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Kelly Clarkson scored key rulings at a court hearing Wednesday as a judge set the ground rules for her summer showdown with ex-husband Brandon Blackstock in their ongoing war over commissions he paid himself as her manager.
A Los Angeles County judge said Clarkson and Blackstock will go head-to-head at a bench trial starting August 27. The trial will focus solely on whether Blackstock violated the law when he procured deals for Clarkson such as her judging gig on NBC’s The Voice and then paid himself related commissions. A California Labor Commissioner first ruled on the dispute last November, largely siding with Clarkson and awarding her $2.6 million. Blackstock appealed the ruling last December, setting the stage for the so-called “de novo” trial in state court, meaning a fresh trial starting from the beginning.
In recent court filings, Blackstock’s lawyers asked for a wide-ranging discovery process leading up to the retrial. They hoped to simultaneously explore the breach-of-contract claims they lodged against Clarkson in a related lawsuit filed in 2020. They also signaled plans to question Clarkson about her personal finances, including how she and Blackstock funded their marriage. They said Blackstock hoped to “confirm” that his commission fees were used to pay joint marital expenses and fund a lifestyle that Clarkson also “was able to enjoy.”
A judge shot down Blackstock’s request Wednesday, saying the August trial will be laser-focused on whether he collected fees on Clarkson’s deals in violation of California’s Talent Agencies Act, which prohibits anyone other than licensed talent agents from procuring engagements for professional artists. The judge put everything else on hold in the meantime.
“We will litigate whether there was a violation of the labor code only. Any questions as to earnings and damages, all of that will come after,” Judge Wendy Chang ruled from the bench. Her decision followed after Clarkson’s lawyer, Ed McPherson, argued that if his client prevails at the de novo proceeding in August, Blackstock and his family-owned management company, Starstruck Entertainment, will be barred from pursuing the claims in their 2020 lawsuit at a follow-up trial.
“If we win everything at de novo, they don’t even get a trial. They have no right to anything. There would be no management agreement, and they get no commissions,” McPherson argued, noting that Clarkson’s deal with Starstruck was an oral agreement that she believes was voided by Blackstock’s illegal tactics outlined in the labor commission ruling last year.
In another ruling in Clarkson’s favor Wednesday, Judge Chang said the de novo trial will put Clarkson’s fees paid to Blackstock for the procurement of her daytime talk show back on the table.
In the labor ruling from last year now under appeal, the labor commissioner found that Blackstock illegally procured deals for Clarkson related to four of five disputed gigs. The group of four included Clarkson’s deals with The Voice, the home goods retailer Wayfair, a cruise line and a music awards show. In a win for Blackstock, the commissioner found that Blackstock could keep the roughly $750,000 in commissions for The Kelly Clarkson Show that Clarkson wanted him to repay.
When Blackstock appealed the $2.6 million award, he only appealed the rulings on the four deals that didn’t go his way, his lawyer told the court Wednesday. His lawyer argued that commissions paid for the talk show deal should not be part of the de novo trial. Clarkson’s lawyer objected. “We have to start from scratch, with not just the stuff they want, but everything,” McPherson argued.
“We’re litigating the whole thing,” Judge Chang ultimately ruled. She then ordered Blackstock and Starstruck to post a bond of nearly $4 million to ward off having to pay the $2.6 million judgment pending the retrial. Blackstock had proposed opening a joint interest-bearing account with the $2.6 million. Clarkson had asked for a maximum bond of twice that amount.
The August trial, meanwhile, is expected to last at least five days and include live testimony from several witnesses who were not available for the labor commission hearing that lasted several days in March 2023. Expected live testimony from two music agents at Clarkson’s talent agency CAA could prove pivotal. According to Blackstock, CAA music agents Rick Roskin and Darryl Eaton were with him at The Voice’s studio on May 9, 2017 in the minutes before he allegedly spoke with the NBC executive who first extended the lucrative judgeship offer to Clarkson for which Blackstock collected a commission. Blackstock claims the agents asked him to approach the executive for the negotiation, meaning he wasn’t acting alone in violation of the labor code. According to filings obtained by Rolling Stone, Roskin and Eaton deny they were with Blackstock at the Voice compound that day.
According to filings obtained by Rolling Stone, CAA agent Cat Carson testified at the labor commission hearing last year that Roskin and Eaton were not TV agents at CAA and that none of them asked Blackstock to negotiate anything with NBC or anyone else, and that she was upset when he did so on his own.
Lawyers on both sides had no immediate comment after the hearing. In a prior statement to Rolling Stone, one of Blackstock’s lawyers faulted Clarkson for fighting for the return of the millions in commissions.
“It is morally, ethically and legally wrong to attempt to get monies back from your ex-husband who not only helped her as her manager but who used those earnings on their children and Kelly and Brandon’s lifestyle during the marriage,” Bryan Freedman, who represents Blackstock and Starstruck, said.
Clarkson first filed for divorce from Blackstock in June 2020. Starstruck then sued her three months later for alleged breach of their oral management agreement, alleging she owed unpaid commissions. Clarkson responded to that lawsuit by filing her petition with the labor commission in October 2020.
The couple’s bitter breakup was on display during the commission’s evidentiary hearing last year when Clarkson testified that she was never approached by NBC to work on the American version of The Voice before Blackstock reached out to them. She claimed Blackstock had advised her that NBC wasn’t interested because they were looking for “a more sex symbol type.” Asked how she could recall that so specifically, Clarkson testified, “Well, a wife doesn’t forget a time she gets told she’s not a sex symbol, so that stays.”
