Telling someone that they aren’t “sexy enough” is not something you say as a husband or a manager, and Brandon Blackstock managed to somehow do both to Kelly Clarkson.
Clarkson served as a judge on he popular singing competition show The Voice from seasons 14 through 21, and she might have gotten onto the panel of judges earlier if her ex-husband and former manager wouldn’t have been in the picture.
In fact, the situation was so bad that Clarkson took the claim against Blackstock to the California labor commissioner.
Clarkson’s then-husband allegedly told the singer-songwriter that she didn’t have enough “sex appeal” to be a coach on The Voice, and that when he ran the idea by NBC, they wanted someone that was “sexier” like Rihanna.
In court documents, Kelly Clarkson argued that she wanted to be on the show for years, but was always told by Blackstock that network executives were in search of someone that was “more of a sex symbol.” Like I said earlier, you can’t say that as manager, and you certainly can’t say that as a husband.
The California labor commission heard Clarkson testify and tell her side of the story, and eventually ruled in her favor, forcing Brandon Blackstone to fork over $2.6 million for “unlawfully procuring deals” that should have been left for Clarkson’s talent agents.
Clarkson also testified that her former husband and manager informed her that NBC was looking to hire someone that was black “for a diverse thing,” and that they wouldn’t have given her a shot on the show because her and then Voice host Blake Shelton were much of the same.
Court documents show that when Clarkson was asked how she was able to recall such specifics about the entire conversation, she clapped back with an absolute mic drop:
“Well, a wife doesn’t forget a time she gets told she’s not a sex symbol, so that stays.”
Yep, that sentence right there is what won her the $2.6 million dollars…
All of this happened prior to 2017, when Clarkson did join The Voice as a judge after Blackstone went to NBC with an ultimatum: Clarkson joins The Voice, or she goes over to American Idol to be a judge on a different network’s show.
Clarkson filed for divorce from Blackstone back in 2020, and they finally settled their divorce in 2022 after a longtime custody battle over their two children.
