Kelly Clarkson on From Justin To Kelly: "It was a very miserable time of my life"

Kelly Clarkson’s never been shy about deriding 2003's From Justin To Kelly—she told Time in 2015 that she “just want[s] it to go away”—but her return to film with this month’s UglyDolls has her reflecting on just what was so traumatic about the fluffy, misguided beach comedy, one the execrable Razzies called the “Worst ‘Musical’ Of Our First 25 Years.”

As the winner of American Idol’s first season, Clarkson was contractually obligated to star in the film. At some point, however—probably after seeing the script—she reveals to the Los Angeles Times that she “talked to many lawyers and could not get out of [it].”

“I just didn’t believe in it, first of all,” she says. “I’m not a beach blanket-movie kind of girl. And I didn’t want it to deter or ruin any chance of me being able to go down the path I actually auditioned for on Idol.”

“It was a very miserable time of my life,” she continues. “I feel like it’s one of those things where, ‘There are plenty of people that would love to do this—why don’t you ask one of them?’ There were plenty of people on that show. I think I might have been the only one that didn’t want to do it. But the winner had to, so. I can get over the fact that it’s silly and cute—that’s not embarrassing to me at all. I just don’t find it very cool that somebody makes you do something that is not your passion and you don’t want to do.”

Clarkson credits the early release of her first single, “Miss Independent”—it came out before the movie—for saving her career, saying, “The fact that that was successful, I think that overcame what the movie was.”

Read the full interview here.