The feud between Kelly Clarkson and a Brooklyn toy and game shop escalated this week, with the store’s co-owner claiming the singer’s viral social media post has endangered his staff — even as the dispute drives a surge of new customers through his doors.
Adam Rubin, co-owner of Art of Play, told TMZ he has been forced to turn off his store’s phone because of the volume of negative calls coming in, and that he is worried about the safety of the people who work there. “Kelly Clarkson has put us all in danger,” Rubin said, describing the singer’s actions as a “gross abuse of power” that he called “reprehensible” and deserving of “social consequences.”
“Things changed when she used her platform to attack us,” he added. “It’s just social warfare.”
A one-of-a-kind bird at the center of it all
At the heart of the dispute is Molly, a singing and dancing animatronic bird that the shop has described as one of a kind and integral to the magic shows it hosts. In an Instagram post over the weekend, Art of Play said the bird is “permanently attached to the wall and isn’t for sale,” while acknowledging that the feeling of being judged in a store is one many shoppers can relate to. The shop also expressed astonishment at becoming the target of widespread outrage, writing that it was “surreal” for a small local business to be attacked by “8 million people who have never visited our store.”
Critics, however, pointed to photos of the display showing a $15,000 price tag next to the bird — a detail that undercut the store’s insistence that the item was never available for purchase.
The original post that set everything off came a week earlier, when Clarkson — the first winner of “American Idol” — described a visit to the shop on social media. She wrote that she had driven to Brooklyn to check out a store she thought “looked really rad,” only to be treated as though she couldn’t afford anything, and said she was told the employee could find her something comparable. She compared the experience to being treated like Julia Roberts’s character in Pretty Woman and told her followers the shop had lost a major sale. The post, which included a thumbs-down emoji, has since accumulated nearly 46 million views.
Clarkson returned to social media on Sunday night after the store pushed back, disputing its account in blunt terms. She said the conversation happened exactly as she described, including an exchange in which she pointed at the price tag on the wall beside the bird and asked whether it was for sale. According to her account, the employee replied in a condescending tone that it was for sale at $15,000 but offered to find something comparable. She accused the store of lying and changing its story after the fact.
“So you’re not only rude, you’re also a liar,” she wrote. Clarkson added that she supports small businesses but that they “don’t get a free pass to treat people less than,” and closed with, “It’s not that hard to be kind. I never blast people but you my friend were an exception. Your store is really cool. Unfortunately, you aren’t.”
Security footage raises questions without answering them
Into that stalemate stepped Pablo Torre, host of the investigative podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” who obtained security footage from the time of the incident. The video has not settled the argument. Because it contains no audio, it is impossible to tell what was actually said during the encounter.
What the footage does show, per accounts of the clip, is Clarkson interacting with an employee, pointing at the bird, then setting down items and walking out quickly. Much of the public debate since has focused on reading body language — of both the singer and the employee — without any clear consensus emerging from it.
The store, for its part, has been accused of releasing contradictory information, at times suggesting a version of the bird was available for purchase and at other times saying flatly that it was not.
Bad press, booming business
Whatever the merits of each side’s account, the attention has been a commercial windfall for Art of Play. USA Today reported that sales have surged and the shop is seeing significantly more foot traffic than usual. Even the fate of Molly has shifted: Rubin said the bird is now for sale — at a price of $15 million.
The episode is the latest example of how quickly a single post from a celebrity with millions of followers can upend a small business, and how difficult such disputes are to resolve once they move from a storefront conversation to a public arena of dueling posts, review bombs, and millions of onlookers. Fans of the singer flooded the shop’s reviews page with one-star ratings, dragging down its overall rating, while the store maintains that its side of the story has been misrepresented.
For now, both sides are sticking to their versions of what happened inside the Brooklyn shop — and the internet remains split on who behaved badly.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/brooklyn-shop-owner-kelly-clarkson-has-put-us-all-in-danger