{"id":191014,"date":"2025-10-05T06:24:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T06:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191014\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T06:24:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T06:24:16","slug":"kelly-clarkson-breaks-down-in-tears-on-talk-shows-season-7-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191014\/","title":{"rendered":"Kelly Clarkson breaks down in tears on talk show’s season 7 premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kelly Clarkson<\/a> tried to fight back tears on the season 7 premiere of her talk show as she interviewed a group of courageous bus drivers who traversed dangerous roadways to rescue children during this summer\u2019s deadly Texas flash floods<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The \u201cStronger\u201d singer and Texas native, 43, wiped tears from her eyes as she spoke with Kerrville school district superintendent Dr. Brent Ringo about the impact that the July 4 flooding\u00a0\u2014 which killed at least 135 people and left more still missing\u00a0\u2014 had on their community and its summer camps including Camp Mystic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe activated our emergency operations plan in Kerrville ISD, and [sent] the text message out, \u2018Anyone that can drive a bus?\u2019\u201d Ringo recalled on Monday’s The Kelly Clarkson Show<\/a>. \u201cA bus driver, a coach, high school principal, our middle school assistant principal, assistant superintendents \u2014\u00a0within 10, 15 minutes [we] had a response that they were on the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clarkson then welcomed some of the drivers to the stage, including a teacher named Amanda who shared why she chose to answer the call for help on July 4.<\/p>\n

\"Ralph<\/p>\n

Ralph Bavaro\/NBCUniversal<\/p>\n

Kelly Clarkson on ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show’ season 7 premiere<\/p>\n

\u201cI think all day people just wanted to help and we wanted to stay out of the way of our first responders and we were just waiting,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so when we got that call, everybody just hopped in, like, we just [said], \u2018Give me the keys!\u2019 It was just a normal day and we\u2019re just gonna go pick up kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amanda became visibly emotional as she detailed her experience picking up children from Camp Mystic, which saw 27 girls and counselors killed in the flood<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cWe took them to the reunification process \u2014 basically triage, they\u2019re make sure everybody was okay,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd they really had to take pictures to see what kids we had, because parents obviously were just in complete shock, they didn\u2019t know what kids we had.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She continued, \u201cIt was awesome to see all the parents reunited with their kids. The hardest part was when the last kid got off your bus and the parents just asked, \u2018Was that it?\u2019 So it\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Weiss<\/p>\n

Weiss Eubanks\/NBCUniversal<\/p>\n

Dr. Brent Ringo on ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show’<\/p>\n

Clarkson, who has two children with her late ex Brandon Blackstock<\/a>, could be seen wiping her eyes with a tissue as Amanda recalled the situation. \u201cAnd looking at the parents, I can\u2019t\u2026” she began, seemingly unable to find the words. Amanda simply responded, \u201cYeah, it\u2019s awful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The premiere was Clarkson’s first episode since going on hiatus after Blackstock died on Aug. 7.<\/a> The American Idol winner also pulled out of an Aug. 17 benefit concert for those affected by the Texas floods<\/a> due to his death.<\/p>\n

The three-time Grammy winner continued to weep on Monday’s show as Geri, another Kerrville driver, explained that the kids on her bus chose to comfort one another by singing Christian songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cDriving in the devastation, it was catastrophic out there, the devastation, but they comforted each other,\u201d Geri said, with Clarkson echoing that it was a \u201ctherapeutic way to stay calm\u201d amid the destruction.<\/p>\n

After the commercial break, Clarkson explained that the bus drivers were responsible for rescuing a total of \u201c900 children\u201d who were stranded due to the floods over the subsequent days. She then paused to give them a round of applause.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur drivers are more than just drivers, they\u2019re heroes,\u201d Ringo said. \u201cAnd I know if I love on them, they\u2019re gonna love on our kids, and they did that that day and it just makes me so proud to see the support and them stepping up in a moments notice, not even knowing what they\u2019re getting themselves into and helping 900 campers out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Weiss<\/p>\n

Weiss Eubanks\/NBCUniversal<\/p>\n

Kerrville bus drivers with Kelly Clarkson on ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show’<\/p>\n

Sign up for\u00a0Entertainment Weekly’s\u00a0free daily newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to get breaking news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.<\/p>\n

Clarkson wiped tears from her eyes as Ringo explained that the community is still taking the loss \u201cday by day.\u201d He added, \u201cIt\u2019s gonna be a longterm recovery as we go through this, and so this year, we\u2019re able to make sure all 5,000 kids received backpacks and school supplies. We wanted to take that burden off our parents as much as we could and the outpouring of support coming in helped take care of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, they\u2019re focused on taking care of the families and their emotional needs moving forward. \u201cEverybody knows somebody that has lost someone, and so we have counselors in our buildings, outside of our buildings, we want to make sure our families are taken care of on their time,” Ringo said. “And so it\u2019s going to be a longterm recovery process to make sure everyone\u2019s taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clarkson then introduced Lacey, the public affairs manager of Texas supermarket chain H-E-B, who announced that the company would be continuing its ongoing relief efforts by donating $50,000 to support the Children\u2019s Bereavement Center of South Texas to help those affected and an additional $50,000 to the Kerrville Public School Foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Clarkson went on to praise the drivers as \u201cheroes,\u201d adding, \u201cIn moments like this, the least we can do is say thank you and we support you and that is what it\u2019s all about. So thank you for everything that you\u2019ve done for our kids on the daily.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kelly Clarkson Show airs weekdays on syndication.<\/p>\n

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kelly Clarkson tried to fight back tears on the season 7 premiere of her talk show as she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,120957,120958,134,10064,120959,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-191014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brent-ringo","11":"tag-bus-drivers","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-kelly-clarkson","14":"tag-kerrville-isd","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}