The Tragedy Of Kelly Clarkson & Brandon Blackstock's Marriage Just Gets Sadder

It didn't take long for Kelly Clarkson to fall for Brandon Blackstock. She initially developed a crush on the talent manager when they briefly crossed paths at the 2006 Academy of Country Music Awards. However, the "Because of You" hitmaker didn't act on her feelings because Blackstock was married to his first wife, Melissa Ashworth, at the time. Once they divorced in 2012, Blackstock and Clarkson started seeing each other that very same year.

Their relationship moved quickly, with the "American Idol" winner sensing that Blackstock was marriage material. It was a surprising revelation for Clarkson, who had long doubted that marriage was in the cards for her. "I never thought, honestly, I would get married or fall in love, like they say in the movies," she admitted to CBS News in 2015. "I never thought that would happen... because I didn't think it was true."

In the days leading up to their 2013 wedding, the Grammy winner experienced an indescribable level of happiness. And, for a while, things were great between them. But Clarkson and Brandon had a messy divorce in 2020 that was shrouded in lawsuits and custody battles. Sadly, the chaos of their breakup was made even more heartbreaking following Blackstock's death at just 48 in August 2025. 

Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock's divorce meant they had to readjust how they took care of their family. The former couple shared a daughter, River Rose, and a son, Remington Alexander. The "Since U Been Gone" hitmaker also inherited two kids from Blackstock's marriage to Melissa Ashworth. When it was time for Clarkson and her ex-husband to co-parent their children as individuals, the former couple's breakup was so nasty that they couldn't even get on the same page. "The parties have a difficult time co-parenting due to issues of trust between them," court documents detailed, according to People. This wasn't the first time reports of broken trust surfaced. 

Although the exact reasons behind their divorce were kept under wraps, insiders claimed that Clarkson gradually lost faith in Blackstock over time, suspecting the talent manager married her for the wrong reasons. As an insider divulged to Us Weekly, "She could no longer trust Brandon, and she felt that Brandon was just using her for her money and lifestyle. She had tremendous resentment toward him. She just wasn't willing to look the other way anymore." It's heartbreaking to learn that Clarkson's trust was so irreparably damaged, since it was a far cry from how she felt about him initially. 

Kelly Clarkson admitted that several red flags in her relationship with Brandon Blackstock surfaced long before the "American Idol" winner finally filed for divorce. Avoiding specifics, Clarkson acknowledged that it had eventually got to the point where her feelings for her ex-husband drastically changed from hot to cold constantly. As she explained on the "We Can Do Hard Things" podcast, in 2023, "It's like there's always this tug-of-war happening, like, 'Oh my god, I love you, but god, I hate you. You are just horrible. You go back and forth, and that's not healthy." Despite these issues, the talk show host insisted on making it work. 

But in hindsight, Clarkson came to the upsetting realization that she remained in the relationship out of pride instead of love. "My ego is like, 'I can control my actions. I can control my reactions. 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," the "Miss Independent" hitmaker said. Likewise, since both parties suffered through their parents' divorces as children, Clarkson and Blackstock were adamant that they wouldn't put their own kids through the same thing, which also made her stay longer.

Kelly Clarkson's and Brandon Blackstock's daughter, River Rose, was inadvertently one of the reasons why the couple pulled the plug on their marriage. The multi-platinum selling recording artist was even able to pinpoint the exact moment that finally convinced her divorce was the right option. Clarkson was reading "Untamed" by Glennon Doyle at the time, which is about learning to love yourself and find your independence as a woman and, in particular, as a mother. "I looked at my daughter, and I thought, 'Would I want this marriage for my daughter? Would I want my daughter to be in this position? I don't. So why would I want it for me?'" she recalled on the "Angie Martinez IRL Podcast," in 2023. 

Still, it understandably took the former couple's children some time before they saw their parents' divorce in the same positive light. The singer confessed that, in the initial couple of years after she and Blackstock split, whenever she asked her kids how happy they were before they went to bed, they would be brutally honest with her. Clarkson recalled being told, "You know, I'm just really sad. I wish Mommy and Daddy were in the same house." The Grammy winner did her best to comfort her children by assuring them of their parents' undying love for them and promising that things would eventually get better.

It's worth noting that, despite all of their hardships over the years, Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock didn't give up on their marriage without a fight, even attending couple's counseling towards the end. But their relationship issues had nowhere to hide when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the couple to be physically closer than ever before. Clarkson hinted at just how difficult it was being stuck under the same roof for an extended period of time. "We've been in really close quarters and it's been kind of nuts. I'm not going to lie," she told People in May 2020. What made matters considerably worse was that the couple relocated to a much quieter area. 

"They both hoped quarantining away from L.A. in Montana would help them work things out in their marriage, but instead the change in environment was actually detrimental," a source dished to Entertainment Tonight in June 2020. The "Behind These Hazel Eyes" hitmaker filed for divorce that very same month, thus all quarantine seemed to do was drive Clarkson closer to a breaking point when it came to her marriage. The fact that they only grew further apart when they couldn't have been closer together was a very sad end to a relationship that seemingly had a fairytale beginning.