Kelly Clarkson was married to her now-ex-husband Brandon Blackstock for nearly seven years before finally filing for divorce in 2020.
But Brandon wasn’t just her husband. He was also her manager, and he was so jealous of her success that he did anything he could to sabotage her career. He ended up stealing millions of dollars from her. But that’s not all…Here’s everything that Brandon did to Kelly.
Kelly’s husband was seemingly always trying to get her to doubt herself and her ability as an entertainer. And unfortunately for her, the fact that he was also her manager meant that he had control over her career that he shouldn’t have. But Kelly didn’t just let him get away with it all.
Kelly Clarkson Took Her Ex-Husband to Court
When she found out about his shady actions, she took Brandon to court, and she revealed some crazy things about him. According to court documents obtained by the New York Post, Kelly claimed that Brandon told her that she wasn’t good-looking enough to be a judge on The Voice.
Apparently, he said that they were looking for a woman with more sensual appeal — something that he believed Kelly would not be able to provide. She even recalled that he claimed that Rihanna would have been a better fit for the job. Of course, Kelly did eventually join the show in 2018, but not without Brandon continuously putting her down.
She said that he told her that the show was looking for a more diverse panel of coaches and that they needed to have someone who was black. And that she was also way too similar to the then-coach Blake Shelton for her to even be considered as a judge at all.
But even though he continuously put her down and told her that she wasn’t good enough or right for the position, that didn’t stop him from taking a large cut of the deal. Once she finally signed up to be on The Voice, he received more than 1.9 million dollars in a payout.
But that wasn’t the only money that he received from her career over the years: Brandon made over 200 thousand dollars from Kelly’s promotional deal with Norwegian Cruise Line, and he also made 450 thousand dollars from her collaboration with Wayfair.
Brandon Tried to Control Kelly’s Career
According to court documents, Kelly claimed that all of these deals were secured by Brandon, but he definitely wasn’t allowed to do that. Under the Talent Agencies Act, it was stated in court that a manager without a talent agency license cannot get or attempt to get employment for an artist, which means that all of these deals were done as a way to control her career.
Plus, he obviously earned a lot of money this way. But Kelly wasn’t going to go down without a fight, and she made sure that she got what was rightfully hers, especially after their divorce was finalized in 2022. Kelly recounted her conversations with Brandon about the gigs in court, explaining all of the things he’d said to her to put her down.
And when her lawyer, Ed McPherson, asked about her ability to recall the details of the conversation, Kelly had an answer for that, too. She told the courts that a wife never forgets when her husband tells her that she isn’t good-looking enough or sensual enough.
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She said that’s the kind of thing that just stays with you. After everyone was heard, the New York Post reported that the California Labor Commissioner ruled in Kelly’s favor. So, just last November, Brandon was ordered to pay Kelly more than 2.6 million dollars for unlawfully getting her those deals as a manager.
But while he was found guilty and forced to pay back a large sum of the money, there was one contract where he was found to have not crossed the line. In her contract for her show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, it was determined that he didn’t cross any lines as a manager, and therefore did not have to give back any money related to that deal.
Was Brandon Jealous of Kelly’s Success?
But of course, the biggest one out of all of these was Kelly’s deal with The Voice, which paid him the most money. After the ruling, Brandon and his team filed for an appeal, but it’s unknown just how successful or unsuccessful they will be in convincing the courts to let him keep the money.
If there’s one thing we do know, it’s that his actions were pretty shady in the deal with The Voice. It’s strange to think about this, especially considering the fact that he made so much money off of the deal, but still felt the need to continuously put Kelly down every chance he got.
It’s possible that he always knew that he was going to secure the deal for her, but just couldn’t help himself in wanting to make her doubt herself. For some reason, he seemingly just really wanted to destroy his wife’s confidence. Honestly, if all of this is true, he’s got to have some serious issues if that’s what he prioritized out of all of this.
Sadly, the two of them do have two children together, a daughter named River Rose and a son named Remington Alexander. But after hearing about the way he treated her, it makes a lot of sense why she decided to divorce him and move on to something better in her life.
And even though she could have just let all of this go, I think it’s a good thing that she’s still going after him for the money that he stole. Because it looks like she decided to finally stop letting him win and take back her confidence and her money.
