Kelly Clarkson is content staying single nearly one year after her ex-husband Brandon Blackstock’s death.
“My kids right now, I think there’s a lot behind that,” Clarkson, 44, said on the Wednesday, September 30, episode of the “Las Culturistas” podcast of the reason she hasn’t started dating again. “That would rock their world a little bit, and honestly, this is not a bulls*** answer, [but] I love my life right now.”
Clarkson and the former music manager were married from 2013 to 2020, during which period they welcomed daughter River Rose, 12, and son Remington, 10. After the exes settled their divorce in 2022, Blackstock died in 2025 after a private battle with cancer. (In addition to River and Remington, Blackstock is survived by his two eldest children from a previous marriage, his parents and his siblings.)
As for Clarkson, she has remained focused on her kids in the wake of Blackstock’s death.
“It just got to a point where I am not exhausted by every point of it,” the Voice coach added to podcast cohosts Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. “I feel like if you’re going to be in a relationship, you have to be willing to give some of your time up — and I am unwilling.”
According to Clarkson, her life with River and Remington has been “really good” as of late.
“We’re having fun, we’re cooking, we’re playing games,” she said. “I’m there at [school] pickup or I’m there dropping off. Like, it’s real different.”
Ahead of Blackstock’s death, Clarkson relocated her eponymous talk show to New York City in 2023 in order to have a fresh start with her kids. (The Kelly Clarkson Show wrapped for good after seven seasons in August.)
“It’s a beautiful city to raise kiddos in because I wasn’t really exposed to different cultures,” Clarkson noted of Big Apple life. “I wasn’t really exposed to anything like that. Like, I love where I grew up … but I just meant It’s a cool thing for them to have just every color of the rainbow, every color of personality, everything.”
In addition to the family of three’s Manhattan life, Clarkson revealed that her kids have joined her on international trips.
“We went to several different parts in Asia — I love Asia — but we went to Shanghai … [and] we went to Beijing,” the American Idol champ recalled. “We did the Great Wall, and it was so funny ‘cause my mom has a cane. She’d had to have surgery on both her knees at some point. And so, we get to the Great Wall, and the steps are crazy, but we made it all the way to the wall, and my mom … looked at it and and I go, ‘Oh no, no, we did not come all the way to Beijing to the Great Wall for you to just look at them. We’re going to get up there.’”
