How Kelly Clarkson Stays in Shape After Her Divorce, in Her Own Words

November 13, 2022 Updated October 15, 2026 6 min read

Before / after

For years, the internet tried to explain Kelly Clarkson’s body with one storyline: heartbreak makes you thin, and a hit called Stronger makes a good caption. The real record is less poetic and a lot more useful. A lectin-free diet book in 2018, a pre-diabetes diagnosis in 2024, a prescription she will not name, and a lot of walking around Manhattan.

This page first ran in November 2022, when it claimed her divorce was “still going on.” It wasn’t: Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock settled in March 2022. What follows is the corrected version, with everything we know as of October 2026, when Clarkson is 44, off daytime TV and back in the big red chair on The Voice.

Kelly Clarkson in a party dress, from her Instagram — Clarkson dressed up for a night out. Photo: Instagram / @kellyclarkson

2018: the book that fixed her bloodwork

The first wave of headlines arrived in 2018, when Clarkson, then a coach on The Voice, looked visibly slimmer and outlets put the number at 37 pounds. She never sold it as a makeover. She credited Dr. Steven Gundry’s The Plant Paradox, a diet that cuts out lectins, and told Extra: “I literally read this book, and I did it for this autoimmune disease that I had and I had a thyroid issue, and now all my levels are back up. I’m not on medicine anymore because of this book.”

To TODAY’s Hoda Kotb she was even blunter: “I know the industry loves the weight gone, but for me it wasn’t (about) the weight. For me, it was ‘I’m not on my medicine any more.'” Dietitians pushed back on the lectin science, and they were entitled to. But here is my read: the most interesting thing in that interview is a pop star telling the industry, on camera, that it was cheering for the wrong thing.

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“Just casually wearing a cape”: Clarkson in her chair on The Voice season 30, autumn 2026, from her Instagram. Photo: Instagram / @kellyclarkson

The divorce, without the gossip

Clarkson married Brandon Blackstock, who was also her manager, in 2013. They have two children, River and Remington. She filed for divorce in June 2020, and the case was settled in March 2022. Our original version of this story speculated about the couple’s private medical decisions and who was to blame. None of that came from either of them, so it is gone.

What is on the record is the money. In November 2023 California’s Labor Commissioner ordered Blackstock to return $2,641,374 in management commissions, finding he had procured deals such as The Voice without a talent agent’s license. He appealed; in May 2024 both sides asked the court to dismiss the case, and the terms stayed confidential. The more revealing document is an album: Chemistry, released in June 2023, says more about that marriage than any court filing.

Kelly Clarkson in a black dress — Clarkson in black. Photo: Instagram / @kellyclarkson

Then the story took a turn nobody wanted. In August 2025 Clarkson postponed the rest of her Las Vegas residency dates, saying she needed to be fully present for her children while their father was ill. Blackstock died of melanoma on August 7, 2025, at his home in Butte, Montana. He was 48; his family said he had battled cancer for more than three years. I won’t add a joke here. There isn’t one.

2024: “Everybody thinks it’s Ozempic. It’s not”

The second weight-loss wave came after her show moved to New York in 2023. In January 2024 Clarkson told People she had been diagnosed as pre-diabetic. In May 2024, chatting with Whoopi Goldberg on The Kelly Clarkson Show, she said her medication is “a different one than people assume, but I ended up having to do that, too, because my bloodwork got so bad. Everybody thinks it’s Ozempic. It’s not.”

She also said she resisted for a long time: “My doctor chased me for, like, two years, and I was like, ‘No, I’m afraid of it. I already have thyroid problems.'” The rest, she told People, is a protein-heavy diet and the fact that “walking in the city is quite the workout.” What strikes me is the order of events: bloodwork first, doctor second, the scale a distant third. That is the opposite of how the tabloids told it, and it is the version worth copying. (We break down every confirmed detail in Kelly Clarkson weight loss: what she has actually confirmed.)

With Ariana DeBose on the set of The Voice, autumn 2026, from her Instagram. Photo: Instagram / @kellyclarkson

2026: fewer cameras, more kids

In February 2026 Clarkson announced that season seven of her talk show would be the last, so she could “prioritize my kids, which feels necessary and right for this next chapter of our lives.” The final episodes ran through August 31. “This isn’t goodbye,” she added, promising music, shows “here and there” and the occasional Voice appearance. She kept that promise faster than most people keep New Year’s resolutions: the 2026 leg of her Studio Sessions residency at Caesars Palace opened July 17 with a new single, “I’d Be Lyin’,” and she is coaching season 30 of The Voice, which premiered September 21.

And because no Clarkson autumn is quiet, this month she is in a very public argument with a Brooklyn curiosity shop over a $15,000 singing bird. That one has its own explainer, and it has nothing to do with her body, which is exactly how it should be.

My take

The old version of this page treated Clarkson’s shape as a puzzle to be solved with a divorce. It was always a medical story she told herself, out loud, with receipts. Four years later the divorce is long settled, her children’s father is gone, and she walked away from a hit show to be home at dinnertime. If you want a lesson from Kelly Clarkson, it’s the song title, not the waistline: stronger, the boring, bloodwork-and-walking way.

Sources

Fact check

Rumor / Reality

The rumor

Her weight loss was caused by the divorce: she has tied it to her thyroid, bloodwork and doctor's advice, not to the breakup
She is on Ozempic: she said it is not Ozempic and has not named the drug
Claims about the couple's private medical decisions or who caused the split: never stated by either of them

What we know

Clarkson credited The Plant Paradox for coming off thyroid medication (Extra, TODAY, 2018)
She was diagnosed as pre-diabetic and takes a prescribed medication that is not Ozempic (her show, May 2024)
The divorce settled in March 2022; the Labor Commissioner ordered Blackstock to repay $2,641,374 in commissions (November 2023)
Blackstock died of melanoma on August 7, 2025 (Silver Bow County coroner)
The Kelly Clarkson Show ended after seven seasons; she is a coach on The Voice season 30

Editorial Note This article is based on publicly available information and fan observation. We do not make medical diagnoses, confirm unverified rumors as fact, or intend to body-shame anyone. Celebrity appearance changes are covered with respect for the individuals involved.