Kelly Clarkson is revealing the things that have helped her through 2020. The 38-year-old singer appeared on Monday’s episode of the Today show, and opened up about how friends, music and therapy have helped her amid a challenging year, which has included her divorce from Brandon Blackstock.
“I was just talking with my friends, I was like, ‘I don’t know how people go through this without talking to someone or having music as an outlet,'” she said. “But going through it, it’s just a really difficult thing. That’s why I made the dark comedic joke about my life being a dumpster.”
“Everyone’s 2020 is bad, especially during COVID. It’s just a roller coaster of emotions. A lot of people have been going through hard times, whether it’s with relationships or financially. It’s just 2020 has been really hard on a lot of us, for every human probably,” she continued. “But I’m lucky. I have an outlet, I have music, I have the greatest therapist in the world, and so that has been really helpful.”
Though she considers herself lucky, Clarkson admitted that she didn’t expect to split from her ex, whom she filed for divorce from in June.
“I don’t think anyone that has gone through divorce expects it. You see yourself growing old with someone and then life has a different path. It’s so hard on everyone,” she said. “You know me, I’m really open, so I try to be open and share it, because I think we all go through things, so we help each other not feel alone.”
“But at the same time, we have four kids total together, so that’s a lot of hearts involved,” Clarkson continued of her two kids with Blackstock — River, 6, and Remington, 4 — as well as his two from a previous relationship — Savannah and Seth. “You just have to be really careful. It’s just a tricky thing to navigate and it’s hard for everyone involved.”
The addition of being in the public eye makes the situation even harder, as Clarkson wants “to be truthful, but also keep your privacy for not just myself, but others.”
Though the year has been a challenge for Clarkson, the talk show host revealed that it’s only in the last five years that she feels she’s come into her own as a person and performer.
“It was really hard, honestly, for most of the 20 years I’ve been in the industry,” Clarkson said of her career since winning American Idol in 2002. “It’s the funniest thing to just want to be you and [to have] everybody feel like you’re supposed to fit some formula. We all don’t fit a formula. That’s why we’re all different, that’s why we’re supposed to be different.”
“Every step of the way was pretty difficult,” she added. “Everybody kinda had their idea of who I should be and who I was. Honestly, at this point in my life, just now the last couple of years have been easy. Before that, the first 15 [years] were really difficult.”
