In 2006, Kelly Clarkson won her first two Grammys (Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Since U Been Gone" and Best Pop Vocal Album for Breakaway) but she wasn't in a celebratory mood. The singer, now 34 years old, told Billboard's Pop Shop Podcast on Monday that she found out she might have cancer the morning of the awards show.
"Well, not many people know this — not to be a Debbie Downer — but I was told that morning that I had cancerous results for something," she said on the podcast. Clarkson spent the whole day crying, getting her makeup redone four times to cover it up.
"Then when I won, I thought, 'Oh my God. This is like God giving me one more thing before something horrible happens,'" she said.
This puts her acceptance speech for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in a whole new light. While the then-23-year-old was overcome with tears — "Um...oh, God! You know I'm terrible at speaking when I cry, so sorry!" — it was for a whole different reason.
"I'm sorry I'm crying again on national television!" she continued in the speech. "Thank you to the fans. Thank you for everyone that worked on my record. Yikes! Just thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me. Thank you so much!"
After all that, Clarkson found out the next day that it was a mistake.
"I went to the doctor's the next day and they apologized for mixing up results," she told the podcast. "And I was like, 'Are you for real?!'" Her special day was ruined by the news, and the relief was bittersweet because it shouldn't have happened in the first place.
"I was like, 'Who mixes up results? Why wouldn't you test again?'" she said. "It was very much a roller coaster ride, that day, for me. So, it's kind of unfortunate, but a lot of the moments got stolen from that mishap. But hey, I didn't have cancer!"