At 71, Reba McEntire Finally Opens Up About Kelly Clarkson

Introduction:

Few relationships in country and pop music have taken as unexpected a journey as the friendship between Reba McEntire and Kelly Clarkson. What began with a nervous young singer meeting her idol eventually became a musical partnership, a family connection, and, later, a friendship tested by divorce, legal battles, and devastating loss.

Their story began in 2002, when a 20-year-old Kelly Clarkson won the first season of American Idol. Given the chance to perform with an artist she admired, Kelly chose Reba. The two sang “Does He Love You,” and what could have been simply another television performance became the beginning of a genuine friendship. Reba later recalled that she could tell Kelly was special from their very first meeting.

Their friendship grew far beyond the stage. They recorded together, including Clarkson’s “Because of You” for Reba’s Duets album, and later toured together on the 2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour in 2008. Reba described Kelly as someone with whom she simply enjoyed spending time, long before either woman could have imagined that their lives would become connected through family.

That connection came through Brandon Blackstock. Reba had married Brandon’s father, Narvel Blackstock, in 1989 and had considered Brandon and his siblings part of her family. When Kelly and Brandon married in 2013, the relationship between the two singers suddenly became a family relationship as well.

For a while, everything seemed to fit together. But the family structure eventually changed dramatically. Reba and Narvel divorced in 2015, while Kelly and Brandon separated in 2020. Kelly filed for divorce in June 2020, and the proceedings became increasingly complicated, eventually involving both personal and professional disputes. Their divorce was finalized in 2022.

The difficult part for Reba was that there was no simple side to choose. Brandon was her stepson, while Kelly had been her friend for nearly two decades. In 2021, Reba made her position clear: she loved them both and would not play favorites.

That decision says perhaps more about their friendship than anything else. Reba did not allow the breakdown of Kelly’s marriage to erase the relationship they had built years earlier.

Kelly later confirmed that the divorce had not damaged her relationship with Reba. In fact, their shared experiences as women who had endured highly public divorces gave them another point of understanding. Kelly had known Reba before Brandon, and their friendship remained after the marriage ended.

Then came another painful chapter. Brandon Blackstock died on August 7, 2025, at age 48, after battling cancer for more than three years. His death brought grief to a family that had already experienced years of complicated relationships.

For Kelly, the loss was also deeply personal because Brandon was the father of her two children. For Reba, he was still her stepson and someone she had loved as family.

And perhaps that is why the story of Reba and Kelly ultimately feels less like a celebrity scandal and more like a story about endurance.

Their lives became connected through music, marriage and family. Those connections later became complicated by divorce and loss. Yet the friendship that began when a nervous 20-year-old singer stood beside her childhood idol never disappeared.

Twenty years later, Reba and Kelly are no longer simply country legend and pop superstar. They are two women who have watched each other grow, struggle, rebuild and continue forward.

Sometimes, the strongest relationships are not the ones untouched by hardship. They are the ones that survive it.

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