Kelly Clarkson had an emotional onstage moment less than two weeks before her ex-husband’s death.
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In a recently resurfaced TikTok video, the singer broke down in tears as she explained why she changed the lyrics to her 2015 song “Piece by Piece” in the wake of her 2020 split from Brandon Blackstock.
The moment happened 12 days before Blackstock died of cancer. The music manager, who was also Reba McEntire’s former stepson, was 48.
“Compartmentalization!” Clarkson told herself before she began introducing the song at her Las Vegas residency.
“I’ve never rewritten a song more and I probably never will,” she said. “I wrote this song with a lot of hope and projection for happiness and better than what was happening.”
“And then, well, life set in and I had to change the lyrics,” Clarkson continued. “Everybody was like, ‘Wait, why aren’t you singing this song?’ And I was like, ‘Have you heard the lyrics?’ That’s fun. Embarrassing.”
After she made the lyric change, she performed the updated song only one time before she admitted that it “sounded a little angry.” That realization prompted her to rework the song once again.
“I just wanted to explain how it feels now,” she explained. “I’m 43. I’ve done some therapy, and I changed the lyrics now and I think it’s perfect. I promise. I’m not gonna change it again.”
The New Lyrics to Kelly Clarkson’s “Piece by Piece”
The latest—and final—update, Clarkson said, “is the more grown up version of” of the track.
Emotions then took over Clarkson once again, as she promised the audience, “I’m really trying to pull it together.” She did just that before performing “Piece by Piece.”
The original lyrics were thought to show Clarkson singing about her father abandoning her as a child, and praising how Blackstock differed from him.
In the first lyric change, Clarkson sang, “I just walk away, when they ask for money / I take care of me ‘cause I love me / Piece by piece I restored my faith that a heart can still beat even when it breaks.“
At the time, fans read the lyric adjustment as a reference to Blackstock’s financial asks amid their divorce proceedings.
The new lyrics, however, is about Clarkson loving herself, as she declared, “I’m learning everyday how to love me / I let go of the shame that you taught me / Piece by piece I restored the faith that a heart can still beat even if it breaks.”
Photo by Denise Truscello/Getty Images for Live Nation Las Vegas
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