Brooklyn store places $15 million price tag on bird that set off clash with Kelly Clarkson
The tension between singer Kelly Clarkson and New York curiosity shop Art of Play just reached a new level, one worth millions of dollars.
In a dramatic response to a viral spat with the singer, store co-owner Adam Rubin announced on Oct. 13 that they have put a $15 million price tag (P941.4 million) on Molly the automaton bird, which was previously not for sale, USA Today reported.
If anyone buys the automaton at that price, Rubin plans to give $15,000 (P942,000) to every employee in the shop, pay the bird’s creator $1 million, and use the rest of the funds to purchase a trove of antique automatons.
The issue stems from Clarkson's Oct. 10 post where she accused the shop's staff of making her feel she couldn't afford the mechanical bird, which the singer said had a sign for $15,000. When the store said the bird was not for sale, Clarkson called the storekeeper a "liar."
With the heated exchange circulating online, Rubin told USA Today that Art of Play had since seen a surge in foot traffic and sales, with some supporters leaving gifts and pastries for the crew.
However, the shop was also flooded with threatening phone calls and emails, as well as negative online reviews.
"We are afraid for the safety of our shopkeepers," Rubin said. "Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger."
"Our neighbors are getting doxxed and review-bombed. People are getting threatened on the street," he claimed.
To ease tensions, Rubin put out an open invitation to Clarkson to "come to the shop, see a show, get whatever she wants."
"If she sees something that she likes and we have something comparable, we may show it to her," he continued.
According to him, the singer was "dressed like everybody" and that nobody in the "packed" shop had recognized her.
"We treated her like a normal person but apparently, that did not live up to her expectations," Rubin said.
"This is an insane misunderstanding. Nothing happened in this shop to justify her scolding our shopkeeper on the way out. But I can let that go. Everybody has a bad day," he added.
"But things changed when she used her platform to attack us. It's asymmetrical social warfare," Rubin said.
In her initial post about the issue, Clarkson compared her experience in the shop with the scene in the film Pretty Woman, where the lead, played by Julia Roberts, was shamed out of a Beverly Hills store because the shopkeepers heavily suggested she could not afford the clothes being sold.
"Just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy and literally was looked at as if I couldn’t afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me," Clarkson wrote on X then.
Responding to her heated comments, Art of Play posted a statement saying the bird, Molly, was a permanent fixture in the store and was not for sale. The store posted another clarification where they said the inventor of Molly was willing to part with an exact replica of the bird for $15,000 (around P941,962), but the inventor lived in Seattle.
Art of Play regularly holds magic shows where Molly is a main attraction.
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