On a June 12 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, Kelly hosted a Q&A session called “Ask Kelly Anything,” where she answered her audience’s burning questions.
When an audience member, who shared she’s the parent of twins, asked Kelly about her favorite summer vacation as a kid, she had a surprisingly unique answer.
“Oh, we were poor. We didn’t do vacations,” Kelly said. “We, you know, went and played in the backyard.”
Not only did Kelly not go on vacations as a kid, but her mother had a very “artsy” alternative to actually traveling the world.
“So well, one thing that is funny, though, is our mother would take my school picture and she would cut it out and then she would post me in like the desert,” she said. “She would paste me, she would glue me onto, like, a desert scene or in the mountains or the Swiss Alps. Oh, she’s on a grassy knoll.”
“Like, you know, she would just post me somewhere as if, I guess, we had gone to… You’re welcome, Mom,” she continued, laughing. “And it was, like, an artsy thing I think she did, too. But also, yeah, we don’t have vacation pics.”
Here’s the photo Kelly shared in the episode:
Kelly acknowledged that her family probably wasn’t the only one who didn’t go on big vacations and family trips. “I don’t think everybody can afford to vacation,” Kelly said before asking the audience member, “How do you afford a vacation with two sets of twins?”
“I’m going to be posting pictures of them at the Swiss Alps,” the audience member responded.
“You should take the advice,” Kelly continued. “You can go anywhere really. You just post yourself there, you glue yourself there.”
“I don’t know, it was really funny. I’m glad you brought that up so I can embarrass my mother and show the world her artistic endeavors.”
While Kelly thought it was funny, her fans thought it was a pretty cute story. One Reddit user wrote, “Kelly is just the cutest thing ever love her so much.”
Another Reddit user wrote, “She’s never not charming as hell lol. Her ma sounds great.”
Kelly’s admission about her family being unable to afford vacations even prompted a few people to share their stories.
“I know this was meant to be a cute, funny story, but this made me a little emotional. Shout out to all the great parents out there who can’t afford to do it all for their kids, or to take them on vacations, but wish that they could. I grew up in a family that didn’t have money for vacations. We went on one family vacation in 2005, when my siblings and I were all teens, and we still reminisce on that trip fondly as adults,” one person wrote.
Another person wrote, “I’d never been on what you Americans call a Vacation until well into adulthood (29 now). Family couldn’t afford it. Makes me feel like everyone in the U.S. is rich. Because it seemed only a select few at my school got the privilege.”
Now it’s your turn! What was your favorite summer vacation as a kid? Tell me about it in the comments, or use this anonymous form to share your stories.