The latest Kellyoke victim has spoken.
As diehard viewers of The Kelly Clarkson Show already know, nobody is safe from having their hits covered by the Grammy-winning host. But the latest Kellyoke victim has given the singer their stamp of approval.
On Tuesday, Kelly Clarkon shared her powerful, stripped-down cover of Katy Perry’s “Wide Awake.” Accompanied by her show’s musical director Jason Halbert, the singer slowed down the ballad for her Kellyoke cover and performed the song acoustically, letting her impressive vocal range take centerstage. Her rendition quickly earned love on social media, eventually catching the eye of Perry herself, who couldn’t help but chime in with praise.
“Ok dang I can never sing that again,” Perry jokingly commented on a video of the performance posted by the official Kelly Clarkson Show Instagram.
The comment has received over 6K likes, with many fans chiming in to reassure Perry that they’d love to continue hearing her sing the track live.
“This is my favorite song of yours and I feel every second when I [listen] to your version,” wrote one commenter. “I love Kelly and the cover was amazing but I could never change your version.”
“Duet?” suggested another.
Clarkson’s cover comes nearly 12 years after Perry first released the song as part of Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection. It was specifically penned for her 2012 concert film Katy Perry: Part of Me, with both the song and accompanying music video inspired by major life changes, including her divorce from Russell Brand.
“It’s kind of like the labyrinth of my life in the last two years,” Perry told MTV at the time. “I just wanted to tell a story about myself kind of going through this journey, maybe sometimes trying to get out of the maze. There’s good parts, there’s bad parts, and the whole time there’s the younger version of me leading me through.”
The track peaked at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Clarkson regularly covers songs as part of her daytime talk show, a popular conceit that often sees the “Stronger” singer going viral for reinventing another artists’ song. Clarkson last year caught attention online for her rendition of “Desperado” by the Eagles, and before that her version of Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever.”
You can watch Kelly win over fans — and Katy Perry herself — with her “Wide Awake” cover above.
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