Kelly Clarkson is opening up about her decision to end her self-titled talk show after seven successful seasons.
The “Since U Been Gone” singer appeared on Friday’s episode of NBC’s Today show, where she explained that she made the choice to leave her NBC show after realizing how “precious” life is.
“Well, I think everybody probably gets the timing, but … yeah, our family life, the dynamic changed a bit and it has changed for a minute now,” Clarkson said. “I think it’s just — you’ve got kids, we’ve all got kids, right? — it’s one of those things when you kinda start seeing life as how precious it is, too.”
Clarkson shares daughter River Rose and son Remington with ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, who died in August at age 48 after battling melanoma. The talk show host said when she announced the end of her show that she wanted to “prioritize my kids” during “this next chapter of our lives.”
Clarkson may be taking a step back from daytime television, but she still has several projects in the works. The singer will serve as a judge on season 29 of The Voice, which premieres on NBC on Monday, and she is preparing for her Studio Sessions Las Vegas residency in July and August.
“I’m really busy. We were talking at dinner last night. I was like, ‘I know everybody thinks oh, she’s quit.’ I still have other jobs,” she told Today host Carson Daly. “So I’m still doing stuff. There’s just too much on the plate, so I was like, ‘You know what, it’s time to kind of pull back.’”
Clarkson noted that the decision to leave was not an easy one because of the impact on the show’s creative team.
“That’s what was really hard,” she explained. “The crew’s been incredible. It wasn’t that the show wasn’t doing well. That’s what kind of sucked; it was like, everything was going well. That’s what was really hard. It was people’s jobs. We are a family there as well, so that was a really hard thing for me, but an easy decision as a momma. But it’s a big deal for our team.”
Premiering in 2019, The Kelly Clarkson Show has won 24 Daytime Emmy Awards, including four for best daytime talk series. New episodes of the talk show will air through the fall.
