Kelly Clarkson is known for some of her most famous pop songs like "Since U Been Gone" and her 2002 rendition of "A Moment Like This."
But the writer of one of her hits, "Breakaway" might surprise you: Avril Lavigne.
Lavigne revealed that she wrote the track, with Bridget Benenate and Matthew Gerrard, for her first album in 2001, but it was cut.
The song memorably tells the story of a young girl who leaves her small hometown to chase her dreams. Clarkson recorded it for the soundtrack of "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement."
On a recent episode of Clarkson's daytime talk show, Lavigne opened up backstage about how the whole thing came to be.
"Have you ever wanted to know the meaning behind Kelly's song 'Breakaway?'" Lavigne said in a clip shared to social media. "I wrote this song and recorded it. I did not use it. It went to Kelly and she slayed —she did an incredible job with it."
Lavigne added that she wrote the song at "a very young age."
"I was leaving my small town, went to the city, I took a chance, I took a leap of faith on my career," she explained. "It was like, a very scary thing, leaving my world behind and taking a chance was what the song was written about.
"And Kelly, you did an amazing job on the song."
Lavigne has been promoting her new album, "Love Sux." She's originally from Belleville, Ontario, which has a population of around 51,000, according to the 2016 census.
Clarkson explained on a 2019 episode of "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" that she only writes some of her songs.
"I write like half, a little more than half my stuff," she explained, while discussing Taylor Swift taking her advice to re-record her masters. Swift famously writes her own music with collaborators.
"She's been writing since she was a little girl...so it's kind of like her diary," Clarkson explained. "I don't really care about owning my masters, I'm just like, 'Whatever.' I'm going to sing them until I'm dead, it's fine."
