Former American Idol and current talk show host Kelly Clarkson joined the “Angie Martinez IRL” podcast and spoke openly about life after her divorce from her ex-husband, Brandon Blackstock. She described the experience as painful, saying, “It rips you apart whenever you fall in love with someone, and it doesn’t work.” She shared that the divorce had been years in the making. “I think the thing about divorce that you know, especially having it public, is like… people thinking they know the whole thing. The hardest part of that is like it wasn’t an overnight decision,” she said. She said after years of struggle, she wanted more than to just “make things work.” “I never want to be part of something and make it work. I wanted to make it beautiful. I wanted to make it awesome, I wanted to make it everything it possibly could be, and sometimes that just doesn’t happen,” she said.

One of the hardest experiences has been her children’s reactions since the divorce. Bradstock and Clarkson share two children, Remington “Remy,” 6, and River Rose, 8. “I literally ask my kids every night when we’re snuggling, ‘Are you happy?'” she revealed. “Sometimes they’ll say — especially the past two years, a lot of it, and it kills me, and I want them to be honest… but a lot of times it would be like, ‘You know, I’m just really sad. I wish mommy and daddy were in the same house.'” Clarkson grew up as a child of divorce and shared that she understood that pain. The National Library of Medicine shares that in 1970, 84 percent of children lived with their married biologic parents. By 2009, that number had dropped to 60 percent. Seven in 10 children of cohabiting couples will experience parental separation. Another study found that “children with divorced parents continued to score significantly lower on measures of academic achievement, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept, and social relations.”  

Clarkson cited Glennon Doyle’s book, Untamed as helping her through her decision. She stated the book made her think about the type of relationship she would want for he daughter. “I looked at [my daughter] and thought, would I want my daughter to be in this position? Like, is this what I want for her? No, I don’t. So why would I want it for me? It just kind of changed the perspective on it, but it’s a difficult thing.” Doyle’s book has been popular amongst women for its encouragement of self-love and the pursuit of dreams. Apologist Alisa Childers, however, cautioned against the book’s message, particularly as it looks at Eve’s decision to eat the fruit in the garden of Eden in a positive light. “As tempting as it may be to obey our desires, the Bible describes the human heart as ‘deceitful’ and “desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9; cf. Heb. 3:13),” Childers wrote. “It tells us not to lean on our own understanding (Prov. 3:4). Jesus taught that out of the heart come ‘evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander’ (Mark 7:21). The Christian understands that following Jesus means denying herself, not discovering the god inside. Not untamed her sinful nature but being conformed to Christ’s image.”