Kelly Clarkson ‘s divorce from estranged husband Brandon Blackstock is quickly getting messy. After it was revealed that the “Stronger” singer will keep primary physical custody of their two young children so that the kids can live in Los Angeles with her, Kelly’s soon to be ex now wants $436,000 a month in spousal support and child support from the talk show host. Even though he’ll only be with the kids a few weekends out of every month for the time being.
“Kelly’s offered to pay for all the kids’ expenses, but Brandon seems to think he is entitled to and needs $301K in spousal support and $135K in child support per month,” a source tells PEOPLE. That means in total he’d receive over $5.2 million a year if the request is granted. “Additionally, he’s already asked for $2M for attorney fees when he’s the one driving up the cost of the divorce with seven attorneys just representing him alone,” the source tells the publication. HollywoodLife.com has reached out to Kelly and Brandon’s lawyers for comment.
Kelly Clarkson and now estranged husband Brandon Blackstock attend the ‘Ugly Dolls’ premiere in Los Angeles on April 27, 2019. They’re joined by his older children Seth and Savannah, and Brandon and Kelly’s young kids River and Remy. Photo credit: AP.
On Nov. 30, Kelly was awarded temporary primary custody of their children, six-year-old daughter River Rose and 4-year-old son Remy. Brandon plans to live in Montana and wanted the kids to shuttle back and forth between there and Los Angeles, where Kelly’s talk show is based. “The court finds that the minor children are not now and have not been residents of Montana and that California is their home state,” a judge ruled in paperwork obtained by HollywoodLife.com.
River and Remy will live with Kelly in L.A., while Brandon will get the kids on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th weekends of each month, according to the judge’s order. On the first and last weekends, Brandon will have to travel to Los Angeles to be with the children, while he’s allowed to take them to Montana on the 3rd weekend of the month that he has them.
While $436K sounds like a pretty hefty sum considering that Brandon is a successful talent manager and won’t be spending that much time with the kids, it all comes down to the law. “California has one of the highest guideline supports in all 50 states, it’s based off income. So YES, depending on Kelly’s salary (which should be in the millions), his request sounds about right,” Los Angeles family lawyer Kelly Chang Rickert, tells HollywoodLife.com EXCLUSIVELY. “You can still get child support if you don’t have majority of the kids, if the other side’s income is far, far greater.” Brandon works as a talent manager whose clients include Blake Shelton and Rascal Flatts.
Kelly, 38, filed for divorce from Brandon, 43, on June 4 in a Los Angeles court after nearly seven years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences.” The pair got engaged in Dec. 2012 after 10 months of dating, and tied the knot on a Tennessee farm on Oct. 20, 2013. Over the years Kelly gushed about her love for Brandon, saying their romance “was like a fairy tale” and writing about him in songs like her emotional ballad “Piece By Piece.” Kelly’s divorce filing truly came as a shock to her fans, as there hadn’t been any hints of trouble in her marriage.
When Kelly’s NBC daytime talk show returned for season two in Sept. 2020, she revealed, “As you probably know, 2020 has brought a lot of change also to my personal life. Definitely didn’t see anything coming that came, but what I’m dealing with is hard — it involves more than just my heart, it involves a lot of little hearts.”
“We have four kids,” she added, including Brandon’s children from a prior marriage, Seth, 13, and Savannah, 18. “I’m usually very open and I usually talk about everything — but in this case, I will talk a little bit here and there about how it affects me personally but probably won’t go too far into it.”