Kelly Clarkson, powerhouse vocalist and the first person to ever win American Idol, is a standard-bearer for good pop music. But she hasn't always been so strong, despite the message that her songs send. In an interview with Attitude magazine, Clarkson revealed that she struggled with intense depression in the early parts of her career.
"When I was really skinny, I wanted to kill myself. I was miserable, like inside and out, for four years of my life. But no one cared, because aesthetically you make sense," Clarkson told the outlet. She said she was "at the gym all the time" and that she injured her knees and feet by running too much.
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"All I would do is put in headphones and run," she said. Clarkson explained that she made a change around the time My December was released, citing the song "Sober" as an analogy for her journey. The line "picked the weeds but kept the flowers" is, according to Clarkson, an analogy for how she corrected her life. She borrowed it from a friend, and used it inspire the whole song.
"I wrote the entire song off that line," Clarkson said at a performance at the Troubadour in 2011. "Just because I thought it was so brilliant. Sometimes, you gotta pick the people out of your life that are cancerous for you and go with the good ones."
This is an allusion to Clarkson's departure from her RCA contract, which came with her American Idol win. In a new profile by The New York Times, Clarkson calls her relationship with RCA an "arranged marriage." She switched over to Atlantic records shortly after My December was released.
Her newest album Meaning of Life, which will be released Friday, is a departure from her pop-rock sound, but Clarkson says it's more authentic.
"[Meaning of Life] definitely is still a harder sell than ‘Since U Been Gone 2.0.’ It’s not the easiest route,” Clarkson told the Times. “But it’s the only option."
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