Kelly Clarkson was catapulted into stardom when she was just 20 years old. The very first winner of American Idol, Kelly’s been vocal about how the singing competition show completely changed her life. Now, nearly 23 years later, she’s revealing that it also introduced her to some very demeaning energy.
“People were really cruel at first. They didn’t like it; it took the industry kind of by storm,” the 42-year-old singer and TV host revealed on an episode of Kylie Kelce’s Not Gonna Lie podcast, referencing American Idol as a whole. “It was a very unlikeable thing in the industry.”
Here’s the kicker though: Some of her and American Idol’s top critics at the time supposedly went on to become involved in singing competitions of their own. “People that were really mean have been coaches. You know what I’m saying? Like, hated talent shows, and ended up being on The Voice.”
Because of her experience on American Idol—and winning it and facing the backlash from that—Kelly views the singing talent show in a different light. “For me, it’s different,” she told Kylie. “For all of us in that first season, we literally didn’t—I didn’t even know it was a TV show until my third audition…We were literally trying to pay our bills, y’all.”
In the end, it all worked out, though. Kelly was a coach on The Voice for nine seasons before parting ways and focusing more of her attention on her self-titled talk show, The Kelly Clarkson Show. Of course, you can still catch her belting on stage, too. Her Studio Sessions Las Vegas Residency has tickets on sale for July 4 to August 16, and November 7 to 15.
Rebecca Norris is a full-time freelance writer living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Over the past 10+ years, she’s heavily covered a range of lifestyle topics, including travel, home, beauty, style, wellness, and celebrity news. She is a graduate of George Mason University, where she earned a B.A. in Media: Production, Consumption, and Critique, along with a minor in Electronic Journalism. When she's not writing, she can be found strolling with her Jack-Chi, Cash, sipping iced matcha lattes, indulging in delicious cuisine, perusing farmer’s markets and antique sales, collecting colored glass, getting lost within the pages of a book, and exploring new bucket-list cities.
