"Everyone was so rude to us on the carpet, at the show — it was so bad. It was a horrible experience."

Kelly Clarkson has spoken very openly about her experiences in the music industry and, unsurprisingly, it's not all roses. The singer, who won first series of American Idol, found that becoming famous through a talent show wasn't as fabulous as it was made out to be. In fact, she says that a lot of people looked down on her after winning the series, and would even go as far as to say some were "mean". Kelly revealed all on her talk show recently when interviewing Jennifer Love Hewitt. She told Jennifer she was one of the ones who was nice to her from then start of her career. She remembers the experience of being on American Idol as an "unkind time" in her life. "You probably don't remember this, but it stuck with me for so long — almost 20 years now. It was at some MTV Awards, and it was right when I was in the final three of Idol," she said. "We were just so slammed and everything was happening in a whirlwind, and people were really mean to us because we're from a talent show and it was the first season." She went on to say: "Everyone was so rude to us on the carpet, at the show — it was so bad. It was a horrible experience and you came up to me and ran out of nowhere and were like, 'Oh my gosh! I'm really rooting for you!'" Kelly also thanked Jennifer for her words of advice, which she gave her back in 2002. "You told me, 'Please keep the ones you love so close and it'll end up being about a few people in your life, unfortunately, this business can be really hard.' "'And just remember to keep those people who really love you close.' You just gave me this advice that was really, really kind in such an unkind time for me personally."