The Moment
Kelly Clarkson is officially closing the curtains on her daytime era.
The singer confirmed that The Kelly Clarkson Show will end after its seventh season, saying she is stepping away to spend more time with her two children. In a lengthy Instagram message shared Monday, Clarkson, 43, said there have been “so many amazing moments and shows over these seven seasons” and called working on the series an “honor.”
She thanked her band and crew in both Los Angeles and New York, the many guests who sat on her couch, and fans who have stuck with the show since its 2019 debut. Clarkson also gave a special nod to NBC, calling the network a supportive partner.
Then came the gut punch: she admitted “this was not an easy decision,” but confirmed that this season will be her last as host of The Kelly Clarkson Show. Clarkson explained that stepping away now will let her prioritize her kids – daughter River, 11, and son Remington, 9 – especially after the 2025 death of their father, her ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, following a private battle with melanoma.
Kelly Clarkson is breaking away from her talk show. https://t.co/nFeX7mwQBz pic.twitter.com/Kqwnn47Lax
— E! News (@enews) February 3, 2026
Still, she stressed that “this is not goodbye.” Clarkson told fans she will continue making music, play shows here and there, and may pop back onto The Voice occasionally. Translation: less daily grind, more choose-your-own-adventure.
The Take
When America’s original Idol walks away from a steady daytime throne, she is not just being “dramatic.” She is reading the room – and the room is her living room, not a studio audience.
Hosting a daily talk show is not a cute side gig. It is monologues, games, celebrity interviews, musical performances, endless promo, and a fresh batch of feelings on tap every weekday. Pile that on top of being a single mom of two, a cross-country move, a brutal public divorce, and then losing your ex-husband to cancer? I do not care how strong your belt is; that is a lot for any one human throat to carry.
For years, talk shows were treated like the celebrity pension plan: get one, hang on, never let go. Clarkson is doing something much more current – and frankly healthier. She is saying, out loud, that a giant, shiny job can be wrong-sized for your actual life. It is like realizing you have been living in a McMansion you never see because you are always at work, and deciding you would rather downsize to a house where your kids know which cabinet the cereal is in.
Yes, industry gossip has tried to frame this as a meltdown or the show becoming “unsustainable” in daytime’s shrinking landscape. Is the daytime pie smaller than it used to be? Absolutely. Ratings are tougher, ad dollars are jumpier, and viewers are just as happy watching a three-minute clip on their phone as a full hour at 2 p.m. But everything we have on record from Clarkson points to a woman who has seen the cost of the grind up close and is choosing a different balance.
And that matters, especially for women over 40 watching this play out. For a long time, the message was: you fought your way to the top, now never step down. Kelly is quietly offering another script: sometimes the power move is closing the door yourself, on your terms, while you can still sing the goodbye song.
Receipts
- Confirmed
- In a public Instagram statement posted Feb. 3, 2026, Clarkson announced that The Kelly Clarkson Show will end after its seventh season and called the choice “not an easy decision.” She said, “This season will be my last” as host and emphasized her gratitude to her band, crew, guests, fans, and NBC.
- In that same message, she said that stepping away from the show will let her prioritize her children and that doing so feels “necessary and right for this next chapter of our lives.”
- Clarkson shares two children, River and Remington, with her ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, who died in August 2025 after a private, years-long battle with melanoma, according to widely reported family statements at the time. Clarkson stepped back from taping around his death to be with her family.
- The Kelly Clarkson Show debuted in 2019, runs on NBC-owned stations, and is currently in its seventh season. It has won multiple Daytime Emmys and tapes in New York after moving from Los Angeles.
- Clarkson ended her announcement by saying “this isn’t goodbye” and promising to keep making music, play some live shows, and possibly appear on The Voice in the future.
- Unverified / Reported
- Entertainment industry insiders quoted in 2025 tabloid reports claimed Clarkson found the daily talk-show schedule “grueling” and wanted to spend more time in the South with her family. These comments have not been directly confirmed by Clarkson or NBC.
- Unnamed staffers from the show described Clarkson as emotional and worried about her team during internal meetings about the show’s future, according to those same reports.
- Multiple entertainment pieces in 2025 and 2026 reported that NBC has been informally exploring possible successors for the timeslot, with former morning-show star Hoda Kotb mentioned as one of several names on an internal wish list. NBC has not announced any official replacement or new show.
Sources: Kelly Clarkson Instagram statement (Feb. 3, 2026); syndicated entertainment news reports published Feb. 3, 2026.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you mostly remember Kelly Clarkson as the 20-something Texan who won the very first season of American Idol back in 2002, here is the quick catch-up. She parlayed that win into a serious pop career (“Since U Been Gone,” “Because of You,” and a stack of Grammys), then slid into TV as a coach on The Voice. In 2019, she launched The Kelly Clarkson Show, a feel-good daytime hour built around her powerhouse voice (those “Kellyoke” covers), a live band, and comfy-couch interviews. The show grew into a major daytime player, eventually moving production from Los Angeles to New York so Clarkson and her kids could restart their lives after her divorce from Blackstock was finalized in 2022.
What’s Next
For now, Clarkson still has a farewell season to finish. Expect the rest of this seventh season to lean hard into celebration mode: big Kellyoke performances, emotional guest returns, and at least one montage that sends half the audience reaching for tissues and the other half straight to a group text.
On the career side, Clarkson has already sketched out her next chapter. She is not retiring; she is recalibrating. More music is coming, and she has hinted at playing select shows rather than another all-consuming TV schedule. Occasional stints on The Voice or other one-off TV appearances are still very much on the table. What she is clearly not signing up for again, at least anytime soon, is the hamster wheel of daily daytime hosting.
For NBC, the question is how to fill a suddenly very valuable hour. They could tap another friendly, low-drama star and try to recreate the formula; they could beef up news content; they could experiment with cheaper, lighter formats. Names like Hoda Kotb are floating around in the rumor mill, but until there is a press release, it is all just that: rumor.
Bigger picture, Clarkson’s exit is one more sign that the old-school daytime universe may never fully go back to what it was in the Oprah/Ellen years. Viewers can get their comfort clips on demand now, and stars are increasingly choosing projects that do not demand their soul (and every weekday) in exchange for syndication money. Whether you are a fan of daytime TV or not, it is hard to begrudge a woman who has given us two decades of music deciding that soccer pick-up and school plays get first dibs on her calendar.
Your turn: Do you see Kelly Clarkson stepping away from her talk show as a loss for daytime TV, or as a smart example of knowing when to leave the party?
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