Last year, the world was stunned when Kelly Clarkson filed to divorce her husband.
She and Brandon Blackstock had been married for seven years, and things did not end well.
The interpersonal conflicts that ended their marriage were followed by legal battles on multiple fronts.
Now, the court has ordered Kelly’s support payments — and it will add up to a small fortune.
Kelly and Brandon share legal and physical custody, with the children primarily residing with Kelly in California.
In court, Brandon was seeking $436,000 a month in total support.
$301,000 was to be in spousal support as her ex-husband, with $135,000 to be paid in child support.
During the course of their legal struggle, Brandon also incurred massive attorney fees.
He asked the court to delegate those fees to Kelly, as the wealthier of the two, to pay.
Now the court has reached its decision.
The court has ordered Kelly to pay $150,000 a month to Brandon in spousal support.
In addition, a total of $45,601 per month will be paid to him in child support.
The exes share a six-year-old, River Rose, and a four-year-old, Remington Alexander.
This means approximately $200,000 per month in support payments.
That totals to nearly $2.4 million in support payments per year.
That is a hefty sum, but it’s also less than half of what Brandon was reportedly seeking.
Of course, it’s also not all.
Kelly is ordered to pay $1.25 million in attorney’s fees and additional costs incurred by Brandon during this financial battle.
Online estimates put Kelly’s estimated net worth at around $45 million, and that amount seems likely to grow in the near future.
Kelly Clarkson is the new Ellen DeGeneres, in a manner of speaking.
She’s not a human rights trailblazer who gradually alienated her fans through rumor before scandal tarnished her brand despite her widely loved wife.
Rather, we mean that she is taking Ellen’s coveted television spot, replacing one talk show with another after Ellen retires next year.
Kelly had already been doing well in her own timeslot, but soon she will be an afternoon talkshow powerhouse.
At least, that is the network’s hope.
It may not seem obvious or intuitive to many of us, but a lot of people like Kelly Clarkson and think that she’s "real" and "nice."
Of course, authenticity and kindness — alleged or actual — were not what sealed the fate of Kelly’s marriage.
Reports last year described how she and Brandon had drifted apart during the course of their marriage.
Despite Kelly hyping up their union in public, they had fundamentally different dispositions and had clashed more and more.
According to reports, the pandemic lockdown made things worse for them.
The couple left the city to reside in Montana with their children.
Reportedly, being "cooped up" together made things worse.
Like many couples discovered when their routines were disrupted by the lockdowns, familiarity can breed contempt.
Some people can dislike each other and ignore that feeling as they go through their regular routines.
If they’re suddenly "stuck" together, they’ll either remember why they first fell in love … or totally fall apart. Kelly and Brandon went the latter route.