Kelly Clarkson gets ‘brutally honest’ about divorce ahead of newest album, ‘Chemistry’

Kelly Clarkson‘s entering a new chapter of her music career as she continues to process her split from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock.

The “Since U Been Gone” singer and daytime talk-show host opened up about channeling heartbreak into new music during a 40-minute interview with radio DJ Zane Lowe for Apple Music. Clarkson releases her 10th album, “Chemistry,” on Thursday at midnight.

“[Love] is intoxicating, it’s fun, it’s wonderful,” Clarkson said, explaining the title of her album. “It’s a high that you will never experience from a drug. There’s no kind of drug that can give you that. Then also it can be detrimental.”

She continued: “You keep coming back to this place because it’s magic for a minute … you’re willing to throw away all this other time for that one moment of euphoric whatever.”

Clarkson releases “Chemistry” exactly three years after she filed for divorce from country music manager Blackstock in June 2020. The ex-couple, who were married for seven years, share two children — 9-year-old daughter River Rose and 7-year-old son Remy — in addition to Blackstock’s children from a previous marriage.

The Grammy Award-winning musician has been open about her divorce, speaking about the split in podcasts and on her talk show. In the conversation with Lowe that was published Wednesday, Clarkson admitted, “I don’t know how people get through anything like that.

“I’m not going to say I did it gracefully behind closed doors … just to be brutally honest I did not handle it well,” she said.

Clarkson said she found comfort in crying sessions with friends and said therapy was helpful amid the divorce. In processing her separation from Blackstock, the singer also said that she has learned to be more outspoken and selective with whom she shares her life.

“Not everyone is deserving of your story or worth it or worth your time,” she told Lowe. “It doesn’t mean that person is bad and you’re good or you’re bad and they’re good.”

Clarkson said “Chemistry” was a “necessity” to deal with heartbreak. She announced the project in March, telling fans on Twitter that it has been in the works for “close to three years now.”

“This album is definitely the arc of an entire relationship,” she said in her video. “A whole relationship shouldn’t be just brought down to one thing.”

Near the end of the conversation, Clarkson said multiple interviewers have asked her why fans look forward to post-divorce albums .

“It’s because tragedy and that depth of sadness is really relatable and people don’t talk about it enough,” she said. “You listen to it with your headphones on to feel connected to something because you’re supposed to.”

In a separate interview with “Today,” the “Voice” coach said she doesn’t care if her ex listens to the album.

“I don’t know if he’d care either way,” she told co-hosts Hoda Kotb and Carson Daly. “We did have a little text exchange about it. … I was like, ‘Hey, I didn’t just diminish us down to one thing.’”