Kelly—who is mom to kids River, 11, and Remington, 9, with late ex-husband Brandon Blackstock—had previously discussed her life after winning American Idol and some of the difficulties that came along with it.

“After I won Idol, people were like, ‘Oh, she’s a millionaire,'” Kelly recalled on Kylie Kelce‘s Not Gonna Lie podcast in 2025 . “No. I wasn’t. Like, they say ‘million dollar’ contract. No I didn’t. They said I’d get a car. No. I didn’t. Like, I didn’t get any of that.”

As she explained, “We were playing, like, festivals in the middle of cow s–t plugging in all our gear.”

And for Kelly it was an especially interesting time as she was the first winner of the reality series and didn’t have anyone she could relate to. 

“I had no one,” she admitted. “I was the first winner. It was hard. Not to sound like—whatever, it was really hard.”

For a deep dive into more behind-the-scenes details about American Idol, keep reading.