And while the singer was awarded primary physical custody of their two children, her ex-husband isn’t backing down and is going towards the full extent of law to get money out of her through spousal support.
Californian lawyer Kelly Chang Rickert explained why the American Idol winner might have to pay a staggering $300,000 monthly in alimony along with $135k in child support.
“California has one of the highest guideline supports in all 50 states, it’s based off income. So yes, depending on Kelly’s salary (which should be in the millions), his request sounds about right,” she told HollywoodLife.
“You can still get child support if you don’t have majority of the kids, if the other sides income is far, far greater,” she said.
“He basically got her financials, plugged it in and is asking for the guideline and he’s going to get it because the guideline in California is extremely high. He doesn’t have to justify it because it doesn’t matter because it’s guidelines,” she went on to say.
“They’ll probably negotiate something, because maybe her income goes up and down, up and down. If she has a bad year, like no royalties or something, then it’ll go down, so they’ll negotiate something,” she continued.
“Her earning capacity is not going to be like this forever, I don’t think, so she won’t be able to pay this amount forever.”
“Child support is always modifiable. You can negotiate for alimony to be non-modifiable, but in typical cases where income goes up and down, they don’t agree to that. They always say child support is modifiable,” she added.
“It really depends what she’s making, because the formula for alimony is pretty high in the state. There are very set guidelines that take into account what each party is making. It is really just based on her earnings.”
“If she makes $20 million per year then she would pay $8000 a month in child support, and $90,000 in alimony per month. But if she earns more, it goes up,” she said.
“They were married for seven years so she’ll be paying three and a half years of alimony. But child support is payable until the kids are 18. We don’t know what happened to end the marriage but even if he was unfaithful to her she still has to pay because it doesn’t matter,” she added.
Clarkson and Blackstock got married back in 2013 and filed for a divorce this year in June. They are parents to two kids, River Rose, 6, and Remy, 4.