She definitely wasn’t single and sulking. Kelly Clarkson told reporters at a luncheon for Good Housekeeping last week that she was often judged harshly for being unmarried and childless for a good part of her twenties.
“I’m from a small town in the South,” the 34-year-old singer said. “Everyone thought I was gay ‘cause I wasn’t married with kids already! And I was like, ‘That’s kind of insulting to the gay community!’ But, especially in this day and age, I had a very high bar.”
The American Idol alum tied the knot with music manager Brandon Blackstock in October 2013 after nearly two years of dating. The couple are parents to two young children — daughter River Rose, 2, and son Remington, 6 months. (Blackstock has two children from a previous marriage — Savannah, 15, and Seth, 10.)
“I think the biggest thing is just getting married later in life. … You change so much in your twenties,” she explained. “I mean, [my husband] got married at 21 in his first marriage, and they both went, ‘What?!’ It can be very hard to grow in the same way. Your twenties are all about growth and giant [mistakes].”
The “Piece by Piece” singer added that deciding to get married later on in life has helped contribute to a stronger marriage now.
“I have an awesome life, and I can hold this down on my own,” she said. “I learned that from my mother. She depended a lot, financially, on a man. I don’t depend on him, and he doesn’t depend on me. We made our own way in our own right, and I think that’s what really helps too.”
It makes for a happier home life too. Clarkson shared a video to Twitter on Tuesday, October 11, of herself and her toddler both wearing baseball caps and casual clothes and dancing to Salt-N-Pepa’s 1986 hit “Push It.”
“This is totally inappropriate for a 2-year-old!” Clarkson jokes as the mother-daughter pair hop around for 23 seconds as part of the Diabetes Dance Dare, which helps raise money and awareness about diabetes in America.