Kelly Clarkson has seen a lot of professional triumphs and personal trials over the past three years. While taking her Emmy-winning daytime talk show to the timeslot once held by Oprah and Ellen was one of many career wins, it happened in the wake of her nearly two-years of contentious divorce proceedings from Brandon Blackstock, who was once also her manager. And, a recent performance on her eponymous series saw the “Since You Been Gone” singer throw some shade his way, as they’re still embroiled in a lawsuit.
What Did Kelly Clarkson Say About Brandon Blackstock While Singing On Her Show?
Seeing as how the popular The Voice coach has been officially divorced for a full year now it would likely be easy for most fans to forget that she and her ex are still in the middle of a legal battle over his time as her manager. While the songstress has promised that her upcoming album, Chemistry, will encompass “the arc of an entire relationship” and discuss the positives and negatives of her time with Blackstock, she took a public shot at him on her show during a recent Kellyoke segment. Take a look:
Wow. OK, as you can see from the clip, the “Stronger” singer wasted zero seconds when it came to switching up the lyrics to the song “abcdefu” by Gayle. The original tune features the opening, “Fuck you and your mom / and your sister and your job / and your broke-ass car / and that shit you call art.” Clarkson changed it to a much more topical-for-her and somewhat more daytime TV-ready:
Forget you and your dad / and the fact that you got half / and my broken heart / turn that shit into art.
Those lyrical adjustments can’t be anything but allusions to her divorce, the on-going case against her ex-husband and his father, and the star’s thoughts on the relationship that will be revealed on her forthcoming album, which she’s already admitted to having written a whopping number of songs for as she was divorcing.
September of 2020, just a few months after Clarkson filed for divorce, saw Blackstock and his dad, Narvel, sue her for more than $5.4 million in supposed unpaid, estimated commissions to their company, Starstuck Management. The duo managed her for about 13 years, beginning in 2007, but in the wake of her divorce filing, the “Breakaway” singer didn’t take the lawsuit lying down, and filed her own countersuit.
She responded by filing a labor petition, which claimed that their company went against California’s Labor Code by allegedly not making sure they were fully licensed under the Talent Agencies Act before working on her behalf. The superstar is asking that their agreement be “declared void and unenforceable,” and is also asking that the millions she did pay to Starstruck be repaid to her.
It would appear that her upgrading those lyrics didn’t come at a random juncture, as Radar Online reports that it was just a few days ago that lawyers for both parties appeared before the state’s Labor Commission for an evidentiary hearing, though no decision has been made in the case yet. While it’s truly unfortunate that Clarkson can’t fully begin to move on as this suit lingers, at least fans know that when she begins releasing songs from her new album, they won’t be short on revealing and “completely honest” lines like the one she used in her Kellyoke performance.
