The death of Kelly Clarkson’s ex-husband, Brandon Blackstock, left her heartbroken for more than the obvious reasons. At just 48, Blackstock left his and Clarkson’s two children to grow up without a father, creating a reality that she’d fought hard to avoid. Even amid her nasty divorce, Clarkson put River and Remy’s happiness first. Part of that entailed ensuring they had a positive relationship with their dad. That priority was important to her, given her own difficult childhood.

A big reason her upbringing was so hard was that she was estranged from her father. “Kelly’s biggest fear during the divorce was that her kids would grow up feeling distant from their father,” a source told Page Six. “She always wanted to spare them that. She’s devastated for them.” For close to two years, Clarkson and Blackstock, who had also been her manager during their marriage, fought over a bunch of business-related matters, on top of spousal support and custody battles.

Clarkson and her ex did not end their marriage on an amicable note, but she still valued his role in her children’s lives. “Kelly has had a very strained relationship with her own father her entire life,” the insider explained, “They are essentially estranged, and when she and Brandon first got together he had stressed to her how important it was that his relationship with his kids remained strong. Their bond wasn’t going to end just because that marriage did.” Clarkson’s childhood was tough, but she’s become stronger because of it.

Kelly Clarkson’s parents divorced when she was six. From then on, her father simply vanished from her life. Growing up without him took a toll on Clarkson, who resented both her parents for failing to give her a stable environment in which to grow up. Her turbulent childhood inspired her to write what would become her breakthrough, “Because of You,” when she was 16. “It’s about my family. It is about growing up in a broken home,” she once explained (via ContactMusic).

Clarkson tried to have a relationship with her father for years, until she realized it wasn’t going to happen — and it wasn’t her fault. “You’re like, ‘I shouldn’t have to work this hard for someone’s love. Like, that’s a little ridiculous,” she said on the Scandinavian talk show Skavlan in 2017. “And at that point, too, you grow up so much to where you go, ‘Okay, I don’t even think you’re capable (of love).” With maturity on her side, Clarkson learned that her father was the one who was missing out.

After all, he was running away from genuine love, and not just hers. “It’s sad, honestly, for him because he’s not only missing on me, but my kids, my sister, my brother,” she added. In 2022, she cut all legal ties with her late father, who died in 2018. Amid Clarkson’s messy divorce from Brandon Blackstock, she dropped her married name and her maiden name, adopting her middle name, Brianne, as her last name.

Kelly Clarkson was the youngest of three, but she grew up essentially as an only child. Following her parents’ divorce, their circumstances didn’t allow their mom to keep Kelly, Alyssa, and Jason (seen above) together. As a result, they ended up in vastly different places. “We didn’t grow up together at all, because of the divorce,” she revealed on SiriusXM in 2009. “My sister grew up with my aunt and uncle in North Carolina, and my brother grew up with my dad in California, and I grew up in Texas with my mom.”

With physical and financial barriers in place, Kelly had little to no contact with her brother and sister. She didn’t reconnect with them until 2001, a year before she shot to fame on “American Idol.” “The year before I actually auditioned for ‘Idol,’ my brother got married in Alaska, and we all met up there, and it was kind of then that we kept in contact from then on,” she explained. But whoever saw them together could never guess they had only properly met as adults.

They didn’t need much to get along. “[It’s] really weird if you saw them, we’re exactly the same. It’s like we grew up together; it’s really weird,” she said. They had so much in common that they wound up living together on Clarkson’s land in Mansfield, Texas, for a time. “It’s a compound right now,” she laughed. “We make fun of it; we’re trying to figure out a name.” 

Even though Kelly Clarkson was born in Fort Worth, Texas, her mother had to move a lot in search of jobs before settling down in the small town of Burleston, where she got married a second time. “We lived, like, pre-paycheck to pre-paycheck,” she said on CBS‘ “Sunday Morning” in 2015. The financial struggles she experienced growing up motivated her to strive for excellence in whatever she set out to do. “I definitely had this whole mentality. I was like, ‘Whatever I’m going to do, I just don’t want to have to worry about that,'” she said.

Her family’s financial circumstances were part of the reason Clarkson didn’t know her siblings growing up. “We couldn’t even afford to call. We were all very poor,” she said on the SiriusXM interview. Her situation didn’t improve as she ventured into adulthood. When Clarkson was struck by tragedy in 2002, the then-19-year-old had no cushion to fall back on. “My apartment in LA burned down and I had to move home, I had no money and I had to sleep in my car for three days,” she told The Guardian in 2011.

That was when she auditioned for “American Idol.” With it being the first season, she didn’t know much about the show. She just hoped she could make some money off of it. “I didn’t go into it thinking this would happen; I went into it thinking it might pay my electric bill,” she said.