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When I interviewed the hottest rapper in the game in mid-August, Cardi B talked about expanding their family.

"As soon as I finish my work, I've got some things planned," she said last month. "Probably in, like, a year or two."

How quickly things change.

Some have speculated that Cardi B and Offset may get back together (they have an on-again, off-again history). Cardi herself has said that's unlikely.

Whatever the future holds for these two successful artists, we lay people have a talent for projecting ourselves and our own relationships onto celebrity couples.

If Cardi and Offset -- with their adorable daughter and the means to travel privately or order unlimited Postmates meals or sleep in one of several spare bedrooms -- can't make it through a pandemic together, how can the rest of us?

Here's why it matters to some folks more than it probably should:

We fell in love with their love: Count me among those CRUSHED to discover Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock were divorcing.

I have followed her career since Clarkson burst on the scene as the winner of the first season of "American Idol" in 2002.

I dissected every single love song she wrote and performed, and listened to her sing about her difficult relationship with her dad and her inability to find true love.

Plenty of Clarkson's followers thought that had changed when in 2012 she started dating Blackstock, a talent manager, and married him a year later.

She embraced his two kids from a previous marriage, and the pair had two of their own.

They seemed so happy, so in love. We were smitten listening to the lyrics to her 2015 hit single, "Piece by Piece," which revealed how Blackstock's love for her and their young daughter helped Clarkson reevaluate her estranged relationship with her own father.

"A lot of the reason why I wrote 'Piece by Piece' was, I guess, I didn't realize the gravity of the situation until I had a child of my own, and until I experienced love like I do with Brandon on the daily," she told the Huffington Post in 2015.

"I guess you don't realize something is missing until you feel it. I can't imagine walking away from my little girl. I can't imagine not having that love anymore. I didn't know it was missing because I never had it. It was a revelation and that's why I wrote that song. I think a lot of people go through that."

Clarkson filed for divorce in June and recently said her life "has been a little bit of a dumpster" since then.

Our hearts broke for her a little bit this week when she spoke of protecting the hearts of their children while they go through the divorce process.

"What I'm dealing with is hard because it involves more than just my heart, it involves a lot of little hearts," Clarkson said Monday during the premiere of her daytime talk show's second season.

"We have four kids, and divorce is never easy."

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