Kelly Clarkson has never been shy about her body image along with the subsequential pressure for her to lose weight. The star recently shared how the pressure was at its worst when she was slimmer.
Early in her career, Clarkson was at her smallest but according to a recent interview with Glamour U.K. it was not small enough to some in the music industry who would show her photos of naked women on magazine covers to motivate her to lose weight.
“I felt more pressure from people actually when I was thin, when I was really thin and not super healthy because I just was worn out, just working so hard and not keeping healthy habits,” she said in a new interview. “But I felt more pressure. It was more of magazines shoved in front of you and, ‘This is what you’re competing with and we’ve got to compete with it.’ I can’t compete with that. That’s not even my image. That’s not who I am. That’s who they are.”
And Clarkson went on to clarify how the women on the covers were “Naked! There would be a chick naked on the cover. I’m not joking, literally naked.”
Clarkson said she held her own when it came to butting heads with industry people who pressured her to lose weight.
“I fought more when I was thinner than I do now, because now I just walk in and I just look at them like, ‘I dare you to say something. I’m happy in my life. I’ll work on me in my time!’” she said.
Clarkson shared how her biggest career moments have come at her heaviest and after having her two kids, River, 6, and Remington, 4.
“Honestly, at my heaviest point, I was hired to be on The Voice. I got on the number one television show at my heaviest point, because it was right after I had kids and it was like they didn’t care,” she said.
“Paul hired me from NBC because he loved my personality, he loved that I connect with people and I’m really raw and real. It had nothing to do with my sex appeal or my look aesthetically. It had to do with me as a person. I think it’s really up to artists to force people to have that mentality.”
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Clarkson also shared how weight should have zero correlation to a singer’s abilities and specifically talked on the recent focus on Adele.
“I met Adele a long time ago and that girl is like a goddess. I don’t care what kind of weight she’s holding down; you walk in the room and she’s like a force, just physically captivating,” Clarkson said. “If someone wanted to do it [lose weight] for themselves and for their health but that doesn’t change how many times I listened to her record.”
Previously, Clarkson shared how her body image has kept her being too preoccupied with her body shamers.
“Even on American Idol I was really thin, but I was bigger than the other girls on the show, so people would say things to me,” she told PEOPLE in 2017. “But luckily I am superconfident, so I’ve never had a problem with shutting people down and saying, ‘Yeah, you know, that’s just what I’m rocking. It’s fine.’ “