Kelly Clarkson says she was “blindsided” by accusations that her talk show was “toxic”

In May, a report came out that The Kelly Clarkson Show was a toxic workplace, with current and former staffers saying that executive producer Alex Duda—not host Kelly Clarkson—is “a monster” who had previously made employees miserable on other talk show jobs and allegedly had a habit of engaging in “bullying and verbal abuse.”

At the time, the staffers suggested that Clarkson had no idea of what was happening with lower-level employees on her show, and shortly after the report came out she released a statement promising that “any notion of toxicity” would be “eradicated.” She also vowed to have all senior staff, including her, go through leadership training.

As this has been going on, The Kelly Clarkson Show has shifted its operations to New York City from Los Angeles, but Clarkson says in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter that they had at least anticipated that there might be some difficulties with that. She says they were already planning on figuring out a way to integrate the new New York staff with existing L.A. staff members who chose to make the move, but Clarkson says she was “blindsided” by the revelation that people working under her were unhappy beyond that.

She says “it sucks” to have something going on at her show that she “maybe didn’t know” about, but she also says they’re at “a great point” to deal with it. She makes it sound like she’s committed to doing better, and she says the report made the people working on the show recognize that “there’s something wrong” and they need to “fix this.” She doesn’t offer any specifics, really, but she says the people in charge want to “be better and better examples” and “make sure everybody feels included and a part of the team.”