Celebrity4 min(s) read
Brooklyn store owner speaks out as toy bird in Kelly Clarkson 'Pretty Woman' store drama gets whopping new 8-figure price tag
Kelly Clarkson's attempt to buy an artsy $15,000 animatronic bird from a Brooklyn store has reached new heights as another update has been added to the saga.
Having dubbed the four-minute-long store visit her own personal Pretty Woman moment, released security footage soon divided opinions.
At the time, Clarkson claimed that when she inquired about buying the bird, she was pointed in the direction of a different robot bird for $2,000.
This, it seems, is what made her reference the iconic Julia Roberts flick, which saw a sales assistant assume she had no money and suggested she try a cheap store instead.
Anyway, a store co-owner disputed her account, revealing he apparently told her the bird wasn’t for sale, and now claims her Pretty Woman moment was not quite as it had been put forward to the public.
The latest development
As the argument has been left to stew and for social media to take sides, Adam Rubin, a co-owner of Art of Play, has spoken with Page Six and further disputed Clarkson’s version of events.
“She did not take out her Black Card and try to buy the thing off the wall. She was not told no, she was not told to leave,” he said to the outlet and rehashed his side of the story.
“She asked about the bird. It’s on the wall, and attached permanently. It was explained to her that it’s a complicated situation to get these things made,” Rubin said, adding: “They take years. There’s one guy that makes them, and if we have seriously interested buyers, then we talk to the artist and try to work something out.”
Explaining the bird is like a ‘couch on the showroom floor’ in a furniture store, he asked: “You don’t expect to take it out the door with you when you leave, do you? But there’s a price tag on it. So then you have a conversation with the person that works at the store about how can I get something like that in my house?”
“That conversation did not go the way that she wanted it to go, and she felt disrespected,” he claimed of the interaction.
Rubin claimed that Clarkson’s version of events was not what was experienced by the store.
“It’s just like [a] he-said-she-said thing, right?” he said. “So she’s going to say one thing, I’m going to say another thing. The point of it is, nothing happened in the shop that was so dramatic that it’s worth throwing a Molotov cocktail into a mom-and-pop business.”
Forgiveness is tricky
As for whether he is able to forgive and forget in light of the controversy, Rubin says their argument caused immense issues for the small store.
“It’s so hard to forgive her actions after she walked out the door,” he said. “She knew what was going to happen. She knew that the entire pressure of her millions and millions of fans around the world were going to come to the service of their queen and weaponize themselves and debase themselves on behalf of a millionaire they have never met.”
He also explained that as far as he and the staff members were aware, the interaction wasn’t anything to be upset about, until ‘she told off the shopkeeper as she walked out the door.’
He alleged: “And then, 15 minutes later, the entire weight of the internet came crashing down upon us, and we were caught completely unprepared. We started getting flooded with hateful phone calls and threats and text messages. They are doxing our neighbors. Like, this is crazy.”
He also went on to say that the store sees celebrities come and go, and they 'treat them like we would treat everybody else.’
He also claimed that people ‘way more famous’ than Clarkson have visited the establishment.
The feud
At the start of the feud, one of the owners hit out at the 'Since U Been Gone' singer on social media, and later his store, Art of Play, made an eyebrow-raising choice over the robotic bird at the helm of the controversy.
The ‘one-of-a-kind singing and dancing bird automaton’ that is ‘permanently attached to the wall’ of the store was said to be unavailable for purchase.
However, after Clarkson had claimed the mechanical bird, named Molly, was priced at $15,000 in the store – signaling that it was in fact an item available to buy – an owner then posted a picture of Molly for the first time since the beginning of the feud, and claimed that anyone who wants her can have her.
But for $15 million.
Jungle Creations reached out to Kelly Clarkson's representatives for comment.
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