While Kelly Clarkson refused to name an A-list star who was allegedly “mean” and “cruel” to her early on in her career, an entertainment reporter claimed it was former The Voice coach Christina Aguilera who was the hater.

“It was Christina. She was openly dismissive of Kelly from day one — she didn’t think a reality show winner belonged in the big leagues,” Rob Shuter wrote in his Substack account on Sunday, March 30. He posted a teaser to his Instagram account but disabled the comments.

Kelly, 42, made the revelation that she had a celebrity hater during an appearance on Kylie Kelce‘s “Not Gonna Lie” podcast on March 27.

“People were really mean. People that were really mean have been coaches,” she said about life after her American Idol season 1 win in September 2002.

“They hated talent shows — and they ended up being on The Voice,” Kelly continued, giving a much more detailed hint about who it could have been by mentioning the NBC singing competition.

Christina, 44, ended up becoming one of the original four coaches on The Voice when it premiered in 2011, nine years after Kelly won American Idol. She appeared on the next two seasons before taking intermittent breaks for her music career. Christina returned to The Voice as a coach for seasons 5, 8 and 10.

Kelly explained how groundbreaking American Idol was and that it was hard to be taken seriously as the first winner. However, after the show became a ratings smash, other competition shows like The Voice made established singers accept the musical talents of people who came from reality shows.

“People were really cruel at first. They didn’t like it,” the “Love So Soft” singer said during the podcast. “It took the industry kind of by storm, the talent shows. It was a very unlikable thing in the industry concerning the populous. Now there’s so many.”

The Grammy winner added that the pressure of performing live weekly and being judged by a nationwide audience was something that established artists would not be able to understand.

“People like us who have been there in that audition process, and just being so judged instantaneously, on maybe not your best performance but you know you can do better. It’s a grueling thing,” Kelly said of competing on American Idol.

“It’s unforgiving in a lot of ways, and a lot of pressure for these artists that I don’t think a lot of artists that sell tons of records would be able to handle. It’s a different thing,” she added.

Kelly’s first post-Idol breakout hit was 2003’s “Miss Independent,” which Christina cowrote.

Andy Cohen asked the “Stronger” singer about it during a 2018 appearance on Watch What Happens Live, wondering, “How happy were you that Christina Aguilera didn’t want ‘Miss Independent.’”

Kelly noted that the song “wasn’t finished,” but “they did start writing it” with the “Dirrty” songstress.

“My label at the time didn’t tell me but I guess the producers and writers started it with her but then it wasn’t finished so I ended up writing the rest and finishing it without even knowing she was on it or ever a part of it,” Kelly told Andy, 56.

She continued, “I swear to God, I got my album booklet, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, my first album,’ and then I was like, ‘Why is Christina Aguilera on it? That’s weird?’

Kelly gushed, “And I love her, so I’m like, ‘Cool… but what?’ It was the most a weird thing.” The daytime talk show host added that Christina “made good money,” as one of the cowriters, as “that was a pretty big song.”