Kelly Clarkson was able to break away from her marriage to Brandon Blackstock, but not without suffering from an enormity of feelings, all while in the spotlight.
For the first time, Clarkson is admitting that she took antidepressants as she dealt with her public, messy divorce.
“I was on Lexapro for like, I think two months,” she said of the popular SSRI drug. “Because I was like, look I don’t want to be on it forever. I don’t want to be that person … Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just have issues with it because of my own things from childhood,” she told Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang on their iHeartMedia podcast “Las Culturistas.”
“I’ve been so against it – just ’cause the things I saw in my childhood,” she reiterated. “So against, like any kind of form of medication … I’m like, ‘No there’s gotta be a better way of like, talking to someone, figuring this out.’ … I don’t want to numb myself,” she explained of her previous hesitations.
KELLY CLARKSON SETTLES DIVORCE FROM BRANDON BLACKSTOCK, ORDERED TO PAY HIM MILLIONS
Kelly Clarkson divulged that she needed to take antidepressants while dealing with her public divorce. (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
“Whenever my divorce was happening,” she started, referencing her tumultuous split from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, She admitted, “I looked at my therapist” and added she could not “stop sobbing.” Her emotional state ultimately led her to cancel obligations.
“I cannot do this,” she remembers thinking. “And it was one of those things where I really had to put my pride aside … My thing was, I just can’t smile anymore for America right now. Like I’m not happy and I need help.”
Kelly Clarkson was ordered to pay her ex-husband millions of dollars after they reached a divorce settlement. (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
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“Having to balance a lot and trying to put my best foot forward in front of my kids, I was like ‘I can’t do it,'” Clarkson recalls.
“It was honest to God, the greatest decision ever. I wouldn’t have made it. And then by the time you wean off of [the medication], it’s like … I handled what I couldn’t handle then and now I have time and space and I took like the whole summer off … It was a really good lesson in like, you need to put your ego aside … Someone’s trying to help you. Listen.”
Kelly Clarkson believes she “wouldn’t have made it” through her divorce without the help of antidepressants. (Chris Haston/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank)
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Blackstock and Clarkson share two children together, River Rose, 9 and Remington “Remy” Alexander, 7.
Their divorce proceedings were contentious, ending with Clarkson being ordered to pay her ex-husband millions of dollars.