Sixteen years after Kelly Clarkson’s incredible first place finish on American Idol, the Texas native sat down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss her emotions throughout her stint on the hit show.
At the beginning, the “Stronger” singer dreamed of winning the show. However, as time progressed, Clarkson discovered several reasons not to win, “I do remember [runner-up] Justin [Guarini] and I having a conversation before and I was like, ‘I don’t want to win, I don’t want to win,’ because we found out we had to do a move,” Clarkson recalls. “We just found that out Top 2 and he really wanted to do a movie and I really didn’t want to do it. I was like, ‘It’d be really super cool if I got second and you got first because the winner has to do the movie and the second one doesn’t.’ I won, so I had to do the movie.”
In case her fans thought she was kidding about not wanting to shoot the film, Kelly Clarkson emphasized how serious she was by discussing her attempts to escape the task. “I cried so hard because I did not want to do that movie,” Kelly added. “One, it wasn’t a good movie and two, I never wanted to be an actress. I literally was in Texas, in my apartment, crying in my closet talking to him [producer Simon Fuller] trying to hide from my family because I felt weak.”
Out of embarrassment, Kelly Clarkson attended the premiere intoxicated: “I literally ended up in a fountain soaked. I was real hammered.”
Even if the 35-year-old singer-songwriter was embarrassed by From Justin to Kelly, we are sure time has healed those wounds. Now, for the rest of her life, she can rejoice and remember winning the debut season of American Idol. She is definitely one of the show’s most successful winners! Relive the moment when Clarkson was crowned champion below…
American Idol returned to television for its rebooted sixteenth season on Sunday, March 11th on ABC. As for Clarkson, she currently serves as a coach on NBC’s The Voice.
