--- description: The singer confessed to Ellen DeGeneres that she ghosted on a guy in the middle of their first date when she was 18—and she still feels bad. title: Kelly Clarkson Admits She Was the Worst Date Ever as a Teen image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Kelly Clarkson Admits She Was the Worst Date Ever When She Was 18  by [Raisa Bruner](/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 4, 2016 7:45 PM CUT  by [Raisa Bruner](/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 4, 2016 7:45 PM CUT [Original _American Idol_ winner Kelly Clarkson](http://time.com/4377176/kelly-clarkson-facebook-live/?iid=sr-link7 "undefined") made a serious confession to Ellen DeGeneres on Tuesday: she ghosted on a date once when she was 18, and she still feels terrible about. DeGeneres had promised to donate $10,000 to a breast cancer charity if she shared a never-before-heard secret, and Clarkson bashfully came up with this one. Apparently, she had met the date while working as a cocktail waitress, and finally agreed to spend time with him. But it did not go smoothly. “I withstood an hour,” she told DeGeneres about her second-ever date. “And then I went to the bathroom and I left… I’m going straight to hell, I’m aware. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.” She added a public, years-delayed apology, in case he had happened to tune in to her big confession: “If you’re out there, I’m so sorry. I know I’m a horrible human.” She added that she tried to amp herself up to say goodbye properly—but chickened out at the last minute. “Honest to God I had a ‘come to Jesus’ in the bathroom, and I was like, ‘You will go out there, you will put your big girl panties on and do it, and just go out there and just be a good person.’ And I chose to not be.” As for the nameless stranger, he’s probably been singing “Since U Been Gone” all these years to get over the slight. Watch the full clip above. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4517991/kelly-clarkson-on-ellen/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4517991/kelly-clarkson-on-ellen/"},"headline":"Kelly Clarkson Admits She Was the Worst Date Ever When She Was 18","datePublished":"2016-10-04T19:45:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:37:17.665Z","description":"\"It was bad, y'all.\"","url":"https://time.com/4517991/kelly-clarkson-on-ellen/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Entertainment","celebrities"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4517991/kelly-clarkson-on-ellen/","name":"Kelly Clarkson Admits She Was the Worst Date Ever When She Was 18"}}]}] ```