August 8, 2025 • 23 mins
Kelly Clarkson has taken a step back from her public career to help her children through the sudden loss of their father, her ex-husband, Brandon Blackstock. Clarkson and Blackstock had a contentious, public divorce just a few years ago, Clarkson even writing lyrics addressing her anger and broken heart, but as Amy and T.J. discuss, she is now having to mourn a different type of grief while stepping up as a mom.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, that folks. It is Friday, August eighth, and we
are just getting word today that Brandon Blackstock, the forty
eight year old ex husband of singer Kelly Clarkson, has
passed away after a private three year battle with cancer.
And with that we welcome you to this episode of
Amy and TJ. I sit here alongside my partner Amy
(00:23):
roboch now and Robes. I think the first part of
the story and the reason we are jumping on here
to have a conversation not just entirely covering the story,
but there is a very personal, very intimate and sometimes
maybe even uncomfortable thing that a lot of couples do
deal with, and the grief and the morning of someone
(00:45):
you are no longer in a relationship with. And these
two certainly were contentious perfectly and with their divorce. I'm
not going to get into necessarily all that and what
this is about, but it made us stop and think, Wow,
what she may be feeling and going through as a person,
even though she's having to do a lot of this publicly.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Right, I mean, this is this is complicated and it's tragic.
Of course, Brandon and Kelly were married for seven years
and he is the father to her two children, who
are eleven and nine, I believe, and she has it
seems as though now twice put her life or at
least her career on hold while she has been dealing
(01:27):
with and even caring for her children and their well
being surrounding their father's illness. And that takes a significant
amount of emotion that I don't think a lot of
people are prepared for.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's complicated.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You know, you go through a divorce, and this was
a contentious one, as you pointed out publicly. You know,
she had some lyrics of some songs, and you know,
obviously she was angry, and she admitted she was angry.
So then how do you take that? And this is
fairly recent. You know, their divorce was finalized in twenty
twenty two. There was a two year, very public battle,
and now just a few years later, how do you
(02:04):
handle that grief and the concern you have for your
kids at the same time. It's got to be a tough,
tough experience for anyone.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And I think I didn't fully get the full family
picture because I think it was Wednesday, So we back
up here, folks. Wednesday, she made an announcement that she
was going to stop her concerts, had to cancel, so
a series of concerts she had in Vegas. Now you
hear somebody does that for personal reasons, you know, it's
a big, big, big deal. And then I heard she
(02:36):
was canceling because her of an illness with her ex husband,
and that made certainly my eyebrow went up, like, wait,
what's going on here? Certainly, Robes, we understand she's doing
this for her kids, no matter what was going on
with her and her ex. That is the father of
her children, and those kids love that man, and therefore
she's going to support and love that man to that degree.
(02:57):
At least.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yes, your children are half of their spouse, I mean
their parents, So your ex spouse, your children are half
of that person. They identify as half of that person.
And so that's why obviously anyone who goes through divorce
knows it's so important never to bad mouth the spouse
to the children because the children.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Take it on personally.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
That's their father, that's part of who they are physically, mentally,
all of the above. But yeah, when you have feelings
of anger towards someone, when you've gone through something so
difficult like divorce and there's in particular to then now
be loving, be caring, be grieving. It's got to be
so confusing.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I initially, when I wasn't at it, didn't admit immediately
trigger for me a memory of just how bad their
divorce was and how public it was. So when I
heard that she was stopping her shows to go be
there for her kids while her ex husband was ill,
I thought, wow, I thought that was actually beautiful. I
(04:00):
was almost to a certain degree jealous, wish things in
past relationships could have been could be that way. But
I applauded, Wow, they're able to still function and she
can care for him. And then I went and found
the details in the history, and I want, holy shit, Yeah,
like holy hell on this divorce. And again, people might
(04:22):
not know the name Brandon Blacklock right immediately, but he
was her longtime manager, a longtime manager, and they had
a seven year marriage, two kids. They went through a
lot together.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, and this was a family affair in the sense
that his father owns the company and he was a
part of the company, So that family was in her
life for years and years and years before they even
became an item, before they even started dating. And then
eventually got married. So I just I've always liked Kelly
Clarkson always. I was a huge American Idol fan when
(04:55):
she won that year, and I have followed her music
and downloaded her music and run through my own grief
in divorces with her voice in my head as I
was going through my own stuff, and she now is
I just think showing her true cards and her true
color is what an incredible person she is to not
(05:16):
only have made the choice to take a step back
professionally right now to take care of her children and
deal with the aftermath of all of this, but now
we're getting more understanding of what happened in the spring.
A lot of folks were questioning even her mental health.
There was a lot of speculation out there this spring
when she took some time off of her show without
any specific explanation and had some celebrity guest hosts filling in.
(05:39):
People were going to dark places trying to figure out
what was going on with her, what was wrong with her?
Good for her keeping in private as they did, and
now we find out she was letting her children or
taking care of her children, having them spend more time
with them, knowing that things weren't going well, that his
cancer diagnosis was not going in the direction that they
had hoped, and she, I'm sure at that point knew
(06:00):
that time was limited, and she took that moment to
take a step back again from her very public life
and make sure her kids were okay and dealing with
it properly. That is incredible. And to never say anything,
that's remarkable because he wanted his battle to be private.
She respected that, and I respect the hell out of her.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And she did. She alluded to some of that privacy
and the statement she put out on Wednesday again, she
informed folks on Wednesday that she was canceling concerts because
she wanted to be there for her kids as their
dad was ill. He was dead the next day. But
her statement on Wednesday, to your point there roams about
(06:42):
her public life and keeping her private life private. She said,
quote when I while I normally keep my personal life private,
this past year, my children's father has been ill, and
at this moment I need to be fully present for them.
I am sincerely sorry to everyone who bought tickets to
the show, and so I appreciate your great kindness and understanding. Now,
(07:02):
obviously you knew it was very very serious for her
to do that, But that sounds like a mom Yes,
I don't care divorced, or how bad it was, or
what their relationship, which we actually do not know in
recent months, if you will, what their relationship might have
been like. They might have reconciled and we're getting away
as getting on as perfectly as anything. But the past
(07:26):
couple of years they had.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Not no And in fact, I believe from what we've read,
this divorce was finalized in twenty twenty two. She filed
for divorce in twenty twenty right in the middle of
the pandemic. But then there were still legal issues, contentious
financial legal issues between Kelly Clarkson and her ex husband's
family with the representation she claimed he or they owed
(07:50):
her money, they claimed she owed them money. So this
was you know, when it comes to divorce is hard enough,
and then when it comes to finances and who owes
who what, And this was also the step of a
professional relationship as well with the company. So yeah, it
had been nasty. It had been nasty, and I'm sure
weighing on her. She spoke about it a little bit.
(08:10):
She was again very private. A lot of people are
looking at some of her lyrics. She had an album
come out right around the time of the divorce, so
people have tried to read between the lines in some
of her lyrics about what she was going through and
the pain she was feeling.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
But it was definitely documented.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I want to get some context you all, for what
we're talking about. Just some lyrics and people are kind
of piecing together and things like that. Look, she did
a whole album called Chemistry. It was a concept album,
but she said this thing went through the whole the
highs and the lows and the end of her relationship.
But she said it was important for her not to
just have an album that talk about heartbreak and hurt
(08:47):
and divorce. But you have to remember and recall that
you made a decision to marry somebody. Maybe this person
is someone you took your first roller coaster ride with.
You have memories and now you have children involved. You
can't just pass often dismiss someone. But lyrics we talk
about I don't remember when this performance was where there's
video out there of it. The song Everybody Knows abcd FU.
(09:09):
She was doing a cover of that song and wrote
she changed the lyrics to make pretty clel This was
not not only read between lines.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
No, this was very specific, and everyone jumped on this.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
This was actually fairly recently.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I believe this was in twenty twenty three, where she
was as a part of her show she would take
on other people's songs and cover renditions of them, and
so yeah, she did abcde fuck you and your dad
and the fact that you got half and my broken
heart turned that shit into art. Fuck you and your
(09:44):
view from the Valley I bought to everybody but your dogs,
you can all fuck off.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
That was very specific.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
That is and we're only giving those lyrics to give
context to what we're talking about. It was public, it
was contentious, It was nasty, it was finances, it was
all of these things. But she seemed Robes to be
able to separate the guy she married from the guy
(10:13):
who is her kid's father. Those are not the same
two individuals, and you can't view those two individuals if
you will, the same way, and that's such an important
thing to do. Divorce is awful. There's a very small
percentage of people who've been through a divorce who say, yeah,
it was a good time.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Was I don't know anyone who said it was a
good time. But look, unfortunately, I have had two divorces,
and one was much worse than the other. So yes,
divorces come in all shapes and sizes, but none of
them are pleasant. I can only imagine maybe a handful
of people who could say, you know, I do that
again now when you go through something that traumatic divorce
(10:53):
is one of the toughest things anybody goes through.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
And you're in death and you're heard, and it's the
end of what it's end of almost your hopes, a
lifetime dream. It was a lifetime dream. I'm doing something
that's going to carry me through the end of my days.
That sucks, and that's hard. So when I started going
back through some of their relationship history and I was thinking, Wow,
(11:16):
what must this young lady be going through today?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
You know, I was thinking about her.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
You know, she talked about the real anger that she
had at the end of their relationship, and that a
lot of awful things were said, which is what always
happens in situations like this. But you go through that
grief initially of grieving the relationship or what you thought
it could be or what you hoped it would be,
(11:43):
and then eventually, yes, you can put that aside and
you can put your kids first.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
And hopefully you put your kids first throughout all of it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But I'm only imagining now this grief now upon his death,
how that compares, and how the initial grief has affected
this grief Like this is a double whammy. It's a
one to two punch. You grieved the end of your
relationship with somebody, and now you're grieving losing their not
(12:11):
just their life, but their influence and their support that
they would have had for your children. Now she truly
is raising these kids on her own in a way
that maybe she did not anticipate.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
You know, everyone, anyone.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Who's been through divorce knows the important role even in
your divorce, that other parent in your children's life.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
That has got to be tough.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And I imagine you go back and you you would
like to change a lot of things when you realize
that somebody has gone too quickly and he was young,
forty eight years old. No one's expecting their ex to
die that young. That's just shocking.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
But the grief, folks, she's going through is a double
whammy of grief, as Robes was just saying, But there
are therapists out there the professionals who will tell you
there's a very specific kind of grief as well that
Kelly Clarkson and other people who may have found themselves
in that same position are going through. It's something called
(13:06):
disenfranchised disenfranchised grief. We didn't know what it was.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Do you. Welcome back everyone to this edition of Amy
and TJ, where we are talking about Kelly Clarkson and
what she must be going through right now. She has
(13:33):
lost her ex husband to cancer after a three year battle.
She has put her professional career right now on hold
to take care of her children to help them through this.
But also she's got to be going through so much
herself personally. This is you know, her divorce wasn't even
finalized until three years ago, so it sounds like his
(13:53):
cancer diagnosis happened around the same time her divorce.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Was finalized in twenty twenty two. That's if you do
the math about the same and that has.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That has got to be such a difficult situation, a
difficult road to walk down because not many people have
had to deal with that. The feelings and the grief
and the anger you have coming out of a failed
marriage or a divorce.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Now add to that.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Losing your children's father and perhaps feeling grief just about
how everything went down and how contentious it got.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
It's a tough tough spot to be in.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
But there is a name for it, as we were
talking about before we took our break, And yes, the
professionals will tell you this is a clear example of
what they call disenfranchised grief.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
I never heard of it before today at all, but
it's this idea, and you get it once it's explained
to you. It's just the type of grief you can't
do openly. It's a type of grief where it's not accepted,
it's not welcomed, it's not necessarily public. You feel like
you are in a position where you are not given
(15:00):
the freedom even to grief. You're the X. Nobody's coming
up to the X and saying I'm so sorry for
your loss. They'll come up to the kids, they'll hug
them and sorry and whatnot. But it's often times people
don't know how to treat an X who now is
in a position of this is someone I actually didn't
get along with in recent times in recent years, or
(15:24):
of somebody I didn't like even in recent times in
recent years, or this.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Is somebody I was really angry with or still angry
at it, and still have feelings of that anger towards them.
How do you deal with those feelings of anger without
actually feeling guilt about feeling them.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Alongside the grief of the loss.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
They actually use the phrase you said, disenfranchised grief, but
they also say it's just another way to basically describe
complicated grief, and that's exactly what is complicated. And they said,
sometimes if it is an X or someone you didn't
like who suddenly dies, you may actually even have a
part of you deep within you that is glad. It's
(16:07):
not that you wish them dead, but you're not sad,
and then you feel guilty about not feeling sad. I'm
sure you go through a range of emotions, and each
particular case would be specific, but it's a way of
letting people know it's okay, and you kind of have
to let those feelings come out, even if you have
to do it privately. And that's a whole other issue
(16:30):
of having to do that on your own, to not
perhaps feel comfortable telling someone how you're really feeling, or
explaining to someone how you're really feeling, and especially when
you have young children who are grieving their father, having
to try and be the strong one and not let
those feelings out or not let yourself feel those feelings.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
It's tough.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
But the double whammy of grief is, yes, you're grieving
the loss of your even if you don't like the person,
you're grieving the that your child lost a parent, that
you're said that will wake you cry for your kids, period,
point blank. But the double whammy of grief comes from
(17:10):
you're grieving or getting a chance now to grieve your
divorce all over again. You're getting a chance now that
you're not necessarily sad and crying about the loss of
this person that you might have had an issue with.
But roll if you're looking now at this person is
gone and now you look at what could have been, Well,
I married that person, look at that life we had
(17:32):
that ended. You're now going back with this person being gone,
and you're looking at the whole of your time and
your relationship. Everybody is sad after a divorce, even if
you're happy you're getting out of it. It does not
feel good to go through that process. For her to
have gone through that which we know and she told
us hurt. Now she's going once again through the loss
(17:56):
of that relationship with this, she's living that over again.
And that's where the therapists will tell you that double
whammy sometimes come and the hurt and the pain and
we don't understand even what we're going through because we're
not sure what to be sad about. Right, this is
when she told me, told me, when she told us
all about that cancelation, it was one of the first
(18:16):
things that came to my mind was how complicated it
is for her to grieve and to have to grieve publicly.
Like even if she walked into where we are right now,
I would say, how are the kids? I would say,
I'm sorry for what they're having to go through. I
don't know if I would say to her first condolenceays
(18:37):
I'm sorry for your loss.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right, I don't know that anybody would say that.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I means that okay to do and should we be
doing that? She is, what what do you do? This
is such it's such a fascinating I guess just human experience,
and I guess a lot of people out there have
dealt with this before. And X dies, you don't celebrate,
but you don't know necessarily feel a whole lot of
(19:03):
sadness about the loss of that person, even though you
might feel sad about how your relationship ended with that
person or the things you didn't get finality on, or
it's just sucks to think that she has to do
this in public.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, And I think so many of us who have
been through bad breakups, and especially even public ones, we
all kind of put ourselves in that position, in Kelly
Clarkson's position, and think, Wow, what would I feel, what
would I say?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
What would I do? How would I act?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Knowing that everyone around you has probably slightly different feelings
than you do. That is just a It's a remarkable
place to be in. And I feel like, just given
her recent actions in the spring and certainly this week when.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
She decided to pull back on her concerts in August
in Vegas, and she's doing.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
The right thing, and she's she's being a mom, a
mom first, and I wonder how long before she is
able to take care of herself, because she's going to
need some time as well. And I was even imagining
the songs that she wrote that whole album came out
right around her divorce and certainly expressed a lot of
her pain and anger, if she'd ever even feel comfortable
performing those songs again. I started thinking about some of
(20:15):
her music. Anyone who's an artist, you know, so much
of what you're going through pours out into your music.
And to be performing some of these fan favorites, who
knows the memories they will bring up with her life
with him and even the good times, you know, some
of these songs that are beautiful that we love, I'm
sure celebrated the love she had for him. And she
talks the album that she wrote at coming out of
(20:38):
the divorce. She said it was called Chemistry, and she
made a point to say, this isn't just about being angry,
This isn't just a divorce album. This is about the
entire arc of the relationship. And she talked about how
when she first met her husband, her ex husband, that
he was the first person that she actually felt real
chemistry towards and for, and so he was the first
person she really physically loved in addition to wanting to
(20:58):
marry him. So, God, all that stuff is just bound
to come up, and it's gonna be tough.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
You're not you're not spared from pain and from grief.
Just because the person who died is somebody you don't
love anymore. Yeah, And it's complicated, it's tough. I just
in that moment again, being somebody who's divorced twice now,
it's hard to put yourself in that position and think
(21:28):
how you might feel. And it makes you consider how
you feel right now and if that's okay, and if
you should be viewing and it a little differently. Look,
I'm there for to being whatever with her mom. There's
no issue or nothing there. But I just can't imagine
being in that position. And I can comfort Sabine and
(21:49):
also don't want her to always love her mom and
have a good relationship with her mom despite whatever relationship
I might have with her mom. I just there was
something sweet in this story now after it was so
bitter for the last couple of years, And that juxtaposition
really threw me and had me thinking about all kinds
(22:11):
of things.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, you know, when you're in the middle of a
divorce or you're fighting somebody over money or whatever your
issues are, you weren't thinking about the larger perspective of
life and how quickly it comes and goes and how
suddenly it can go away. But I think the lesson
here for me as I'm watching Kelly Clarkson go through
this publicly, is to let go of any bitterness, any anger.
(22:36):
There's this time is fleeting and we don't know what
tomorrow is going to bring, We don't know what the
next hour is going to bring. And there are lessons
in what she is going through right now for all
of us with any relationship that may have ended, even
with a friend or whomever. It doesn't have to be
(22:56):
a romantic one, but just to remember that we don't
have to hold on to so much hate, and we
can forgive and our hearts can well thank us for it.
They'll be less heavy, they'll be less burdened. And it's
just this has given me a lot of food for
thought in terms of how I want to go through life.
(23:20):
And I know we can never not have regrets, but
letting go of anger, letting go of pain, freeing your
heart from that is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
And so, folks, we always appreciate you hanging with us.
We just wanted to hop on here on this Friday
and give some thoughts and maybe give you something to
think about as well. But wherever you may be right now,
hope you are doing well and certainly have yourself a
good weekend. We'll be checking in with you soon for
Amy roboch my partner up t J Holmes. See y'all soon,
Hey, that folks. It is Friday, August eighth, and we
are just getting word today that Brandon Blackstock, the forty
eight year old ex husband of singer Kelly Clarkson, has
passed away after a private three year battle with cancer.
And with that we welcome you to this episode of
Amy and TJ. I sit here alongside my partner Amy
(00:23):
roboch now and Robes. I think the first part of
the story and the reason we are jumping on here
to have a conversation not just entirely covering the story,
but there is a very personal, very intimate and sometimes
maybe even uncomfortable thing that a lot of couples do
deal with, and the grief and the morning of someone
(00:45):
you are no longer in a relationship with. And these
two certainly were contentious perfectly and with their divorce. I'm
not going to get into necessarily all that and what
this is about, but it made us stop and think, Wow,
what she may be feeling and going through as a person,
even though she's having to do a lot of this publicly.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Right, I mean, this is this is complicated and it's tragic.
Of course, Brandon and Kelly were married for seven years
and he is the father to her two children, who
are eleven and nine, I believe, and she has it
seems as though now twice put her life or at
least her career on hold while she has been dealing
(01:27):
with and even caring for her children and their well
being surrounding their father's illness. And that takes a significant
amount of emotion that I don't think a lot of
people are prepared for.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's complicated.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You know, you go through a divorce, and this was
a contentious one, as you pointed out publicly. You know,
she had some lyrics of some songs, and you know,
obviously she was angry, and she admitted she was angry.
So then how do you take that? And this is
fairly recent. You know, their divorce was finalized in twenty
twenty two. There was a two year, very public battle,
and now just a few years later, how do you
(02:04):
handle that grief and the concern you have for your
kids at the same time. It's got to be a tough,
tough experience for anyone.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And I think I didn't fully get the full family
picture because I think it was Wednesday, So we back
up here, folks. Wednesday, she made an announcement that she
was going to stop her concerts, had to cancel, so
a series of concerts she had in Vegas. Now you
hear somebody does that for personal reasons, you know, it's
a big, big, big deal. And then I heard she
(02:36):
was canceling because her of an illness with her ex husband,
and that made certainly my eyebrow went up, like, wait,
what's going on here? Certainly, Robes, we understand she's doing
this for her kids, no matter what was going on
with her and her ex. That is the father of
her children, and those kids love that man, and therefore
she's going to support and love that man to that degree.
(02:57):
At least.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yes, your children are half of their spouse, I mean
their parents, So your ex spouse, your children are half
of that person. They identify as half of that person.
And so that's why obviously anyone who goes through divorce
knows it's so important never to bad mouth the spouse
to the children because the children.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Take it on personally.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
That's their father, that's part of who they are physically, mentally,
all of the above. But yeah, when you have feelings
of anger towards someone, when you've gone through something so
difficult like divorce and there's in particular to then now
be loving, be caring, be grieving. It's got to be
so confusing.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I initially, when I wasn't at it, didn't admit immediately
trigger for me a memory of just how bad their
divorce was and how public it was. So when I
heard that she was stopping her shows to go be
there for her kids while her ex husband was ill,
I thought, wow, I thought that was actually beautiful. I
(04:00):
was almost to a certain degree jealous, wish things in
past relationships could have been could be that way. But
I applauded, Wow, they're able to still function and she
can care for him. And then I went and found
the details in the history, and I want, holy shit, Yeah,
like holy hell on this divorce. And again, people might
(04:22):
not know the name Brandon Blacklock right immediately, but he
was her longtime manager, a longtime manager, and they had
a seven year marriage, two kids. They went through a
lot together.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, and this was a family affair in the sense
that his father owns the company and he was a
part of the company, So that family was in her
life for years and years and years before they even
became an item, before they even started dating. And then
eventually got married. So I just I've always liked Kelly
Clarkson always. I was a huge American Idol fan when
(04:55):
she won that year, and I have followed her music
and downloaded her music and run through my own grief
in divorces with her voice in my head as I
was going through my own stuff, and she now is
I just think showing her true cards and her true
color is what an incredible person she is to not
(05:16):
only have made the choice to take a step back
professionally right now to take care of her children and
deal with the aftermath of all of this, but now
we're getting more understanding of what happened in the spring.
A lot of folks were questioning even her mental health.
There was a lot of speculation out there this spring
when she took some time off of her show without
any specific explanation and had some celebrity guest hosts filling in.
(05:39):
People were going to dark places trying to figure out
what was going on with her, what was wrong with her?
Good for her keeping in private as they did, and
now we find out she was letting her children or
taking care of her children, having them spend more time
with them, knowing that things weren't going well, that his
cancer diagnosis was not going in the direction that they
had hoped, and she, I'm sure at that point knew
(06:00):
that time was limited, and she took that moment to
take a step back again from her very public life
and make sure her kids were okay and dealing with
it properly. That is incredible. And to never say anything,
that's remarkable because he wanted his battle to be private.
She respected that, and I respect the hell out of her.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And she did. She alluded to some of that privacy
and the statement she put out on Wednesday again, she
informed folks on Wednesday that she was canceling concerts because
she wanted to be there for her kids as their
dad was ill. He was dead the next day. But
her statement on Wednesday, to your point there roams about
(06:42):
her public life and keeping her private life private. She said,
quote when I while I normally keep my personal life private,
this past year, my children's father has been ill, and
at this moment I need to be fully present for them.
I am sincerely sorry to everyone who bought tickets to
the show, and so I appreciate your great kindness and understanding. Now,
(07:02):
obviously you knew it was very very serious for her
to do that, But that sounds like a mom Yes,
I don't care divorced, or how bad it was, or
what their relationship, which we actually do not know in
recent months, if you will, what their relationship might have
been like. They might have reconciled and we're getting away
as getting on as perfectly as anything. But the past
(07:26):
couple of years they had.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Not no And in fact, I believe from what we've read,
this divorce was finalized in twenty twenty two. She filed
for divorce in twenty twenty right in the middle of
the pandemic. But then there were still legal issues, contentious
financial legal issues between Kelly Clarkson and her ex husband's
family with the representation she claimed he or they owed
(07:50):
her money, they claimed she owed them money. So this
was you know, when it comes to divorce is hard enough,
and then when it comes to finances and who owes
who what, And this was also the step of a
professional relationship as well with the company. So yeah, it
had been nasty. It had been nasty, and I'm sure
weighing on her. She spoke about it a little bit.
(08:10):
She was again very private. A lot of people are
looking at some of her lyrics. She had an album
come out right around the time of the divorce, so
people have tried to read between the lines in some
of her lyrics about what she was going through and
the pain she was feeling.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
But it was definitely documented.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I want to get some context you all, for what
we're talking about. Just some lyrics and people are kind
of piecing together and things like that. Look, she did
a whole album called Chemistry. It was a concept album,
but she said this thing went through the whole the
highs and the lows and the end of her relationship.
But she said it was important for her not to
just have an album that talk about heartbreak and hurt
(08:47):
and divorce. But you have to remember and recall that
you made a decision to marry somebody. Maybe this person
is someone you took your first roller coaster ride with.
You have memories and now you have children involved. You
can't just pass often dismiss someone. But lyrics we talk
about I don't remember when this performance was where there's
video out there of it. The song Everybody Knows abcd FU.
(09:09):
She was doing a cover of that song and wrote
she changed the lyrics to make pretty clel This was
not not only read between lines.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
No, this was very specific, and everyone jumped on this.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
This was actually fairly recently.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I believe this was in twenty twenty three, where she
was as a part of her show she would take
on other people's songs and cover renditions of them, and
so yeah, she did abcde fuck you and your dad
and the fact that you got half and my broken
heart turned that shit into art. Fuck you and your
(09:44):
view from the Valley I bought to everybody but your dogs,
you can all fuck off.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
That was very specific.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
That is and we're only giving those lyrics to give
context to what we're talking about. It was public, it
was contentious, It was nasty, it was finances, it was
all of these things. But she seemed Robes to be
able to separate the guy she married from the guy
(10:13):
who is her kid's father. Those are not the same
two individuals, and you can't view those two individuals if
you will, the same way, and that's such an important
thing to do. Divorce is awful. There's a very small
percentage of people who've been through a divorce who say, yeah,
it was a good time.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Was I don't know anyone who said it was a
good time. But look, unfortunately, I have had two divorces,
and one was much worse than the other. So yes,
divorces come in all shapes and sizes, but none of
them are pleasant. I can only imagine maybe a handful
of people who could say, you know, I do that
again now when you go through something that traumatic divorce
(10:53):
is one of the toughest things anybody goes through.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
And you're in death and you're heard, and it's the
end of what it's end of almost your hopes, a
lifetime dream. It was a lifetime dream. I'm doing something
that's going to carry me through the end of my days.
That sucks, and that's hard. So when I started going
back through some of their relationship history and I was thinking, Wow,
(11:16):
what must this young lady be going through today?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
You know, I was thinking about her.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
You know, she talked about the real anger that she
had at the end of their relationship, and that a
lot of awful things were said, which is what always
happens in situations like this. But you go through that
grief initially of grieving the relationship or what you thought
it could be or what you hoped it would be,
(11:43):
and then eventually, yes, you can put that aside and
you can put your kids first.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
And hopefully you put your kids first throughout all of it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But I'm only imagining now this grief now upon his death,
how that compares, and how the initial grief has affected
this grief Like this is a double whammy. It's a
one to two punch. You grieved the end of your
relationship with somebody, and now you're grieving losing their not
(12:11):
just their life, but their influence and their support that
they would have had for your children. Now she truly
is raising these kids on her own in a way
that maybe she did not anticipate.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
You know, everyone, anyone.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Who's been through divorce knows the important role even in
your divorce, that other parent in your children's life.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
That has got to be tough.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And I imagine you go back and you you would
like to change a lot of things when you realize
that somebody has gone too quickly and he was young,
forty eight years old. No one's expecting their ex to
die that young. That's just shocking.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
But the grief, folks, she's going through is a double
whammy of grief, as Robes was just saying, But there
are therapists out there the professionals who will tell you
there's a very specific kind of grief as well that
Kelly Clarkson and other people who may have found themselves
in that same position are going through. It's something called
(13:06):
disenfranchised disenfranchised grief. We didn't know what it was.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Do you. Welcome back everyone to this edition of Amy
and TJ, where we are talking about Kelly Clarkson and
what she must be going through right now. She has
(13:33):
lost her ex husband to cancer after a three year battle.
She has put her professional career right now on hold
to take care of her children to help them through this.
But also she's got to be going through so much
herself personally. This is you know, her divorce wasn't even
finalized until three years ago, so it sounds like his
(13:53):
cancer diagnosis happened around the same time her divorce.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Was finalized in twenty twenty two. That's if you do
the math about the same and that has.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That has got to be such a difficult situation, a
difficult road to walk down because not many people have
had to deal with that. The feelings and the grief
and the anger you have coming out of a failed
marriage or a divorce.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Now add to that.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Losing your children's father and perhaps feeling grief just about
how everything went down and how contentious it got.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
It's a tough tough spot to be in.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
But there is a name for it, as we were
talking about before we took our break, And yes, the
professionals will tell you this is a clear example of
what they call disenfranchised grief.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
I never heard of it before today at all, but
it's this idea, and you get it once it's explained
to you. It's just the type of grief you can't
do openly. It's a type of grief where it's not accepted,
it's not welcomed, it's not necessarily public. You feel like
you are in a position where you are not given
(15:00):
the freedom even to grief. You're the X. Nobody's coming
up to the X and saying I'm so sorry for
your loss. They'll come up to the kids, they'll hug
them and sorry and whatnot. But it's often times people
don't know how to treat an X who now is
in a position of this is someone I actually didn't
get along with in recent times in recent years, or
(15:24):
of somebody I didn't like even in recent times in
recent years, or this.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Is somebody I was really angry with or still angry
at it, and still have feelings of that anger towards them.
How do you deal with those feelings of anger without
actually feeling guilt about feeling them.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Alongside the grief of the loss.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
They actually use the phrase you said, disenfranchised grief, but
they also say it's just another way to basically describe
complicated grief, and that's exactly what is complicated. And they said,
sometimes if it is an X or someone you didn't
like who suddenly dies, you may actually even have a
part of you deep within you that is glad. It's
(16:07):
not that you wish them dead, but you're not sad,
and then you feel guilty about not feeling sad. I'm
sure you go through a range of emotions, and each
particular case would be specific, but it's a way of
letting people know it's okay, and you kind of have
to let those feelings come out, even if you have
to do it privately. And that's a whole other issue
(16:30):
of having to do that on your own, to not
perhaps feel comfortable telling someone how you're really feeling, or
explaining to someone how you're really feeling, and especially when
you have young children who are grieving their father, having
to try and be the strong one and not let
those feelings out or not let yourself feel those feelings.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
It's tough.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
But the double whammy of grief is, yes, you're grieving
the loss of your even if you don't like the person,
you're grieving the that your child lost a parent, that
you're said that will wake you cry for your kids, period,
point blank. But the double whammy of grief comes from
(17:10):
you're grieving or getting a chance now to grieve your
divorce all over again. You're getting a chance now that
you're not necessarily sad and crying about the loss of
this person that you might have had an issue with.
But roll if you're looking now at this person is
gone and now you look at what could have been, Well,
I married that person, look at that life we had
(17:32):
that ended. You're now going back with this person being gone,
and you're looking at the whole of your time and
your relationship. Everybody is sad after a divorce, even if
you're happy you're getting out of it. It does not
feel good to go through that process. For her to
have gone through that which we know and she told
us hurt. Now she's going once again through the loss
(17:56):
of that relationship with this, she's living that over again.
And that's where the therapists will tell you that double
whammy sometimes come and the hurt and the pain and
we don't understand even what we're going through because we're
not sure what to be sad about. Right, this is
when she told me, told me, when she told us
all about that cancelation, it was one of the first
(18:16):
things that came to my mind was how complicated it
is for her to grieve and to have to grieve publicly.
Like even if she walked into where we are right now,
I would say, how are the kids? I would say,
I'm sorry for what they're having to go through. I
don't know if I would say to her first condolenceays
(18:37):
I'm sorry for your loss.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right, I don't know that anybody would say that.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I means that okay to do and should we be
doing that? She is, what what do you do? This
is such it's such a fascinating I guess just human experience,
and I guess a lot of people out there have
dealt with this before. And X dies, you don't celebrate,
but you don't know necessarily feel a whole lot of
(19:03):
sadness about the loss of that person, even though you
might feel sad about how your relationship ended with that
person or the things you didn't get finality on, or
it's just sucks to think that she has to do
this in public.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, And I think so many of us who have
been through bad breakups, and especially even public ones, we
all kind of put ourselves in that position, in Kelly
Clarkson's position, and think, Wow, what would I feel, what
would I say?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
What would I do? How would I act?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Knowing that everyone around you has probably slightly different feelings
than you do. That is just a It's a remarkable
place to be in. And I feel like, just given
her recent actions in the spring and certainly this week when.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
She decided to pull back on her concerts in August
in Vegas, and she's doing.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
The right thing, and she's she's being a mom, a
mom first, and I wonder how long before she is
able to take care of herself, because she's going to
need some time as well. And I was even imagining
the songs that she wrote that whole album came out
right around her divorce and certainly expressed a lot of
her pain and anger, if she'd ever even feel comfortable
performing those songs again. I started thinking about some of
(20:15):
her music. Anyone who's an artist, you know, so much
of what you're going through pours out into your music.
And to be performing some of these fan favorites, who
knows the memories they will bring up with her life
with him and even the good times, you know, some
of these songs that are beautiful that we love, I'm
sure celebrated the love she had for him. And she
talks the album that she wrote at coming out of
(20:38):
the divorce. She said it was called Chemistry, and she
made a point to say, this isn't just about being angry,
This isn't just a divorce album. This is about the
entire arc of the relationship. And she talked about how
when she first met her husband, her ex husband, that
he was the first person that she actually felt real
chemistry towards and for, and so he was the first
person she really physically loved in addition to wanting to
(20:58):
marry him. So, God, all that stuff is just bound
to come up, and it's gonna be tough.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
You're not you're not spared from pain and from grief.
Just because the person who died is somebody you don't
love anymore. Yeah, And it's complicated, it's tough. I just
in that moment again, being somebody who's divorced twice now,
it's hard to put yourself in that position and think
(21:28):
how you might feel. And it makes you consider how
you feel right now and if that's okay, and if
you should be viewing and it a little differently. Look,
I'm there for to being whatever with her mom. There's
no issue or nothing there. But I just can't imagine
being in that position. And I can comfort Sabine and
(21:49):
also don't want her to always love her mom and
have a good relationship with her mom despite whatever relationship
I might have with her mom. I just there was
something sweet in this story now after it was so
bitter for the last couple of years, And that juxtaposition
really threw me and had me thinking about all kinds
(22:11):
of things.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, you know, when you're in the middle of a
divorce or you're fighting somebody over money or whatever your
issues are, you weren't thinking about the larger perspective of
life and how quickly it comes and goes and how
suddenly it can go away. But I think the lesson
here for me as I'm watching Kelly Clarkson go through
this publicly, is to let go of any bitterness, any anger.
(22:36):
There's this time is fleeting and we don't know what
tomorrow is going to bring, We don't know what the
next hour is going to bring. And there are lessons
in what she is going through right now for all
of us with any relationship that may have ended, even
with a friend or whomever. It doesn't have to be
(22:56):
a romantic one, but just to remember that we don't
have to hold on to so much hate, and we
can forgive and our hearts can well thank us for it.
They'll be less heavy, they'll be less burdened. And it's
just this has given me a lot of food for
thought in terms of how I want to go through life.
(23:20):
And I know we can never not have regrets, but
letting go of anger, letting go of pain, freeing your
heart from that is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
And so, folks, we always appreciate you hanging with us.
We just wanted to hop on here on this Friday
and give some thoughts and maybe give you something to
think about as well. But wherever you may be right now,
hope you are doing well and certainly have yourself a
good weekend. We'll be checking in with you soon for
Amy roboch my partner up t J Holmes. See y'all soon,
Hosts And Creators
Amy Robach
T.J. Holmes
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