Kelly Clarkson Dominates the Stage With a Jaw-Dropping Cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days,’ Teaming Up With Charles Esten for a Performance That Left the Crowd Roaring and Proved She’s the Ultimate Boss!

Kelly Clarkson is the boss. On Monday’s episode of the Kelly Clarkson Show, the singer brought out her inner Bruce Springsteen as she performed a rendition of his song “Glory Days” alongside Charles Esten, who joined her on backing vocals and the guitar.

“Glory days well they’ll pass you by/Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye,” the two musicians sang in the chorus, while backed by Clarkson’s My Band Y’all. “Glory days, glory days.”

After the performance, Clarkson thanked the Nashville star and country singer for joining her for the duet of the 1984 Born in the U.S.A. single.

“He’s one of the nicest humans you’re ever going to meet,” Clarkson said. “People always talk about how rotten people can be. People can be awesome too — that’s Charles.”

This isn’t the first time Clarkson performed a Springsteen track on her show. In 2020, she played a rendition of “Dancing in the Dark.”

On Sunday, Esten — who starred as Deacon Claybourne on Nashville — shared his excitement about appearing on the show on Sunday, teasing two performances, on his Instagram.

“Had WAY too much fun with @kellyclarkson and @awkwafina AND got to sing twice (my current single #OneGoodMove AND #kellyoke!),” he wrote.

Esten released his single “One Good Move” earlier this year, and has been balancing his acting career with country music since 2016. Back in 2017, he earned an award for the most consecutive weeks to release an original single after dropping new singles for 54 straight weeks for his “Every Single Friday” project.

Along with promoting his music career on Clarkson, Esten also stars as Ward Cameron on Netflix’s Outer Banks, which released its third season in February.