Taylor Swift sent Kelly Clarkson flowers after the release of “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” the “Since U Been Gone” singer said Thursday.
But it’s not the first time Clarkson has received such a gift from Swift, she told E! News, adding that the “Blank Space” singer said she would extend the gesture “every time I release something.”
The reason goes back to a tweet from four years ago.
In July 2019, Clarkson heard that Scooter Braun had purchased the Big Machine Records label and was refusing to sell Swift the rights to her first six albums’ masters, she told Andy Cohen on his Sirius XM radio show this past summer. “It felt wrong that [Swift] didn’t have the opportunity” to own her songs when she was willing to buy them, Clarkson said.
That was when the “Stronger” singer tweeted out the billion-dollar idea: Swift should rerecord her songs.
“It wasn’t anything against [Braun],” Clarkson said, although he seemed to take offense and called her manager about the tweet. “I knew it was important to her, so I thought, ‘Why don’t you just rerecord them and your fans will support you.’”
But when Cohen asked whether Swift had thanked Clarkson for the idea to rerecord her albums, the talk-show host refused to take any credit.
“This woman is brilliant,” she told him. “She would’ve come up with that on her own, and she maybe already had before I even tweeted it.”
Back in the present, Clarkson gushed to E! News about Swift’s character and intelligence.
“I love how kind she is. She’s a very smart businesswoman,” said Clarkson. “It just sucks when you see artists that you admire and you respect really wanting something and it’s special to them. You know, if they’re going to find a loophole, you find a loophole. And she did.”
That loophole has paid off big-time for one of the bestselling music artists of all time.
In October, “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” became Swift’s 13th No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and sold 1.6 million units in the U.S. (and more than 3.5 million units worldwide) in the first week of release alone — garnering Swift the biggest album debut of her career.
“It’s so cool to see a fan base really get behind her,” Clarkson told E! News. “She’s really known for being such an incredible songwriter and the soundtrack to a lot of people’s lives, and that’s her life, so like, you should have the option of owning that.”
Only two albums are yet to be rereleased: her debut, “Taylor Swift,” which came out in 2006, and 2017’s “Reputation.”
