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Kelly Clarkson is looking to leave her afternoon talk show when the contract expires next year — and NBC execs are searching for ways to keep her on the network, multiple sources told Page Six.
The chart-topping singer turned host of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was off the air for almost two weeks last month for what was described as a “personal matter.”
Now, sources tell us that the “Since U Been Gone” singer wants to step down from the show she has been helming since 2019, to spend more time with daughter River Rose, 10, and son Remy, 8.
“Kelly’s number one priority is her children, and they always will be,” said one industry insider of the star who originally hails from Texas. “The show is grueling. It’s a whole lot of work and I hear that Kelly would like to spend more time down South.”
A rep for Clarkson declined to comment. NBCU did not reply to a request for comment.
Guest hosts including Andy Cohen, Simu Liu and Kal Penn stepped in for Clarkson, 42, during her unexplained absence before she returned on March 18. Penn hosted again on April 1.
When Clarkson, who moved to NY from LA for the show, returned to the set, it was to celebrate the show reaching 1,0000 episodes. While she hasn’t discussed the circumstances surrounding her hiatus in detail, she gave an emotional speech in which she admitted to fans that she’s “lost, alone, a lot” throughout the past six years.
“We have laughed together, we have cried together with beautiful stories, sang together with some people, danced together, celebrated and competed together. I’ve lost, alone, a lot,” she quipped.
The star, who went through a stressful divorce from her ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, quickly assured her audience that “It’s OK!” and reminded them of the “community” they have created as she thanked them for lending and finding “comfort in one another.”
Clarkson has in the past shared that her divorce was a lot more difficult than she originally let on.
“Just to be brutally honest, I did not handle [the divorce] well,” the “Stronger” singer told Zane Lowe during a June 2023 interview on Apple Music.
“I don’t know how people get through anything like that because I’m not going to say I did it gracefully. Behind closed doors by myself, it was not,” she admitted.
Clarkson, who filed for divorce in June 2020 after nearly seven years of marriage, recalled “crying so hard” even prior to her official split that she “couldn’t even speak.”
The star was paid in the range of $10 million per season as a judge on NBC’s “The Voice,” we’re told, and is rumored to get more for hosting her show in a deal that was brokered by Blackstock, who was formerly her manager.
When Season 7 was announced to take her up to the end of 2026 Deadline reported that, for the 2024-25 season, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” averages 1.2 million viewers per day — an increase from fall 2023. It consistently ranks as one of the nation’s top syndicated talk shows.
It’s distributed by NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and currently airs in over 200 local stations nationwide.
Despite this, another TV source noted that the show is expensive to produce and does not make a huge profit. “It’s a tough job and profit margins are low,” said the source.
NBC, however, would like to ensure that Clarkson is still on the network to host holiday specials like “Christmas in Rockefeller Center,” sources tell us.
When announcing the latest deal, Tracie Wilson, EVP, Syndication Studios and E! News at NBCUniversal called her a “national treasure.”
Since its launch, the show has garnered 22 Daytime Emmys, including multiple wins for Outstanding Daytime Talk Series and Outstanding Daytime Talk Series Host, and two People’s Choice Awards for Best Talk Show of the Year.
This week, sources strenuously denied a report that Clarkson would be joining Jenna Bush-Hager on the 10 a.m. hour of the “Today” show, replacing Hoda Kotb.
However, an industry insider told Page Six that the report does “not make any sense.”
“If she wants to spend more time with her kids, she certainly wouldn’t get that [at ‘Today’] and she’s never even guest co-hosted [‘Today With Jenna and Friends’],” the insider told us, while another source pointed out that it’s possibly more grueling that her current gig.
