Kelly Clarkson Sued Her Ex-Husband For Saying She Wasn’t As “Sexy” As Rihanna To Be On ‘The Voice’

Kelly Clarkson has always stood up for herself against bodyshamers

In 2015, British TV star Katie Hopkins famously body-shamed Kelly Clarkson on X (then Twitter), writing: “Jesus what happened to Kelly Clarkson? Did she eat all of her backing sisters? Happily I have wide-screen.” The American Idol alum addressed it in 2020 on her allegedly toxic talk show, The Kelly Clarkson Show. She told her then-guest Serena Williams that she always “had to… stand strong for myself with my body image in the public eye.”

The tennis star – whose looks have been harshly compared to Maria Sharapova – said she “loved” the singer for clapping back at Hopkins before. Unfortunately, the Stronger hitmaker’s career suffered from such remarks, including some from her former management and her ex-husband, Brandon Blackstock. While she did a great job standing up to their “sexy” and “naked” demands, fans called her a hypocrite for her 2024 weight loss – A.K.A. her newfound confidence to enjoy nudity…

Kelly Clarkson Sued Her Ex-Husband For Telling Her She Wasn’t “Sexy” Like Rihanna To Be A ‘The Voice’ Coach

In 2023, Clarkson claimed to a California labor commissioner that Blackstock said she didn’t have the “sex appeal” to be a The Voice coach, per the New York Post’s exclusive report in January 2024. Blackstock was Clarkson’s husband and manager at the tie of the incident. He was then ordered to pay her $2.6 million “for unlawfully procuring deals that should have been handled by her talent agents.”

The Since U Been Gone singer testified that her ex told her NBC wasn’t interested in having her on The Voice. He said they were “looking for a more sex symbol type” like Rihanna. She also recalled Blackstock advising the network that they “had to have someone that was black. … They had to have a diverse thing” and that she and existing coach, Blake Shelton – whom Blackstock also managed – “were too similar.”

“Well, a wife doesn’t forget a time she gets told she’s not a sex symbol, so that stays,” Clarkson told her lawyer, Ed McPherson when asked how she could remember Blackstock’s comments.

Clarkson also stated that Blackstock “mentioned that he got The Voice for her multiple times” and “he was proud of it.” As it turned out, in 2017, he had spoken to former NBC Entertainment Chairman Paul Telegdy who asked him, “What would it take [to sign Clarkson to [The Voice]?” Blackstock answered, “Somewhere around Blake [Shelton] money.” Clarkson became a coach in the competition’s 14th season in 2018.

But behind the scenes, Blackstock “allegedly pocketed the rest of the money” he’d acquired from the deal. The Dark Side performer testified that she was “unaware until the trial that CAA only received 5% instead of the standard 10% agents commission fee,” per NY Post.

With “Blackstock’s story, particularly with respect to The Voice, [changing] several times during the week of the hearing,” per McPherson’s written document, the California labor commissioner ruled in November 2022 that he indeed “overcharged his former wife by $2,641,374 when he illegally booked The Voice, as well as her TV appearances for Billboard Music Awards, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Wayfair.

Clarkson later said her marriage to Blackstock was “very limiting” for her. “I don’t feel like that’s necessarily the truth for all marriages, I just think that was for in my case,” she said on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast in June 2023. “If you’re on the same path at the same time—and you’re actually working together, and every day communicating together and doing the work—I think that it could be beautiful. But for me, it wasn’t that and it was very limiting.”