How Kelly Clarkson Tried To Save Her Marriage To Brandon Blackstock

Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock went through a harsh divorce that played out publicly. At first, the two seemed like a match made in heaven as Blackstock was the stepson of country music superstar Reba McEntire. As we all know, Clarkson has enjoyed a fantastic career in the music industry since she got her big break on "American Idol" in 2002. During their marriage, the couple welcomed two children, River and Remington. Sadly, things went south in 2020, and Clarkson filed for divorce. According to CNN, she cited "irreconcilable differences" as the reason.

Things weren't necessarily easy for the pair as they duked it out in court over everything from finances to custody of their two children. Us Weekly shares that Clarkson got full custody of the children, and she shells out a pretty penny in child support in the sum of over $46,000 a month until the kids reach the age of 18 years old. In addition, a judge ordered Clarkson to pay $115,000 in spousal support a month, and she also had to pay Blackstock a one-time payment of $1.3 million.

Clarkson spoke about how bad the split was with USA Today. "I know a lot of people have gone through grief or a big tragedy like a divorce, and I know it's a common thing, unfortunately," she shared. "But there's nothing common when you're going through it. It's very foreign; it's horrible." Even though things didn't end well, she still tried to save the marriage.

In the end, things may not have worked out between Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock, but that doesn't mean that Clarkson didn't put up a fight. The songstress spoke with Apple's Zane Lowe about all her efforts to try and save her marriage to Blackstock. And even if her efforts fell short — they were still there. "I literally said to my therapist, and it wasn't even; honestly, we weren't divorced. We weren't separated then. It was like when we first started talking; it was marriage counseling," she explained to Lowe and listeners. "It was trying to make it work. 'We're trying to figure it out. I desperately want to make this happen,' but I think I knew in my heart it just wasn't going to." Clarkson also revealed how therapy was quite a rollercoaster of emotions that seemed to change on a dime. "It's like, 'I'm out,' and it's like, 'Wait, I'm in.' Because love makes you do really incredible things and incredibly stupid things," she said. 

The singer also spoke about trying to save her marriage on the "We Can Do Hard Things" podcast with Glennon Doyle. In the vulnerable interview, she again confessed that she thought she could fix her marital problems. "I'm like, 'I can do this. I can handle so much.' My ego is like, 'I can control my actions. I can control my reactions," she explained. "I can do this, and I can reach this person, and I can get through.'" So sad. 

Since Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock ended things, the mother of two has not been shy about sharing her feelings on the divorce and how hard it was for her. In fact, the singer has spoken about the split on several occasions, and she's always been open and honest. While Clarkson tried to do everything she could to save her marriage to Blackstock, going through everything she did was incredibly tough, and she spoke about how hard it hit her in the interview with Apple's Zane Lowe. "Just to be brutally honest, I did not handle [the divorce] well," Clarkson confessed. "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." The songstress also said that she cried so hard over the failed marriage to the point that she "couldn't even speak."

Clarkson used the split as fuel for her new album titled "Chemistry," and in an interview with USA Today, the singer admitted that the album was about her "emotional roller coaster of a relationship" with her now ex-husband. "It's like 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back,'" Clarkson said of the album. "I like that the album starts and ends like that because it's how I felt." The album starts off rough with the song "Skip This Part" but ends with "That's Right," and it's safe to say that Clarkson has come a very long way.