Kelly Clarkson has talked about how demanding her schedule is on The Kelly Clarkson Show, and following the death of her ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, it’s obvious why she’s freeing up time to focus on her kids. However, as she spoke to the crowd on the first night of her new Las Vegas residency, she joked that there was another big benefit to quitting daytime TV — she won’t have to attend any more human resources meetings.
The Kelly Clarkson Show is set to end when its seventh season concludes this fall, but no finale date has yet been announced for the 2026 TV schedule (despite the fact that the host has already wrapped filming). Either way, Clarkson was in full stand-up comedian mode as she candidly celebrated “no more HR meetings.” The expectations in her corporate job were pretty different from what she experienced as a musician growing up, she said in an Instagram video (via TMZ), telling the audience:
It’s funny, you go to those HR meetings and you’re, like, ‘Nobody on the road would last,’ It’s just a different world, you know? I was 19 on a bus with dudes, what, I can’t do what? ‘Yeah, that’s completely inappropriate.’
Kelly Clarkson joked that some of the HR rules were “dumb,” like not being able to comment when someone lost weight. The singer herself dropped some pounds after she moved to New York, and she argued that being acknowledged made people feel good.
In actuality, the “Since U Been Gone” singer admitted she’s not really the rule-breaker she made herself out to be, telling the crowd that the opposite was closer to the truth:
I’m just kidding. Everyone actually hated doing HR meetings with me, because I am a nerd. I would literally be, like, ‘I’m sorry….’ I would stop the class and everyone would be like, ‘Can I do the meeting without Kelly?’ Because they’d have separate meetings, and everybody would opt out of every meeting I would be in.
She joked that the people running the HR meetings would sweat if she were in their class because she was a “curious cat” and would ask lots of questions. She said really getting into it was necessary to protect everyone.
Kelly Clarkson has a tendency to speak freely in front of her residency crowds, and she didn’t seem too concerned about any blowback from NBC about her HR comments, saying:
I would get fired by NBC, but I don’t work there anymore, which we are sad about. It’s a fun show.
The Kelly Clarkson Show’s days are numbered, but the artist may want to keep in mind that she still draws an NBC paycheck by being a coach on The Voice. Not that she likely has anything to worry about — even when reports came out about The Kelly Clarkson Show being a “traumatizing” work environment in 2023, accusers alleged Clarkson was neither a part of nor aware of the problems.
The host even reportedly required her senior staff (including herself) to undergo training, probably not unlike what she’s joking about now.
You can continue to catch Kelly Clarkson weekdays on her talk show for now, and then on The Voice Season 30, which premieres at 8 p.m. ET Monday, September 21, on NBC and streaming the next day with a Peacock subscription.
