Kelly Clarkson Admits Antidepressants Saved Her During Brandon Blackstock Divorce Because She 'Just Couldn't Stop Sobbing'
Kelly Clarkson admitted she used antidepressants to help her get through her messy divorce from Brandon Blackstock.
“I looked at my therapist, and I just couldn’t stop sobbing, and I was like, ‘I actually had to cancel some of the other day because I couldn’t stop crying. I cannot do this,'” the American Idol alum recalled on the "Las Culturistas" podcast on Wednesday, June 27. “And it was one of those things where I really had to put my pride aside and all my childhood issues of whatever."
Clarkson continued to reveal to hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, “I was on Lexapro for, like, I think, two months."
The 41-year-old filed for divorce from the music manager in June 2020 after seven years of marriage, and the split was finally settled in March 2022 after a nasty two-year court battle.
Looking back on that challenging time in her life, The Kelly Clarkson Show host said, “My thing was, I just can’t smile anymore for America right now."
“I’m not happy, and I need help … and it was honest to God, the greatest decision ever," she exclaimed of getting on antidepressants. "I wouldn’t have made it [without it]."
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The "Since U Been Gone" singer also discussed her headline-making divorce last week while talking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, where she admitted she "did not handle [the divorce] well."
“I don’t know how people get through anything like that," she confessed, "because I’m not going to say I did it gracefully. Behind closed doors by myself, it was not."
Remembering how she cried "so hard" even before their official split that she “couldn’t even speak,” the Grammy winner — who shares daughter River Rose, 9, and son Remington, 7 with her ex — pointed out that her "unhealthy habits" only added to her grief amid the couple's demise.
The musician recently acknowledged that she stayed in the marriage much longer than she should have because she didn't want to feel like a failure, explaining on the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast: “When you’re in it … I’m like, ‘I can do this.’”
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“I can handle so much. I can control my actions. I can control my reactions," she said of her thoughts while in their crumbling relationship. “I can do this and I can reach this person and I can get through. And it becomes a little bit of your ego that gets in the way.”