Reba McEntire has offered a rare glimpse into how Kelly Clarkson and her two children are coping after the death of Brandon Blackstock — revealing that the family has found a deeply personal way to keep talking about the man they lost.

 

“Everybody’s hanging in there,” McEntire said when asked about Clarkson and her children, River Rose, 11, and Remington “Remy” Alexander, 9.

But the country legend made no attempt to hide how deeply Blackstock’s absence continues to be felt.

“We miss Brandon so much,” she said.

According to McEntire, relatives remain connected through a large family text chain where they share memories, stories and thoughts about Blackstock.

“He was so much life, joy, love,” she said. “He was a prankster and a character.”

The emotional update came ahead of the 2026 Grammy Awards, where McEntire was preparing to perform during the ceremony’s In Memoriam tribute.

For her, the segment was not simply about mourning fellow artists and friends.

This year, the loss was personal.

Reba remembered Brandon before taking the Grammy stage

McEntire, 70, spoke about Blackstock on the red carpet ahead of the Grammy Awards on Sunday, February 1.

Blackstock had been McEntire’s stepson for decades during her marriage to his father, Narvel Blackstock.

Although McEntire and Narvel divorced in 2015, her bond with Brandon did not simply disappear with the marriage.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, she referred to him as her son.

“I’ve got a lot of friends up on that big screen and my son, Brandon Blackstock, we let him go to heaven in August,” McEntire said.

“So we’re gonna be celebrating him tonight also.”

It was an especially poignant admission before an In Memoriam segment dedicated to figures the music industry had lost.

“We’ll miss them,” McEntire said, adding that she hoped they would someday be reunited with the loved ones who had died.

‘Everybody’s hanging in there’

McEntire was also asked how Clarkson and the children were doing months after Blackstock’s death.

Her answer was brief but revealing.

“Everybody’s hanging in there.”

Blackstock died in August 2025 following a three-year battle with melanoma that had been kept largely private.

For Clarkson, his death carried a particularly complicated emotional reality.

The two had divorced in 2022 after a difficult and highly publicized separation.

But regardless of what had happened between them as a couple, Blackstock remained the father of River and Remy.

Clarkson’s focus in the period surrounding his death was firmly on their children.

McEntire’s latest comments suggest the wider family has also remained close as they navigate the months that followed.

A family text chain keeps Brandon part of the conversation

One detail McEntire shared stood out.

The family has a group text chain where they continue talking about Blackstock and remembering him together.

“We all have a big text chain that we stay together and talk about him and remember him,” McEntire explained.

Rather than avoiding his name because the loss remains painful, the family appears to be doing the opposite.

They are keeping his personality and memories present in everyday conversation.

McEntire remembered him not through his illness or the difficult final years of Clarkson’s marriage, but through the energy he brought to the people around him.

“He was so much life, joy, love,” she said.

And there was another quality she particularly remembered.

“He was a prankster and a character.”

Those are the memories the family continues sharing.

The Grammys carried an added meaning for the family

McEntire said relatives were also looking forward to seeing her Grammy performance.

She took the stage during the In Memoriam segment to perform her song “Trailblazer.”

The moment honored members of the music community who had died during the previous year, but Blackstock’s death inevitably gave the performance another layer of significance for her.

He had spent much of his professional life connected to the music industry, working as a talent manager.

His father, Narvel, had also been McEntire’s longtime manager during their marriage.

The Blackstock family and McEntire’s career were therefore intertwined personally and professionally for decades.

Seeing Brandon included among the losses McEntire was carrying into the ceremony made the performance considerably more intimate than an ordinary awards-show appearance.

Reba still calls Brandon her son

Perhaps the most revealing part of McEntire’s comments was the simplicity with which she described Blackstock.

“My son, Brandon Blackstock.”

McEntire married Narvel in 1989, becoming Brandon’s stepmother.

She remained in that role for more than two decades before the marriage ended.

By then, however, the relationship had long since grown beyond a technical family label.

Blackstock later became connected to McEntire in another way when he married Clarkson.

Clarkson and McEntire had their own relationship, both personally and through country music, meaning the family remained interconnected even as marriages changed.

Blackstock’s death therefore represented a loss across several generations of a family whose relationships had evolved considerably over the years.

Clarkson has quietly revealed how her children are coping

McEntire’s comments came shortly after Clarkson herself offered a rare glimpse into life at home with River and Remy.

Clarkson has generally protected the children from excessive public attention, particularly while they process their father’s death.

But during a Q&A for The Kelly Clarkson Show, she revealed one small change in their nighttime routine.

“There’s been a lot for our family recently,” Clarkson acknowledged.

Because of that, she said she had been allowing her children to sleep beside her more frequently.

The resulting arrangement is crowded.

“It’s my two dogs, my two kids and me,” she joked. “It’s a lot.”

Yet the inconvenience is clearly not what Clarkson remembers most about those nights.

Bedtime has become one of Clarkson’s favorite parts of the day

The extra closeness has created moments Clarkson clearly treasures.

“It’s been really special,” she said.

She explained that the conversations she has with River and Remy during that time can be particularly sweet.

“The conversations you have during that time are pretty cute,” she said.

Clarkson even described it as probably her “favorite time of day.”

The comments offered a small but meaningful glimpse into the family’s adjustment after Blackstock’s death.

There was no elaborate description of grief or attempt to explain exactly what the children were feeling.

Instead, Clarkson described something ordinary: children sleeping beside their mother, dogs joining them and quiet conversations at the end of the day.

For a family experiencing significant loss, those ordinary moments appear to have become especially valuable.

Clarkson stepped away from work before Blackstock died

The seriousness of the family’s situation became public shortly before Blackstock’s death.

Clarkson announced that she was taking time away from her Las Vegas residency because her children’s father had been ill.

The singer, who generally keeps her private family life away from public discussion, acknowledged that she needed to prioritize River and Remy.

“While I normally keep my personal life private, this past year, my children’s father has been ill and at this moment, I need to be fully present for them,” Clarkson wrote.

She also apologized to fans affected by the scheduling changes and thanked them for their “grace, kindness and understanding.”

Blackstock died soon afterward.

The announcement subsequently took on a much sadder meaning.

Clarkson had not stepped away simply because of a busy family situation.

Her children were preparing to lose their father.

Brandon had kept his cancer battle private

Blackstock had been battling melanoma, a form of skin cancer, for three years.

His diagnosis was largely kept out of public view.

That privacy meant the seriousness of his condition was not widely understood until near the end of his life.

For Clarkson and the children, however, his illness had already been shaping their lives behind the scenes.

Clarkson’s decision to clear her professional schedule reflected the situation the family was facing away from cameras.

She eventually returned to The Kelly Clarkson Show at the end of September 2025.

But returning to work did not mean the family’s grieving process had ended.

Months later, her comments about bedtime with River and Remy made clear that they were still finding their own ways to navigate what had happened.

Divorce did not erase the family they created

Clarkson and Blackstock’s relationship had been complicated long before his death.

They married in 2013 and separated in 2020.

Their divorce was finalized in 2022 following a contentious breakup involving both personal and professional disputes.

Blackstock had also managed Clarkson, further intertwining their marriage with business.

But they shared something that remained unchanged by divorce: River and Remy.

When Blackstock became seriously ill, the children’s needs became central.

Clarkson stepped away from work to support them.

Now McEntire’s comments reveal another part of that process — an extended family staying connected and deliberately keeping Brandon’s memory alive.

Remembering the person behind the difficult years

Public discussion of Blackstock in the years before his death had often been dominated by Clarkson’s divorce.

McEntire’s memories offer a very different portrait.

She remembers someone full of “life, joy, love.”

She remembers a prankster.

She remembers a character.

Most strikingly, she remembers a son.

Those descriptions do not erase the complicated history surrounding Clarkson and Blackstock’s marriage.

They simply reflect another part of a person whose relationships extended far beyond his divorce.

For River and Remy in particular, those memories may become increasingly important as they grow older.

The family is ‘hanging in there’ together

There was no attempt from McEntire to suggest that everything has returned to normal.

Her phrase was more measured.

“Everybody’s hanging in there.”

Five words that acknowledge both the difficulty of the loss and the family’s effort to continue moving forward.

For Clarkson, that has meant keeping her children close enough that bedtime sometimes includes two kids, two dogs and very little personal space.

For McEntire and the wider family, it has meant maintaining a text chain where Brandon’s name, stories and personality remain part of the conversation.

And at the Grammys, it meant McEntire walking onto one of music’s biggest stages carrying a loss that was much closer to home.

Months after Brandon Blackstock’s death, the family is still grieving.

But judging by McEntire’s update, they are making sure they do not have to do it alone.