Kelly Clarkson is looking back on her own reality TV beginnings and she can definitely relate to the frustrations that come with them.
During a recent episode of “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” the inaugural champion found herself bonding with “The Traitors” winner Rob Rausch over an unexpected shared experience: not getting the prize money right away. When Rausch mentioned he was still waiting on his $220,800 payout, Clarkson admitted she understood “so hardcore.”
“You probably weren’t alive when I was on ‘American Idol,'” she teased Rausch on the March 10 broadcast. “I literally was on the show, and they were like, ‘Oh, you win a million dollars’ or whatever. No, you didn’t. They lied. You did not. It was, like, a million dollars worth of investment in you.”
Her revelation stunned both Rausch and fellow guest Daniel Radcliffe, especially as Clarkson went on to describe the prizes she never actually received after winning the series, which has been airing since 2002.
“They said you get a car and I needed it ’cause my car was bashed in, and I couldn’t afford the deductible,” she explained. “I did not get a car. And then Clay Aiken, who didn’t win the second season, got a car.”
And the surprises didn’t stop there — Aiken’s mother also ended up with a vehicle.
“I was like, ‘What the f–k?'” Clarkson recalled. “I remember Clay telling me that the second season, he’s like, ‘Yeah, they gave my mom one.’ I was like, ‘I’m gonna actually kick your ass right now.'”
Radcliffe wondered aloud whether Clarkson, as the franchise’s very first winner, should be retroactively granted the prizes later contestants received. Clarkson, however, emphasized that she had expected the original rewards to be honored at the time.
“It was supposed to be the prize then, OK? It was supposed to be the prize then,” she said, before joking to Rausch about his own pending payout. “That’s why I’m saying, you might not see it. You might not see it. But, you know, I hope you got enough TV time.”
NBC Local has reached out to “American Idol” for comment and has not yet received a response.
