South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Clarkson wants to ‘light up America’s life’
Superstar prepares for 2nd season of daytime talk show
For nearly two decades, Kelly Clarkson has connected with fans through the power and prowess of her singing voice — swaddling them through heartbreak, empowering them beyond that heartbreak, and beaming with them through new love.
So it’s little wonder how much Clarkson has been able to build on that connection lately. With help from Wi-Fi.
As work on most television shows was suspended in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 38-year-old entertainer was part of two series that pressed on remotely. From a ranch in Montana, where Clarkson took refuge with her family early on in the health crisis, she powered up her tech and offered her y’all-peppered critiques as a coach on “The Voice.” At the same time, just months into her debut as a daytime talk show host with “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” she and her team found themselves scrambling to produce at-home editions of the show.
As she explains it: “I am that kid that adapts to whatever environment.”
So for months now, her approachable charm and BFF energy have been confined, but not dimmed, by a rectangular box on screen, whether she’s covering Lisa Loeb’s 1994 heartbreak stunner “Stay (I Missed You)” as part of her Kellyoke opening segment or shrieking with excitement when “Goonies” star Sean Astin makes a surprise cameo during her interview with Josh Gad.
Clarkson has been back in Los Angeles since May to sit out lockdown at her Encino home. But she spoke from an office on the
Universal Studios lot, where her talk show was gearing up to resume primary taping for the upcoming second season, which premieres Monday. A wild reality considering that she needed to be persuaded to take this step in her career in the first place.
“I will be completely honest, and I have been since the beginning: I did not want this job,” she says. “I say that it’s the dream I didn’t know I had because I talk to so many people, and not just celebrities. I’ve talked to the people that have been hit hardest in all of this — financially, emotionally, mentally it’s really the everyday people on this show that have just lifted my spirits when I’ve been feeling like, ‘Oh my God, nothing else could possibly go wrong at this point, like, send in the locusts.’ ”
That Clarkson, a superstar TV helped create, would find a second wave of career success in television isn’t all that surprising. Eighteen years after
15.5 million viewers voted to ensure the Burleson, Texas, native was crowned the first “American Idol,” many of those same fans are tuning in to her now.
She is gearing up for her sixth season as judge on “The Voice,” which returns next month. And with “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” she has emerged as a bright spot in the increasingly hard to crack daytime talk show space — the program was the most-watched new talk show in seven years, averaging more than
1.6 million viewers daily. She even became a Daytime Emmy winner for entertainment talk show host.
Clarkson’s ascension in the daytime talk show space, which many attribute to her likability, comes as peer Ellen DeGeneres and her show have come under fire in recent months over allegations of a toxic work culture, which resulted in the ouster of three producers after an investigation by production company Warner Bros. Claims of workplace misconduct have also hit closer to Clarkson’s orbit: Former NBC Entertainment Chairman Paul Telegdy, who was instrumental in persuading Clarkson to join “The Voice” and had been the one who saw her potential as a talk show host, was recently pushed out after being accused of racism and sexism. (Telegdy has denied the allegations.)
Clarkson, who says she was “more shocked than anyone” by reports of Telegdy’s behavior, didn’t directly address “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” allegations, but she acknowledges that the recent attention to Hollywood’s workplace culture has reaffirmed a lesson she first learned at church camps and on student council as a child: As a leader, “How you act is how all those beneath you are going to feel like they’re allowed to act.
“Accountability is so important,” she says. “Everybody messes up. Everybody’s allowed to mess up. We are imperfect; that’s OK. But it’s not OK to pretend it’s not happening. I’m the first one in the room to go, ‘Was that me? Did I do it?’ Or, ‘How can I fix it?’ ”
At a time when asking anyone how they’re doing can feel like a loaded question, Clarkson says she feels “surprisingly great” — at least that’s the forecast for today. As we’ve all come to know, there are good days and there are bad days. Producing a show remotely from Montana, while trying to process the realities of the pandemic, was challenging.
“That was not fun,” she says. “I’m trying to smile and light up America’s life (and) I’m just wanting to drown myself in the creek next to me. ... I do remember, right before then, I was like: ‘Look, at some point, people in the limelight are humans too, and we’re all going through the same roller coaster as everyone else. So sometimes I don’t want to smile.’ I was honest about that. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s all relative to your own world.”
Even now, like many parents, the back-to-school season is on her mind. Her son, Remington Alexander, 4, is back in school, while her daughter, River Rose, 6, will have online classes through October.
“I think we really forget how hard this is on (children),” she says.
While her kids are getting used to a new routine, Clarkson will hardly have had a break as she gears up for the new season of her talk show. Produced and distributed by NBCUniversal Domestic Television Distribution, the show has aired new, all-virtual episodes throughout the summer. With the new season, it will take on a hybrid format, with live and virtual interviews with guests — complying with various safety protocols — as well as a virtual audience. And those Kellyokes aren’t going anywhere.
“I always, always say Kelly’s like the color yellow,” says showrunner Alex Duda, whose previous credits include “The Tyra Banks Show” and “Steve Harvey.” “If you spend time with her in a Zoom room or regular room, you leave there feeling better, and that’s what we want our viewers to remember. We want our viewers, when those credits are rolling, to feel better. I think everyone wants to feel better right now.”