IF you see Kelly Clarkson at the moment you'd be forgiven for not recognising her. The Texan singer has finally bowed to her roots and gone blonde.
"I got bored one day," she says in her rapid-fire speech. "I'm naturally blonde, just not this blonde. But I've been dyeing it dark since I was young, because everybody in Texas has big bleached blonde hair, and I didn't want to be like everybody else.
There is another reason you'd be forgiven for not recognising this huge American star - she's just not done that well here in the UK.
After she won the first American Idol, the US version of Pop Idol, in 2002, she went on to sell truckloads of her debut album Thankful in the USA. In the UK, however, Thankful only reached No 52, despite things initially looking promising after Kelly's debut single Miss Independent went Top 10.
"I'm a big success in the States because people get to see me perform," says Kelly.. "I've done four tours there. Here I haven't toured so my big plan is to do that.
"One of my biggest priorities is to be more worldwide. It's not even about selling more, I just want to come over here and perform, because I love touring."
So we'll be seeing a lot more of the 23-year-old over the coming weeks as she promotes her new single Since U Been Gone and her second album Breakaway.
One thing that marks Kelly out from all the others is her voice. It's what won her American Idol in 2002, and yet when it came to recording her debut album, producers found it difficult to work with.
Says Kelly: "I don't know why. I have a big voice and a lot of people aren't used to working with people as loud as I am."
Her singing talent was cultivated by her school choral director who encouraged her to sign up for the school choir after hearing her singing in the school hallway.
