"I'll tell you what, they are frickin' getting expensive with their baggage (expletive) and their dogs (fees)," says Clarkson, who travels with her white Maltese, Security, and her black miniature labradoodle, Joplin. "It's like $125 each now!"

"Celebrity is weird," she says, shaking her head before politely telling her publicist she's not needed.
Clarkson's got this. Aside from her no-holds-barred candor, Clarkson has stealthily avoided the pitfalls of fame. No arrests. No 36-hour Vegas marriages. No drug overdoses.
"I have no controversy," she says. "You don't see me in rehab, or you don't see me coming out with my hey-haw showing. There's not much to report. So when anything little is reported, it's like 'Oh, my God, she wasn't wearing makeup!'"

Clarkson says she's never been in love. "I've never experienced certain things, and I think that's because I have this side of me that is shut off. Because I haven't found anybody yet to open to that I feel like, 'OK, you're worth breaking down that wall for.' I've never found that."
She's still looking, but marriage is something she's reserving for her late 30s. "Because statistically, if you wait that long, you're not going to get divorced," she says.
And she has other big things planned. "I think at some point in my 30s, I don't know if I want to do a revival show or something, like bring back Funny Girl, or start a completely-from-scratch musical." But "that's something I really want to do. I love Broadway."
At the close of what she calls "the searching decade," the wiser pop star keeps it real.
"You know what makes me feel old? My nephew that's like 9 right now. He was just born (when this started)," she says with a laugh. "That's old."

Tags: Kelly Clarkson revealed: 'I've never been in love', Kelly Clarkson