Kelly Clarkson knows better than most that there are some very significant differences between performing onstage versus in front of a camera.
“I would get fired by NBC, but I don’t work there anymore,” Clarkson, 44, said during her Friday, July 17, concert at Caesar’s Palace Vegas, while stroking a fan’s sequin jacket sleeve. “We are sad about [it because] it was a fun show.”
Clarkson wrapped her eponymous The Kelly Clarkson Show in May after seven seasons.
“I think everybody probably gets the timing,” she said on the Today Show in February, addressing her reasons for ending the show. “Our family life, the dynamic changed a bit, and it has changed for a minute now, so I think … it’s one of those things when you kinda start seeing life with how it is precious, too.”
Clarkson’s ex-husband, Brandon Blackstock, died in 2025 after a private battle with cancer at the age of 48. The former music manager is survived by his four children: River Rose, 11, and Remington, 9, whom he shared with Clarkson, as well as Savannah, 23, and Seth, 18, whom he shared with ex Melissa Ashworth.
While Clarkson briefly took a hiatus from The Kelly Clarkson Show following Blackstock’s death, she returned before the eventual finale.
“I know everybody thinks, ‘Oh, she’s quitting,’ but I still have other jobs. I’m still doing stuff,” she added on Today at the time. “There’s just too much on the plate. I was like, ‘You know what, It’s time to kinda pull back.’ It’s amazing, that’s what was really hard [because] the crew’s been incredible. … That was a really hard thing for me, but an easy decision as a momma.”
In the months since wrapping The Kelly Clarkson Show, the singer returned to her Las Vegas residency. (Clarkson initially postponed the shows in light of Blackstock’s illness and death.)
“It’s funny, you go to those HR meetings and you’re, like, ‘Nobody on the road would last,’” she quipped on Friday, comparing her show to being a touring musician. “It’s just a different world, you know? I was 19 on a bus with dudes, what, I can’t do what? ‘Yeah, that’s completely inappropriate.’”
Clarkson subsequently sung out, “No more HR meetings!”
“I’m just kidding. Everyone actually hated doing HR meetings with me because I am a nerd,” she acknowledged. “I would literally be, like, ‘I’m sorry,’ [and] I would stop the class and everyone would be like, ‘Can I do the meeting without Kelly?’”
According to Clarkson, her colleagues would opt out of meetings with her because she wanted to “get into” each specific topic.
“I feel you need to get into it. You gotta protect everyone,” she stated. “Anyway, I don’t have to do it anymore.”
