Obviously, pop superstar Kelly Clarkson has been very famous (and very beloved) since she became the first American Idol winner over 20 years ago now, in 2002. In the years after that historic win, many chart-topping hits, Grammys, and other awards followed, but Clarkson’s already incredibly successful career would take a surprising turn shortly after she became one of The Voice coaches in early 2018, when the singer/songwriter started hosting her eponymous daytime talk show the following year, and it became an instant hit. Now, she’s explained why it’s “so odd” to her that the series has done so well, but I say she’s not quite giving herself enough credit.
What Did Kelly Clarkson Say About It Being ‘So Odd’ That Her Talk Show Is A Success?
While the “Breakaway” singer recently went through a rather long and contentious divorce, the past few years have also seen her achieve a number of professional triumphs. These include The Kelly Clarkson Show being nominated for the Outstanding Talk Show Entertainment Emmy award every year since 2020 (it's won twice) and the bubbly host herself winning Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host three times since then, along with a number of other accolades for the series.
When speaking about her success on The Howard Stern Show recently, Stern mentioned how there were plenty of “naysayers” who thought that Clarkson hosting a talk show wasn’t a good fit, she admitted to being dubious about the whole idea at first as well, adding:
We’ve done so well, it’s so odd.
If anything, the only aspect of her daytime talker success that’s been weird is that it came so immediately and is still at a fever pitch, with she and the show being nominated again in 2023. Even when someone is already well-known, and as popular as the “Since U Been Gone” singer has been for so long, branching out into an area of entertainment that hadn’t previously been your forte is no sure thing, and she added that she fully knew that going in. When speaking about how the show has allowed her to interview personal heroes like Bonnie Raitt she said:
That’s what I didn’t see coming. Honestly, I did not think the TV show was going to do anything. I did not think anything. I literally just made a deal with NBC because I loved doing The Voice and I literally didn’t think it was going to be what it is.
OK, I need to be honest here, as well, because it seems pretty clear that our hostess with the most is not giving herself enough credit, right? As noted, yes, taking this job was a risk, but one of the reasons why people love Kelly Clarkson is because she’s pretty unfiltered and honest with her feelings, and along with being able to open up about difficult things, she manages to not be a downer, largely because of that previously mentioned bubbly personality and chatty nature.
Her energy helps to lift everyone up, something that’s been sorely needed for much of the time her series has been on the air, and that was something that people got to see much more of when she began helping hopeful pop stars on The Voice. She quickly became a coach that viewers loved to watch, and the Season 15 winner noted that she was a great coach partly because of how “open” she was and how it was like “talking to your sister or your best friend” with her, so she’d definitely already been showing us the seeds of what makes a great talk show host before getting one of her own.
The host even said, around the debut of her show, that she was doing it because “I love talking,” so it’s not like this was a totally off the wall idea. During her chat with Stern, however, she did go into even more detail about why she took on the gig, and said:
So, it turned into just this heavenly thing of like having a 9-5 literally with my kids in school, and that’s perfect, I’m not having to travel as much as a parent. And then musically getting to meet all of these incredible artists that I look up to as they are my idols. Also new artists. … It’s just been really cool.
“Cool,” indeed. Clarkson has proven that her natural charms are a great fit for hosting a daytime talk show, and that’s really not so “odd” after all.
