Kelly Clarkson has 13 tattoos— or 14, depending on the source. Even NBC, the home of both The Kelly Clarkson Show and The Voice, is noncommittal with its count. Based on what Clarkson's revealed in the past, she's not one to pick something off a flash sheet with little to no personal meaning. Instead, her ink is like the rest of her art because it tells stories about her career, family and faith.
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Confirmed tats include a four-leaf clover made of hearts and a snowflake.
"A lot of my tattoos are reminders," she told Access Hollywood in 2021. "They're not all struggles, but a lot of them are. I am such a forgiving human... I'm forgiving and loyal to a fault. I forget what happens. And then you just keep letting —you allow the same thing to repeat. So, a lot of mine are like, 'Don't do it.' Like there's one on my middle finger. I like to believe in the good side of humanity, but it doesn't always work out."
One with a specific meaning is a puzzle piece she's had since at least 2010.
"How it is on me is, it's like you've removed the top layer of me, and you can see inside," she told the Gay Times. "Inside the puzzle piece is this little tornado with a golden brick road and a hot air balloon, a kind of The Wizard of Oz theme. It's like you peek inside. It's a very dark tattoo actually, it was a childhood thing I loved, but also it worked for my life at the time."
Per a Taste of Country interview from 2012, Clarkson's got the words "Love Them More" and a cross on her right wrist. Both represent her Christian upbringing, with the quote coming directly from a preacher.
"He told me at a very young age you have to love them more because they weren't loved enough, and that's why they're mean," Clarkson told the outlet, adding that she sometimes looks down at the permanent words of wisdom "because there are a lot of mean people in this industry."
In another interview from 2012, Clarkson explained how one of her tattoos references her hit "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)."
"I got my last tattoo here [in London]," Clarkson told Female First. "It's on my rib cage, and it's in Morse code, and it says, 'What doesn't kill you.' I was going to get it on my neck, and then I got there, and I thought it might look cool right under the bra line, so I did that."
During Cami Clune's 2020 audition on The Voice, Clarkson admitted that she feared her religious mother's reaction to tattoos. However, Mom softened up, as she's got at least one piece of body art themed around ones sported by Clarkson and a second daughter, Alyssa.
"My sister has a star [tattoo], I have the moon and my mom has a sun with a star and a moon in it," Clarkson told Female First. "My mother is a Southern Baptist, 'Your body is a temple, do not disgrace it with a tattoo.' I have no idea how we convinced her. I think she liked having a tattoo with her daughters, so it's kind of cool."
