By Wonderwall.com Editors
5:56am PST, Jan 5, 2024
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After an intense few years, Kelly Clarkson is enjoying a "fresh start" in New York City — and it shows.
The singer and talk show host, 41, opened up about her recent slimdown in a January 2024 cover story for People magazine in which she shared how her cross-country move, along with diet and exercise changes, have contributed to helping her achieve her weight loss and fitness goals.
"Walking in the city is quite the workout," said the star, who moved "The Kelly Clarkson Show" from Los Angeles to the Big Apple in 2023 after settling her divorce with former manager Brandon Blackstock. "And I'm really into infrared saunas right now. And I just got a cold plunge because everybody wore me down," she added.
Kelly also shut down social media-fueled claims she was using Ozempic to shed unwanted pounds.
"I eat a healthy mix. I dropped weight because I've been listening to my doctor — [for] a couple years I didn't," she told the outlet.
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Her doctor's advice apparently included eating more protein while leaving room for the occasional sweet indulgence.
"And 90% of the time I'm really good at it because a protein diet is good for me anyway. I'm a Texas girl, so I like meat — sorry, vegetarians in the world!" Kelly Clarkson joked to People magazine, adding, "I still splurge. The other night I had a frozen yogurt with my daughter, and it was magical."
Kelly's physical health isn't the only thing that's improved since she left Los Angeles.
"I was very unhappy in L.A. and had been for several years. I needed a fresh start," she shared with People.
After a period of trying to feign happiness, the mother of two — Kelly shares daughter River, 9, and son Remington, 7, with her ex, Brandon Blackstock — told her network she needed to relocate "The Kelly Clarkson Show."
"… We told NBC, 'I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, I just can't stay here anymore for my mental health; for me and my kids,'" she recalled. "They weren't doing well either. For the past few years, I'd just been showing up and smiling and doing what I'm supposed to do, but you can only compartmentalize so long until you break."
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Kelly Clarkson had good reason to "compartmentalize" everything she was dealing with prior to her move, too. In addition to juggling motherhood, hosting "The Kelly Clarkson Show" and her role as a coach on "The Voice," the star was involved in a long, bitter — and expensive — divorce from Brandon Blackstock until the settlement was finalized in 2022.
She was granted primary custody of her kids. She was also ordered to pay $45,000 a month in child support plus $115,000 a month in spousal support to her ex and recently completed the final spousal support payment, according to Us Weekly.
"Kelly is feeling relieved that her spousal support to Brandon has come to an end," an insider told the outlet in a report published Jan. 2.
Meanwhile, Brandon, who served as Kelly's manager prior to their split, has been ordered to repay more than $2 million in overcharged commissions to his ex-wife. He reportedly plans to appeal the November 2023 ruling.
Still, between Kelly's move and the closure the divorce represents, she's had time and energy to devote towards an active NYC lifestyle with her kids.
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"We go walk the dogs a few times at the park. We'll go for ice cream because my daughter will wear me down. We'll go make slime and we go to the museum," Kelly Clarkson told People magazine of the new routine that's kept her healthy and happy.
The "Kelly Clarkson Show" host has spoken out previously about her body image and the changes her physique has undergone in the years since she exploded onto the pop music scene after winning the inaugural season of "American Idol" in 2002.
"I felt more pressure from people actually when I was thin — when I was really thin and not super healthy because I just was worn out — just working so hard and not keeping healthy habits. But I felt more pressure," she said in Glamour UK's June 2020 issue.
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Reflecting on that time in her life, Kelly Clarkson recalled how how members of her team made demands about her weight and figure that weren't based on health.
"It was more of magazines shoved in front of you and, 'This is what you're competing with and we've got to compete with it,'" she told Glamour in 2020. "I can't compete with that. That's not even my image. That's not who I am. That's who they are. We're all different and it's OK. I fought more when I was thinner than I do now, because now I just walk in and I just look at them like, 'I dare you to say something. I'm happy in my life. I'll work on me in my time!'"
In the same interview, Kelly Clarkson also noted that she weighed more than she ever had before when she landed her job as a coach on "The Voice."
"I got on the No. 1 television show at my heaviest point, because it was right after I had kids and it was like they didn't care. … It had to do with me as a person," she said at the time.
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Kelly Clarkson, seen here in 2018, has also spoken openly about a "dark time" in her life when a fight for creative control of her career left her so stressed out and down that she lost too much weight.
"When I was really skinny, I wanted to kill myself," she told Attitude magazine in 2017. "I was miserable, like inside and out, for four years of my life. But no one cared, because aesthetically you make sense. It was a very dark time for me. I thought the only way out was quitting."
The singer tried to manage what she was going through by funneling that energy into what became a not-so-healthy approach to exercise.
"I, like, wrecked my knees and my feet because all I would do is put in headphones and run. I was at the gym all the time," she recalled. She later clarified on Twitter, "I wasn't ever miserable because I had to be thin. I said I was miserable & as a result I became thin."
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While career anxiety and pregnancies have both affected her weight in the past, Kelly Clarkson's current trajectory towards health and fitness began years ago.
In 2018, the Grammy winner reflected on how she lost 37 pounds once she got into a healthier groove in managing the autoimmune disease and thyroid condition she was diagnosed with in 2006. At the time, Kelly told "Extra" she'd read Steven R. Gundry's book, "The Plant Paradox," and adopted the guidance she found there in an effort to avoid taking medicine for her thyroid condition.
"It's basically about how we cook our food, non-GMO, no pesticides, eating really organic," she explained.
During an appearance on "Today" in 2018, Kelly told Hoda Kotb the pound dropping was a "side effect" of how she was managing her health conditions.
"I know the industry loves the weight gone, but for me it wasn't [about] the weight," she said. "For me, it was 'I'm not on my medicine any more.'"
