previous marriage, daughter Savannah and son Seth. But Clarkson later
revealed having more children was back on the table again, at least for her.
On a May 27, 2020, episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, the Grammy winner told celebrity chef
Gordon Ramsey that her husband did not want any more children.
"I so want another child and my husband is like, 'No! We have four!' I have baby fever!
I want a little baby. Oh my gosh!"
Entertainment Tonight noted that this difference in opinion may have played a role in their
divorce, with one source saying,
"Kelly has always brought up wanting more children, which Brandon doesn't."
Beyond that disagreement, according to an Us Weekly source, Clarkson and Blackstock
weren't a picture-perfect couple nor the match made in heaven fans and friends perceived
them to be. They had a lot of differences in personality and lifestyle. An insider explained,
"Everyone thought Kelly and Brandon had the perfect marriage, but they definitely didn't.
Brandon's very laid-back, whereas Kelly's pretty high-strung."
The singer's decision to start The Kelly Clarkson Show while also being a coach on The Voice
was also a problem for her husband, who preferred their quiet life in Nashville. The source
said,
"When she went to Hollywood, it changed things."
In August 2019, Clarkson opened up about her and Blackstock's differences in an interview
with Entertainment Tonight:
"We have very similar goals in life, as far as personally what we want to accomplish.
I mean, we're different, we work on that because we're two different worlds coming together,
but it's working."
But it was soon clear it wasn't. After news of the couple's divorce broke, sources told
Entertainment Tonight that quarantining in their Montana cabin amid the global pandemic
made the couple realize that, quote, "[their] relationship hadn't been working for a while."
An insider close to the singer also told Us Weekly,
"They clashed on so many levels, and being in quarantine together heightened their problems
to the point of no return. So she filed for divorce."
Another source told People,
"Things had changed in their marriage and the split was a while coming. They both work
so hard. It's nearly impossible to enjoy each other, especially with the children needing
constant attention."
Clarkson opened up about how hard it was to quarantine with her husband and kids, telling
Glamour UK,
"I have been an emotional rollercoaster. This has been really hard as a working parent,
because I've been doing all the same jobs."
She continued,
"It's been exhausting, honestly, cooking every meal and cleaning nonstop after toddlers and
teenagers! Everybody's learning from home now and the teaching! So, everything has been
crazy."
On the bright side, the pair seems to be on relatively good terms. The singer thanked
her soon-to-be-ex-husband for "believing" in her and "convincing" her to do The Kelly
Clarkson Show when she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show
Host.
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