Kelly Clarkson recalls ex-husband’s devastating remark about her looks

Kelly Clarkson’s ex-husband allegedly told the singer she wasn’t “sexy” enough to secure a major TV gig.

Clarkson made the claim last year to a California labour commissioner, who eventually ruled in favour of the singer and ordered her now-ex and former manager, Brandon Blackstock, to pay her $2.6 million ($AU1.76m) for unlawfully procuring deals that were legally required to be handled by her talent agents.
 

The singer testified that she had told her husband for years that she wanted to be on talent show The Voice. However, he allegedly dashed her hopes, telling her that TV executives would never hire her because they were “looking for a more sex symbol type” of woman such as Rihanna.

When questioned regarding whether she remembered the conversation with her ex, court documents obtained by The New York Post revealed the star responded: “Well, a wife doesn’t forget a time she gets told she’s not a sex symbol, so that stays.”

Despite her ex-husband’s claim that Clarkson wasn’t “sexy” enough for The Voice, NBC later went on to hire her as a coach on the show in 2018.

Court documents also revealed that Clarkson’s ex allegedly told her that TV bosses “had to have someone that was black. … They had to have a diverse thing”.

It was ruled in November that Blackstock overcharged his ex-wife by $2,641,374 ($AU1.76m) when he illegally booked not only The Voice deal, but also her TV appearances for Norwegian Cruise Lines, Wayfair and the Billboard Music Awards.

Clarkson and Blackstock were married for nearly seven years before she filed for divorce in June 2020, which was finalised two years later.
 

Clarkson has spoken about her divorce publicly on a number of occasions, calling the process “difficult”.

“You can ask anyone who’s gone through a divorce, I don’t think anyone expects it,” the Grammy winner said on Today in September 2020. “You see yourself growing old with someone and then life has a different path. It’s so hard on everyone, and you know me, I’m really open. I try to be open and share. It’s just a tricky thing to navigate.”

“We all go through things,” she continued. “But at the same time, we have four kids total with each other. That’s a lot of hearts involved, and you just have to be really careful. We’re in the public eye so that’s hard too, to try and be truthful but also keep your privacy.”