Kelly Clarkson on Boyfriends and Backlash

On her new video for "I Do Not Hook Up":
"It's not gonna promote abstinence. OK, I guess it's not not promoting it. Everyone kept sending me these treatments that were obvious, like [nonchalant voice] 'I do not hook up,' pushing guys away, and I'm like, 'Seriously?' So I wrote this whole treatment about how the girl is a good girl, but inside her head, every time she turns around, she's fantasizing. So she's hooking up in her fantasies, but never in real life, just to put a twist on it. The girl's not really a bad girl, but in her head, she's like this freak. And it's absolutely hilarious. I mean, to see me crawling across a table, it's pretty much comedy at its finest."

On mining her personal life for lyrics:
"A lot of people think I'm straightforward with my writing. I'm really not. Most of the time [it seems like] I'm writing about a relationship and it's not really about that. It's about something else that's going on in my life and I'm kind of relaying it this way. 'Cry' was about a friendship that went really wrong and I just wrote it in the form of a relationship because usually people relate to those songs. With that song, I went through a really shitty thing with someone who betrayed me. When I started writing the song I was like, 'I'm gonna write this like it's a guy and a relationship.' "

On why she's not — contrary to rumors — abandoning pop and going country:
"Obviously I grew up in Texas and most of my favorite singers are country artists, but I love pop music because it means 'popular' so you can incorporate [different influences]. My writing is sometimes similar to the way country artists write because I grew up around it a lot — on this record, if you listen to 'Cry,' it's a total waltz written like a country song, and so is 'Because of You' — but I also write pop songs like 'How I Feel' or 'Never Again' or 'Walk Away' or 'Miss Independent.' That's the cool thing about being in pop music; you don't have to make just one record. You can make a record with so many different sounds on it. I probably won't ever just do one thing."

On kicking off her career on American Idol:
"Over the past seven years, I've worked with people that say, 'We need to package you and you're gonna have this image and you need to do this...' And the one thing that I love is my leverage. On Idol, I was the total girl that was just totally comfortable in my skin, and that's who I am and people liked it, so I don't know why I would try to stray from the formula there. Usually, most artists are packaged from a label coming out of a box. It's not just like someone comes out and they just happen to be that dramatic. I like the fact that I didn't have to go through that. I'm very lucky."

More Kelly Clarkson:

• Kelly Clarkson Photo Gallery
• Album Review: All I Ever Wanted
• Kelly Clarkson Videos