Kelly Clarkson on life before weight gain: ‘I wanted to kill myself’

When singer Kelly Clarkson gained weight, she gained something else, too - attention. Her body was the focus of many a press person’s camera, and fans questioned whether her mental health was on the decline due to her putting on pounds. But the star recently opened up, and she wants everyone to know that their concern was totally misguided. During her weight gain, she was getting better - not worse.

“When I was really skinny, I wanted to kill myself,” she told the British magazine Attitude.

Clarkson finds it difficult to look back on the early years of her music career, though her popularity was at its peak. While her singles were becoming instant hits and her acclaim was skyrocketing, what wasn’t at all thriving was her relationship with herself.

“I was miserable, like inside and out, for four years of my life,” she admits. “But no one cared, because aesthetically you make sense.”

Pop stars are thin - and Clarkson was a pop star. Few people questioned it, looked at her habits, or asked if she was okay. But underneath it all, she was enduring physical and emotional turmoil.

Just 20 years old, the pop idol recalls being pressured to lose weight so she could fit in with her peers: Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson, to name a few. To Clarkson, it was either lose weight or quit.

“I, like, wrecked my knees and my feet, because all I would do is put in headphones and run,” she said, recalling what she calls a “very dark time” in her career. “I was at the gym all the time.”

After conflict with her record label, disturbing media attention, and a slight retreat from the spotlight, Clarkson snapped out of it. She let her weight be what it may, and started clearing her life of the negativity that dragged her down.

“There’s a song on My December called ‘Sober,’” she said. “There’s this line, ‘picked the weeds but kept the flowers’ and I just live my life by that, because you are who you surround yourself with. I was around some really negative people, and I got out of it because I had a lot of great people there, too.”

We hope speaking out helps Kelly Clarkson to silence the body-shamers that continue to try and bring her down. Despite her frankness on the issue, the pop star still has her critics on account of her fluctuating weight - though other celebrities with smaller bodies are at liberty to own up to being fast-food addicts without a negative word said about it.