Oct. 14, 2026
NEW: Brooklyn Store Says Kelly Clarkson “Has Put Us In Danger” As New Surveillance Video Surfaces
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RSS Feed The Brooklyn store targeted by Kelly Clarkson’s social media posts - describing a rude and offensive employee who refused to sell her an automaton bird - says the backlash is getting scary. Art of Play co-owner Adam Rubin says they are receiving threatening phone calls amid an onslaught of negative reviews, saying “we are afraid for the safety of our shopkeepers.” Rubin described Clarkson’s post as “social warfare," as the surveillance footage of the interaction between Clarkson and the employee was released. While there’s no audio of the incident, we go over our impressions of what happened in less than 5 minutes that escalated into the controversy that is still raging on today.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, October 14th, and the beef between a Brooklyn specialty shop and Kelly Clarkson ain't over yet. That $ 15, 000 bird, well, it is now experiencing a price hike. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. We got a price hike. We have surveillance video. We are hearing from the owner. This thing doesn't seem to be put to bed just yet. Not close, right?
00:00:30
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. There are more legs to this story. And I'm wondering, look, we're hearing from the store owner that things aren't necessarily going well. But my God, this store has been put on the map. Every time I look up, I see a local news reporter outside the store doing a live report. And look, they are saying they're getting with the good comes the bad. And a lot of the bad is frightening people. some of the folks there who work there, and certainly the store owner himself.
00:00:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of attention, but a lot of it is negative. You do have Kelly Clarkson disciples. Whatever she says goes. Let's go defend her and take this place out. You got folks all over this country that have a set foot in New York, much less Brooklyn, on Atlantic Avenue, who are saying this place should be shut down and these are bad people. That's not the way it should go. And by the way, the surveillance video that's out.
00:01:26
Speaker 1: The store is the size of a closet. It's a tiny, tiny, cute little store. It's a specialty shop. Robes, how adorable is this place? It's called the Art of Play.
00:01:37
Speaker 2: It's so funny. The surveillance video, which we'll get into and describe in detail because it is very eye-opening, but that was my initial thought. I was like, ooh, what a cute store. I want to go.
00:01:47
Speaker 1: We should go.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: I would like to go.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: We should go. Not even as a matter of this being the place where the bird... The place looks cool. It looks like the exact type of place you would go on a Saturday and chill in Brooklyn. Now, the surveillance video is out, but the store has made a move here, Robes, that I think is good PR, and it's not mean, right? She wanted to buy their $ 15, 000, that's at least the price, what it's worth, Bird, it's a mascot. Mechanical bird that's on the wall. It's permanently there. It cost $ 15, 000. They offered, of course, robes. We can get you the twin for $ 15, 000, but we can't give you this one in the store. That was the issue. So now so much attention is being paid to Molly the bird, so $ 15, 000 doesn't really seem to cover it. No.
00:02:33
Speaker 2: They now have a price tag next to it because notably, I think if you all have been following the story, you'll know that Kelly Clarkson, in her defense... posted a picture of the price tag saying, really, it's not for sale? Then what's up with this price tag? So they have changed that price tag now to $ 15 million.
00:02:52
Speaker 1: That's pretty good, babe. That's pretty good.
00:02:54
Speaker 2: That's funny.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: It's clever.
00:02:55
Speaker 2: Due to popular demand, right? Yes.
00:02:58
Speaker 1: And even that is funny. There's so much interest in this bird. I wonder if somebody came in and offered them $ 15 million, would they take it? That's a yes.
00:03:04
Speaker 2: Probably.
00:03:05
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. But that's just a nice... I think they've been great in how they haven't attacked her, really.
00:03:15
Speaker 2: Not once.
00:03:15
Speaker 1: Even though she full-on assaulted them in terms of social media, they've responded without matching her tone or her anger.
00:03:26
Speaker 2: I think they have handled this brilliantly, and we have talked often. We mostly talk about people who don't... write the best responses. This shop did an amazing job. I don't think I've seen one misstep. They have explained what happened. They have been courteous and kind to Kelly Clarkson. They've even used some song lyrics to throw her um, just a little bit of rope, like, Hey, you know, like, and, and extended an olive branch saying, I hope one day we can laugh about this. We're personally reaching out to Kelly Clarkson, trying to be the reasonable, um, and, and, and, and cleverly written statements, but they're being reasonable, but they're also having some fun with it. They're not, they haven't even gotten angry or upset or reacted and given some new information, they might have every reason to.
00:04:18
Speaker 1: But Robes, the, um, All that they did in their statements, I think it was in the first paragraph of their very first statement. They validated her. They didn't apologize and say, sorry for this. They said, you know what, what you described, that would be horrible for anybody to have that type of experience. And that was it. They validated her in the first thing out of their mouths. And she still came back and called them liars.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Idiots.
00:04:40
Speaker 1: Idiots and name calling. It just hasn't met. Now, we haven't heard anything else from her, at least after those two. a post that she made, the first one being this one. This was the initial one that got everything started, where she says she 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. Wow, dude, you're an idiot and just lost a huge sale, but y'all go check out Art of Play in Brooklyn if you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman. Okay, fine. What we have found out now, Robes, from this surveillance video that is out and is put out by Pablo Torre, he's a sports reporter who is now has a podcast where he essentially does investigations of all kinds. He's got this video. So they put this out yesterday, and Robes, we talked about this initially when we saw her first post. Like, man, she sounds pissed. I bet she got in the car and did that immediately.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, they actually looked at the timestamp. So you can see when she leaves the store, it's just before 3 p.m., I believe. And she posted it like 3.09. So it was less than 15 minutes.
00:06:00
Speaker 1: She's hot.
00:06:01
Speaker 2: After she left the store, it was already going viral.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: She was hot.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: So she did not take a moment. She did not take a beat. And you can see in the video, she is hot. So they knew. If they didn't know it was Kelly Clarkson, they knew they had an upset customer. They might have thought they had an upset female customer. I don't know if they knew who she was or not. It shouldn't matter, and I don't think it would have. But they clearly knew there was someone who was angry. She did not leave quietly.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: But you know, and this surveillance video is interesting. What is, I think she was, they say she's only in the store for five minutes. Some of this is sped up and some of the parts that aren't relevant, but Robes, she starts that thing about, they look at her as if she couldn't afford the bird. As we look in this surveillance video, I see what, four, five, six, maybe seven, eight people in the store, no more than 10 tops. And it's a little, crammed because it's a small store. Robes, who in there looks like they can afford a $ 15, 000 bird? It's Brooklyn.
00:07:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had this conversation and we feel very validated, speaking of validation, that everyone there looks like they live in Brooklyn. And that's not to make fun of it or light of it or we're not slighting anyone, but people who live in Brooklyn have a certain casual look. And a lot of people try to emulate it around the world. They want to look cool and hip and Brooklyn and Yeah, but it's low-key, as the kids like to say.
00:07:32
Speaker 1: All the guys have on baseball caps and T-shirts. This looks like a Saturday. You got some hoodies in there.
00:07:38
Speaker 2: Baggy jeans.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Some unkempt hair.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Do I see a man bun? No, not yet, but there will be one eventually.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, a shoulder, messenger bag, shoulder bag. You know, that type of crowd. How many people are you counting in there right now? I see four, five, six.
00:07:51
Speaker 2: Ten, eleven.
00:07:51
Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. And so Kelly Clark, let's go from the beginning here. And the way the video starts, and Robes, she says she looked at her like she couldn't afford a $ 15, 000 bird. Okay, describe what she looks like. I don't know what a person looks like that can afford a $ 15, 000 bird.
00:08:04
Speaker 2: She's got a baseball cap on. She's got baggy jeans. She's got like a yellow sweatshirt and a black backpack. She looks like a college student, kind of.
00:08:12
Speaker 1: Okay. She doesn't look richer or poorer in that room.
00:08:16
Speaker 2: That could be a $ 400 sweatshirt, you know?
00:08:19
Speaker 1: In that setting, baby.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: She blends in.
00:08:21
Speaker 1: She wouldn't stand out to somebody in the store. Ooh, she, keep an eye on her. She can't afford anything. And she's in there with her kids.
00:08:28
Speaker 2: Is she not? Yeah, she's got her kids there.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: Okay, so the video blurs out the faces of the two kids. I'm not sure their ages, babe. They're obviously, what, school age.
00:08:37
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. They're like, I think they're like 10 and 12, somewhere around there.
00:08:40
Speaker 1: So they're in the store. So the thing starts. And you see her initially, Rose, seem like she's interacting with the kids. But she's picking some stuff up off the shelf. Think that's a store employee.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: No, no, no.
00:08:50
Speaker 1: Don't sure who that is. But she starts interacting with a couple people. But right now, everything is fine. She's picking stuff up. This is not a problem. She's just walking to the store. And right, she's at a shelf. Looks like she just walked in the front door and she stopped at the first stuff on the left. Everything's fine here. And she doesn't look any richer or poorer than anybody else. Now, at some point, there's a guy that works there that comes and starts helping her in a baseball cap.
00:09:17
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
00:09:18
Speaker 1: We have to assume, right, Robes, that is a store employee.
00:09:21
Speaker 2: Yes, and he looks kind of young. He's got, like, yes, glasses, facial hair, and a baseball cap. He looks exactly like a Brooklyn store employee.
00:09:32
Speaker 1: Robes, he has on brown pants, tennis shoes. a t-shirt, a baseball cap. He has a beard and he's wearing glasses and he's holding a damn coffee cup. Welcome to Brooklyn.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Literally, it's like, hey, Brooklyn resident 101 right there.
00:09:47
Speaker 1: So what do you notice about this, Robes, or I will say the first thing I noticed about this, look how comfortable and casual he is. Yeah.
00:09:56
Speaker 2: So this is it's not someone who looks like they're annoyed or they're snippy he actually has a smile on his face he's got his leg one leg crossed over the other he's leaned back drinking his coffee cup he seems cool calm and collected and he look he's smiling there so.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: He is you can see him smiling yeah.
00:10:12
Speaker 2: There's nothing that looks like he's looking her up and down both the kids are listening.
00:10:17
Speaker 1: This is one of the kids here yep oh okay daughter oh okay i didn't realize okay the daughter is standing there very disarmed she has her hands behind her back just kind of chilling and kind of listening in this scene okay that ends the man walks away everything looks it didn't look tense no in that moment as at least all right the thing cuts she goes over and she's looking in the other part of the store picking some things up looking around now here's the conversation with the guy once again. Fast forward, move forward. She's looking around the store, continues for a few moments. I don't know, though, Robes, what set her off at this point. She's not interacting with anybody in the store, right?
00:10:53
Speaker 2: No. She's talking with her daughter.
00:10:56
Speaker 1: And then she goes over, puts whatever stuff she had in her hands that she was going to buy back on the shelf. Robes, she waits, goes to the door, and then she stops because she has something to say.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: Yes, and so she's waiting because that employee is talking to someone else, right? So now she's talking to the store owner. It looks like the shopkeeper, the guy who would have been taking money if she were to buy something. And she starts gesticulating, I guess, because we don't have audio. We don't know what she's saying. But you can imagine she's like, you could have had a real big sale, FYI. It's almost like that pretty woman moment when Julia Roberts is like, You made a big mistake when she came back all dressed up with her boxes. But she came back dressed up. Yeah, and just said, hey, remember me? You could have had a sale, a big one. You missed out. But her hands or her fists are clenched. She's using her hands. She's angry, and she's talking to the shop owner, it looks like.
00:11:57
Speaker 1: She's irritated. I don't know what. We don't hear it, babe. We don't hear the interaction. But the guy who was helping her initially explaining about the bird is over helping another customer. It seems like he's just going about his day. There was nothing about him that seemed distressed. No. And it was a guy. When you told me the elevator eye thing and what that means.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought it could have been either another woman or maybe like a fancy guy who's like, you know, looking someone up and down like a woman would. This dude just looks like a chill Brooklyn college student who wouldn't even know how to elevator eye someone. And I mean that in a charming way. He wouldn't be somebody who would be sizing someone up or looking them up and down. He does not give off those vibes at all.
00:12:41
Speaker 1: How... Babe, looking at this video, how did this come to this? Babe, there is nothing in her internet. I know we don't have audio, but there's nothing you see here that suggests when she's talking to this guy that there's any tension between her and the sales associate that's explaining about the bird. And it's not until she gets to the front door leaving, stops and just turns around and starts talking to the guy behind the counter.
00:13:09
Speaker 2: It's like she processed what he said to her, and she got angrier and angrier as she thought about the fact that he was just literally not going to let her buy something. And so she just needed to tell the owner, like, are you kidding me? I was going to buy that bird, and he wouldn't let me. And you can see the shop owner referring, like, he uses his arm to point back to the bird. So clearly they're talking about the bird.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: Whatever happens, the kid's reaction... Okay, Robes, you just describe. Maybe you've watched this as well. After she walks out. She's done. She's going off. Going off on the guy behind the counter. Walks out. You see her. She's out of frame. The kids are still in the store. The girl walks out.
00:13:50
Speaker 2: The boy. Mom's mad. She says to come.
00:13:54
Speaker 1: Robes, how did it get to this? Cooler heads. There's no way. Her reputation should have taken a hit in this. This store's reputation should have taken a hit.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: No.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: This didn't have to happen. What is wrong with all of us? What is wrong with all of us? Well, the video is one thing, but we did hear from the shop owner and it is disturbing. Stay here, we'll explain what he says is now happening to his employees.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. The most expensive mechanical bird in the world is still chirping now because, yes, we've got some updates. We got the surveillance video that we just went over about Kelly Clarkson's very limited and seemingly innocuous interaction that created this internet firestorm. It's hard to imagine we're at the place we're at talking about this story, reacting to this story, knowing how upset Kelly Clarkson was after she left enough to post 15 minutes later this incendiary post taking down this small specialty shop in Brooklyn. And you see the surveillance video and it just doesn't read. the same way it was presented.
00:15:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't know what he said or might have said to her, babe. But his body energy was not hostile.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: Body language is important.
00:15:32
Speaker 1: Babe, he was leaning on a table with his leg crossed, smiling, and had a cup. He was as chill as you could be. Almost you could argue, hey, you should be a little more formal talking to customers.
00:15:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not what I was expecting. I was expecting either, like I said, a woman or a different type of sales associate. kind of with their arms crossed and like maybe just different body language where I was like, who do you think you are? You can't have this bird. That's how it was depicted. It's just not the scene we saw. But look, as innocuous as it all looked, obviously people are upset. And this store owner has described getting flooded with negative reviews and people wanting the shop to close down because of this incident. And now we have a new update from the shop owner.
00:16:17
Speaker 1: We knew this was coming, and we've seen some protesters out there, and you knew this was going to happen, but he says yes. He fears for the safety of his employees at this point. Robes, threats are coming their way. The negative reviews are one thing, but folks have It's almost like take it upon themselves. This happened to Kelly Clarkson. We must shut this place down.
00:16:37
Speaker 2: I do think that fans or just even folks online from internet sleuths to, yes, people who are backing a side in the story, they feel the power collectively that they have and they use it. And it's happened and there have been stories about the power of folks online being able to ruin someone's business.
00:16:58
Speaker 1: I'm saying why is that your motivation? Let's say that Kelly Clarkson was completely rude to in that store and she's 100% in the right. Where is it that somebody feels, you know what, because of that one interaction, this business should not exist. This person's livelihood should go away. All those employees should no longer be able to put food on their tables. Why do you, this one interaction moves you to We must destroy people. Why?
00:17:26
Speaker 2: Because we all operate in good and bad, evil. And we do that to feel safe. It's black and white. There's no gray area. There's no openness to understand or to try to imagine a different scenario. Or just recognize that in your life, you can experience something different. sitting right next to someone else. And the two of you can walk away with very different versions of what happened. That is life. And it doesn't mean that one person's right and the other person's wrong. I just don't know why more people can't accept that fact that we know to be true in our own lives, extend that to other people as well, that we don't see things the same way. We don't experience things the same way. That's okay. But it doesn't mean we need to cancel people because we disagree with them or ruin someone's life because we think what they did was not what we would do.
00:18:19
Speaker 1: A celebrity i like was rude too let me help shut down this business that's just too much of a leap for me baby and the owner i think it's two or three owners but he's one of the co-owners here adam rubin is his name he's uh who did he do this with inside edition or e one of those uh entertainment shows we said quote we are afraid for the safety of our shopkeepers Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger. Things changed when she used her platform to attack us. It's social warfare. How can you take issue with that, baby, with that statement?
00:18:52
Speaker 2: It's social warfare.
00:18:54
Speaker 1: How can we say this is right? Is there anyone out there who said, yeah, this was the right thing or she had the right to do it, this was the good thing or this is what they deserve?
00:19:01
Speaker 2: She has the right to do it. She obviously does. And everyone is responsible for their choice in making a decision on how to react to this and what to do about it. But just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean it's right to do. And I just think this might be a lesson I would love for other people to learn and to recognize that, yes, if you do have power, if you do have influence, recognize that before you attack someone online because there can be real life consequences for those people that might not have been intended. I don't know what Kelly Clarkson wanted to happen to this store. Now I can tell you that I have asked that and I don't think she asked herself that. What do I really want to happen to this store? If she really wanted this store to close down, if she thinks this store should not exist because they wouldn't sell her a permanent fixture in their store, she has some work to do.
00:20:01
Speaker 1: But you said what she wants. What she wanted was just to get them back. Like, you just... You just did this to me. You just offended me in some way. I'm going to get you back. And if you can't do it by yelling at somebody in the store, that's not good enough. Robes, that is. She knew her power and influence. Watch what I do to you. And that's okay. I'm not saying plenty of people are guilty of that thing and having that feeling. She just has a power and influence that can move a needle and shut a place down and put people in harm's way, baby. She didn't intend that. But Rose, she did it 15 minutes out. It was posted in 15 minutes. She was composing it immediately.
00:20:47
Speaker 2: She was. Oh, she literally, you can see in the surveillance video, her pulling out her phone immediately. She started typing. She had a plan. I am going to put this out there. Everyone needs to know this about this store. And she had a plan. I would like to believe that she is going to take a moment, she's going to take a beat, and she is going to she can calm things down. She can, whatever, she might need to save face. I imagine she will want to do that. But she could still say no one deserves to, she can tell her folks to stand down.
00:21:22
Speaker 1: She's got to go to the store. This is going to end up being a beautiful story.
00:21:26
Speaker 2: I hope it does.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: That's going to be my prediction. It's going to be a beautiful story. She's going to go over it because their arms are wide open to her. Even though she's the one that I would argue did the harm here. Everything they've written Arms wide open. Olive branch after olive branch after olive branch. Even when she came back and called them liars. Still, olive branch.
00:21:45
Speaker 2: And an idiot. She called that guy, smiling at her with a coffee cup in his hand, an idiot. But she's the victim. Look, and he, the store owner went on to say, when Kelly came in, the shop was crowded. She was dressed like everybody else in the shop. We treated her like a normal person, but apparently that did not live up to her expectations.
00:22:07
Speaker 1: Okay, that wasn't a written statement. He said that in an interview, so that one was a little bit.
00:22:11
Speaker 2: That was a little bit of a barb.
00:22:14
Speaker 1: It was. You look like we did treat you like a normal person, but that's not what you wanted.
00:22:18
Speaker 2: And that is exactly the point.
00:22:21
Speaker 1: That lands. It does.
00:22:22
Speaker 2: That is true. That is what happened.
00:22:25
Speaker 1: We treated you like everybody else and wouldn't let you have your way and you didn't like it. That's what you're saying there.
00:22:29
Speaker 2: You're used to getting special treatment and we didn't give it to you.
00:22:31
Speaker 1: She's going to make this okay. Again, always been a fan. I hope she does. She's going to make this okay. I really, really do believe. If she doesn't do that, she's just going to let this quiet down and go away and just move on from it. That's the option. Either make it completely right or just... let it quiet down, and it's just gonna go away.
00:22:50
Speaker 2: I hope she makes it right. You know what? Her kids were watching. Her kids have been through a lot. Her kids have lost their dad this year. There's been a lot of tumult. I know she's stepping away from her show, her very popular daytime show, to be with them, to spend more time with them. She's probably going through a lot. She's got several big transitions in her life. Her children's father has passed. She's not, her career is changing and evolving. And so, look, maybe she can take a moment And this could be a learning moment, not just for everyone, but for her kids who need her to lead the way.
00:23:23
Speaker 1: This was never about the bird. It might be the case. That's what you're arguing, right?
00:23:26
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:23:26
Speaker 1: This might not actually be about the bird. But I hope everything. And a reminder, folks, just please give folks a little grace. Be kind as best you can. We all screw up. We all mess up. But just keep it in mind. Give people a little bit of grace, including... Somebody who won't sell you a bird and including a celebrity that comes in. Demanding that you do. A little pissed. With that, we appreciate you folks. I'm TJ. That's Rogues. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, October 14th, and the beef between a Brooklyn specialty shop and Kelly Clarkson ain't over yet. That $ 15, 000 bird, well, it is now experiencing a price hike. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. We got a price hike. We have surveillance video. We are hearing from the owner. This thing doesn't seem to be put to bed just yet. Not close, right?
00:00:30
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. There are more legs to this story. And I'm wondering, look, we're hearing from the store owner that things aren't necessarily going well. But my God, this store has been put on the map. Every time I look up, I see a local news reporter outside the store doing a live report. And look, they are saying they're getting with the good comes the bad. And a lot of the bad is frightening people. some of the folks there who work there, and certainly the store owner himself.
00:00:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of attention, but a lot of it is negative. You do have Kelly Clarkson disciples. Whatever she says goes. Let's go defend her and take this place out. You got folks all over this country that have a set foot in New York, much less Brooklyn, on Atlantic Avenue, who are saying this place should be shut down and these are bad people. That's not the way it should go. And by the way, the surveillance video that's out.
00:01:26
Speaker 1: The store is the size of a closet. It's a tiny, tiny, cute little store. It's a specialty shop. Robes, how adorable is this place? It's called the Art of Play.
00:01:37
Speaker 2: It's so funny. The surveillance video, which we'll get into and describe in detail because it is very eye-opening, but that was my initial thought. I was like, ooh, what a cute store. I want to go.
00:01:47
Speaker 1: We should go.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: I would like to go.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: We should go. Not even as a matter of this being the place where the bird... The place looks cool. It looks like the exact type of place you would go on a Saturday and chill in Brooklyn. Now, the surveillance video is out, but the store has made a move here, Robes, that I think is good PR, and it's not mean, right? She wanted to buy their $ 15, 000, that's at least the price, what it's worth, Bird, it's a mascot. Mechanical bird that's on the wall. It's permanently there. It cost $ 15, 000. They offered, of course, robes. We can get you the twin for $ 15, 000, but we can't give you this one in the store. That was the issue. So now so much attention is being paid to Molly the bird, so $ 15, 000 doesn't really seem to cover it. No.
00:02:33
Speaker 2: They now have a price tag next to it because notably, I think if you all have been following the story, you'll know that Kelly Clarkson, in her defense... posted a picture of the price tag saying, really, it's not for sale? Then what's up with this price tag? So they have changed that price tag now to $ 15 million.
00:02:52
Speaker 1: That's pretty good, babe. That's pretty good.
00:02:54
Speaker 2: That's funny.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: It's clever.
00:02:55
Speaker 2: Due to popular demand, right? Yes.
00:02:58
Speaker 1: And even that is funny. There's so much interest in this bird. I wonder if somebody came in and offered them $ 15 million, would they take it? That's a yes.
00:03:04
Speaker 2: Probably.
00:03:05
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. But that's just a nice... I think they've been great in how they haven't attacked her, really.
00:03:15
Speaker 2: Not once.
00:03:15
Speaker 1: Even though she full-on assaulted them in terms of social media, they've responded without matching her tone or her anger.
00:03:26
Speaker 2: I think they have handled this brilliantly, and we have talked often. We mostly talk about people who don't... write the best responses. This shop did an amazing job. I don't think I've seen one misstep. They have explained what happened. They have been courteous and kind to Kelly Clarkson. They've even used some song lyrics to throw her um, just a little bit of rope, like, Hey, you know, like, and, and extended an olive branch saying, I hope one day we can laugh about this. We're personally reaching out to Kelly Clarkson, trying to be the reasonable, um, and, and, and, and cleverly written statements, but they're being reasonable, but they're also having some fun with it. They're not, they haven't even gotten angry or upset or reacted and given some new information, they might have every reason to.
00:04:18
Speaker 1: But Robes, the, um, All that they did in their statements, I think it was in the first paragraph of their very first statement. They validated her. They didn't apologize and say, sorry for this. They said, you know what, what you described, that would be horrible for anybody to have that type of experience. And that was it. They validated her in the first thing out of their mouths. And she still came back and called them liars.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Idiots.
00:04:40
Speaker 1: Idiots and name calling. It just hasn't met. Now, we haven't heard anything else from her, at least after those two. a post that she made, the first one being this one. This was the initial one that got everything started, where she says she 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. Wow, dude, you're an idiot and just lost a huge sale, but y'all go check out Art of Play in Brooklyn if you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman. Okay, fine. What we have found out now, Robes, from this surveillance video that is out and is put out by Pablo Torre, he's a sports reporter who is now has a podcast where he essentially does investigations of all kinds. He's got this video. So they put this out yesterday, and Robes, we talked about this initially when we saw her first post. Like, man, she sounds pissed. I bet she got in the car and did that immediately.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, they actually looked at the timestamp. So you can see when she leaves the store, it's just before 3 p.m., I believe. And she posted it like 3.09. So it was less than 15 minutes.
00:06:00
Speaker 1: She's hot.
00:06:01
Speaker 2: After she left the store, it was already going viral.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: She was hot.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: So she did not take a moment. She did not take a beat. And you can see in the video, she is hot. So they knew. If they didn't know it was Kelly Clarkson, they knew they had an upset customer. They might have thought they had an upset female customer. I don't know if they knew who she was or not. It shouldn't matter, and I don't think it would have. But they clearly knew there was someone who was angry. She did not leave quietly.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: But you know, and this surveillance video is interesting. What is, I think she was, they say she's only in the store for five minutes. Some of this is sped up and some of the parts that aren't relevant, but Robes, she starts that thing about, they look at her as if she couldn't afford the bird. As we look in this surveillance video, I see what, four, five, six, maybe seven, eight people in the store, no more than 10 tops. And it's a little, crammed because it's a small store. Robes, who in there looks like they can afford a $ 15, 000 bird? It's Brooklyn.
00:07:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had this conversation and we feel very validated, speaking of validation, that everyone there looks like they live in Brooklyn. And that's not to make fun of it or light of it or we're not slighting anyone, but people who live in Brooklyn have a certain casual look. And a lot of people try to emulate it around the world. They want to look cool and hip and Brooklyn and Yeah, but it's low-key, as the kids like to say.
00:07:32
Speaker 1: All the guys have on baseball caps and T-shirts. This looks like a Saturday. You got some hoodies in there.
00:07:38
Speaker 2: Baggy jeans.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Some unkempt hair.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Do I see a man bun? No, not yet, but there will be one eventually.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, a shoulder, messenger bag, shoulder bag. You know, that type of crowd. How many people are you counting in there right now? I see four, five, six.
00:07:51
Speaker 2: Ten, eleven.
00:07:51
Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. And so Kelly Clark, let's go from the beginning here. And the way the video starts, and Robes, she says she looked at her like she couldn't afford a $ 15, 000 bird. Okay, describe what she looks like. I don't know what a person looks like that can afford a $ 15, 000 bird.
00:08:04
Speaker 2: She's got a baseball cap on. She's got baggy jeans. She's got like a yellow sweatshirt and a black backpack. She looks like a college student, kind of.
00:08:12
Speaker 1: Okay. She doesn't look richer or poorer in that room.
00:08:16
Speaker 2: That could be a $ 400 sweatshirt, you know?
00:08:19
Speaker 1: In that setting, baby.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: She blends in.
00:08:21
Speaker 1: She wouldn't stand out to somebody in the store. Ooh, she, keep an eye on her. She can't afford anything. And she's in there with her kids.
00:08:28
Speaker 2: Is she not? Yeah, she's got her kids there.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: Okay, so the video blurs out the faces of the two kids. I'm not sure their ages, babe. They're obviously, what, school age.
00:08:37
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. They're like, I think they're like 10 and 12, somewhere around there.
00:08:40
Speaker 1: So they're in the store. So the thing starts. And you see her initially, Rose, seem like she's interacting with the kids. But she's picking some stuff up off the shelf. Think that's a store employee.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: No, no, no.
00:08:50
Speaker 1: Don't sure who that is. But she starts interacting with a couple people. But right now, everything is fine. She's picking stuff up. This is not a problem. She's just walking to the store. And right, she's at a shelf. Looks like she just walked in the front door and she stopped at the first stuff on the left. Everything's fine here. And she doesn't look any richer or poorer than anybody else. Now, at some point, there's a guy that works there that comes and starts helping her in a baseball cap.
00:09:17
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
00:09:18
Speaker 1: We have to assume, right, Robes, that is a store employee.
00:09:21
Speaker 2: Yes, and he looks kind of young. He's got, like, yes, glasses, facial hair, and a baseball cap. He looks exactly like a Brooklyn store employee.
00:09:32
Speaker 1: Robes, he has on brown pants, tennis shoes. a t-shirt, a baseball cap. He has a beard and he's wearing glasses and he's holding a damn coffee cup. Welcome to Brooklyn.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Literally, it's like, hey, Brooklyn resident 101 right there.
00:09:47
Speaker 1: So what do you notice about this, Robes, or I will say the first thing I noticed about this, look how comfortable and casual he is. Yeah.
00:09:56
Speaker 2: So this is it's not someone who looks like they're annoyed or they're snippy he actually has a smile on his face he's got his leg one leg crossed over the other he's leaned back drinking his coffee cup he seems cool calm and collected and he look he's smiling there so.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: He is you can see him smiling yeah.
00:10:12
Speaker 2: There's nothing that looks like he's looking her up and down both the kids are listening.
00:10:17
Speaker 1: This is one of the kids here yep oh okay daughter oh okay i didn't realize okay the daughter is standing there very disarmed she has her hands behind her back just kind of chilling and kind of listening in this scene okay that ends the man walks away everything looks it didn't look tense no in that moment as at least all right the thing cuts she goes over and she's looking in the other part of the store picking some things up looking around now here's the conversation with the guy once again. Fast forward, move forward. She's looking around the store, continues for a few moments. I don't know, though, Robes, what set her off at this point. She's not interacting with anybody in the store, right?
00:10:53
Speaker 2: No. She's talking with her daughter.
00:10:56
Speaker 1: And then she goes over, puts whatever stuff she had in her hands that she was going to buy back on the shelf. Robes, she waits, goes to the door, and then she stops because she has something to say.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: Yes, and so she's waiting because that employee is talking to someone else, right? So now she's talking to the store owner. It looks like the shopkeeper, the guy who would have been taking money if she were to buy something. And she starts gesticulating, I guess, because we don't have audio. We don't know what she's saying. But you can imagine she's like, you could have had a real big sale, FYI. It's almost like that pretty woman moment when Julia Roberts is like, You made a big mistake when she came back all dressed up with her boxes. But she came back dressed up. Yeah, and just said, hey, remember me? You could have had a sale, a big one. You missed out. But her hands or her fists are clenched. She's using her hands. She's angry, and she's talking to the shop owner, it looks like.
00:11:57
Speaker 1: She's irritated. I don't know what. We don't hear it, babe. We don't hear the interaction. But the guy who was helping her initially explaining about the bird is over helping another customer. It seems like he's just going about his day. There was nothing about him that seemed distressed. No. And it was a guy. When you told me the elevator eye thing and what that means.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought it could have been either another woman or maybe like a fancy guy who's like, you know, looking someone up and down like a woman would. This dude just looks like a chill Brooklyn college student who wouldn't even know how to elevator eye someone. And I mean that in a charming way. He wouldn't be somebody who would be sizing someone up or looking them up and down. He does not give off those vibes at all.
00:12:41
Speaker 1: How... Babe, looking at this video, how did this come to this? Babe, there is nothing in her internet. I know we don't have audio, but there's nothing you see here that suggests when she's talking to this guy that there's any tension between her and the sales associate that's explaining about the bird. And it's not until she gets to the front door leaving, stops and just turns around and starts talking to the guy behind the counter.
00:13:09
Speaker 2: It's like she processed what he said to her, and she got angrier and angrier as she thought about the fact that he was just literally not going to let her buy something. And so she just needed to tell the owner, like, are you kidding me? I was going to buy that bird, and he wouldn't let me. And you can see the shop owner referring, like, he uses his arm to point back to the bird. So clearly they're talking about the bird.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: Whatever happens, the kid's reaction... Okay, Robes, you just describe. Maybe you've watched this as well. After she walks out. She's done. She's going off. Going off on the guy behind the counter. Walks out. You see her. She's out of frame. The kids are still in the store. The girl walks out.
00:13:50
Speaker 2: The boy. Mom's mad. She says to come.
00:13:54
Speaker 1: Robes, how did it get to this? Cooler heads. There's no way. Her reputation should have taken a hit in this. This store's reputation should have taken a hit.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: No.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: This didn't have to happen. What is wrong with all of us? What is wrong with all of us? Well, the video is one thing, but we did hear from the shop owner and it is disturbing. Stay here, we'll explain what he says is now happening to his employees.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. The most expensive mechanical bird in the world is still chirping now because, yes, we've got some updates. We got the surveillance video that we just went over about Kelly Clarkson's very limited and seemingly innocuous interaction that created this internet firestorm. It's hard to imagine we're at the place we're at talking about this story, reacting to this story, knowing how upset Kelly Clarkson was after she left enough to post 15 minutes later this incendiary post taking down this small specialty shop in Brooklyn. And you see the surveillance video and it just doesn't read. the same way it was presented.
00:15:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't know what he said or might have said to her, babe. But his body energy was not hostile.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: Body language is important.
00:15:32
Speaker 1: Babe, he was leaning on a table with his leg crossed, smiling, and had a cup. He was as chill as you could be. Almost you could argue, hey, you should be a little more formal talking to customers.
00:15:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not what I was expecting. I was expecting either, like I said, a woman or a different type of sales associate. kind of with their arms crossed and like maybe just different body language where I was like, who do you think you are? You can't have this bird. That's how it was depicted. It's just not the scene we saw. But look, as innocuous as it all looked, obviously people are upset. And this store owner has described getting flooded with negative reviews and people wanting the shop to close down because of this incident. And now we have a new update from the shop owner.
00:16:17
Speaker 1: We knew this was coming, and we've seen some protesters out there, and you knew this was going to happen, but he says yes. He fears for the safety of his employees at this point. Robes, threats are coming their way. The negative reviews are one thing, but folks have It's almost like take it upon themselves. This happened to Kelly Clarkson. We must shut this place down.
00:16:37
Speaker 2: I do think that fans or just even folks online from internet sleuths to, yes, people who are backing a side in the story, they feel the power collectively that they have and they use it. And it's happened and there have been stories about the power of folks online being able to ruin someone's business.
00:16:58
Speaker 1: I'm saying why is that your motivation? Let's say that Kelly Clarkson was completely rude to in that store and she's 100% in the right. Where is it that somebody feels, you know what, because of that one interaction, this business should not exist. This person's livelihood should go away. All those employees should no longer be able to put food on their tables. Why do you, this one interaction moves you to We must destroy people. Why?
00:17:26
Speaker 2: Because we all operate in good and bad, evil. And we do that to feel safe. It's black and white. There's no gray area. There's no openness to understand or to try to imagine a different scenario. Or just recognize that in your life, you can experience something different. sitting right next to someone else. And the two of you can walk away with very different versions of what happened. That is life. And it doesn't mean that one person's right and the other person's wrong. I just don't know why more people can't accept that fact that we know to be true in our own lives, extend that to other people as well, that we don't see things the same way. We don't experience things the same way. That's okay. But it doesn't mean we need to cancel people because we disagree with them or ruin someone's life because we think what they did was not what we would do.
00:18:19
Speaker 1: A celebrity i like was rude too let me help shut down this business that's just too much of a leap for me baby and the owner i think it's two or three owners but he's one of the co-owners here adam rubin is his name he's uh who did he do this with inside edition or e one of those uh entertainment shows we said quote we are afraid for the safety of our shopkeepers Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger. Things changed when she used her platform to attack us. It's social warfare. How can you take issue with that, baby, with that statement?
00:18:52
Speaker 2: It's social warfare.
00:18:54
Speaker 1: How can we say this is right? Is there anyone out there who said, yeah, this was the right thing or she had the right to do it, this was the good thing or this is what they deserve?
00:19:01
Speaker 2: She has the right to do it. She obviously does. And everyone is responsible for their choice in making a decision on how to react to this and what to do about it. But just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean it's right to do. And I just think this might be a lesson I would love for other people to learn and to recognize that, yes, if you do have power, if you do have influence, recognize that before you attack someone online because there can be real life consequences for those people that might not have been intended. I don't know what Kelly Clarkson wanted to happen to this store. Now I can tell you that I have asked that and I don't think she asked herself that. What do I really want to happen to this store? If she really wanted this store to close down, if she thinks this store should not exist because they wouldn't sell her a permanent fixture in their store, she has some work to do.
00:20:01
Speaker 1: But you said what she wants. What she wanted was just to get them back. Like, you just... You just did this to me. You just offended me in some way. I'm going to get you back. And if you can't do it by yelling at somebody in the store, that's not good enough. Robes, that is. She knew her power and influence. Watch what I do to you. And that's okay. I'm not saying plenty of people are guilty of that thing and having that feeling. She just has a power and influence that can move a needle and shut a place down and put people in harm's way, baby. She didn't intend that. But Rose, she did it 15 minutes out. It was posted in 15 minutes. She was composing it immediately.
00:20:47
Speaker 2: She was. Oh, she literally, you can see in the surveillance video, her pulling out her phone immediately. She started typing. She had a plan. I am going to put this out there. Everyone needs to know this about this store. And she had a plan. I would like to believe that she is going to take a moment, she's going to take a beat, and she is going to she can calm things down. She can, whatever, she might need to save face. I imagine she will want to do that. But she could still say no one deserves to, she can tell her folks to stand down.
00:21:22
Speaker 1: She's got to go to the store. This is going to end up being a beautiful story.
00:21:26
Speaker 2: I hope it does.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: That's going to be my prediction. It's going to be a beautiful story. She's going to go over it because their arms are wide open to her. Even though she's the one that I would argue did the harm here. Everything they've written Arms wide open. Olive branch after olive branch after olive branch. Even when she came back and called them liars. Still, olive branch.
00:21:45
Speaker 2: And an idiot. She called that guy, smiling at her with a coffee cup in his hand, an idiot. But she's the victim. Look, and he, the store owner went on to say, when Kelly came in, the shop was crowded. She was dressed like everybody else in the shop. We treated her like a normal person, but apparently that did not live up to her expectations.
00:22:07
Speaker 1: Okay, that wasn't a written statement. He said that in an interview, so that one was a little bit.
00:22:11
Speaker 2: That was a little bit of a barb.
00:22:14
Speaker 1: It was. You look like we did treat you like a normal person, but that's not what you wanted.
00:22:18
Speaker 2: And that is exactly the point.
00:22:21
Speaker 1: That lands. It does.
00:22:22
Speaker 2: That is true. That is what happened.
00:22:25
Speaker 1: We treated you like everybody else and wouldn't let you have your way and you didn't like it. That's what you're saying there.
00:22:29
Speaker 2: You're used to getting special treatment and we didn't give it to you.
00:22:31
Speaker 1: She's going to make this okay. Again, always been a fan. I hope she does. She's going to make this okay. I really, really do believe. If she doesn't do that, she's just going to let this quiet down and go away and just move on from it. That's the option. Either make it completely right or just... let it quiet down, and it's just gonna go away.
00:22:50
Speaker 2: I hope she makes it right. You know what? Her kids were watching. Her kids have been through a lot. Her kids have lost their dad this year. There's been a lot of tumult. I know she's stepping away from her show, her very popular daytime show, to be with them, to spend more time with them. She's probably going through a lot. She's got several big transitions in her life. Her children's father has passed. She's not, her career is changing and evolving. And so, look, maybe she can take a moment And this could be a learning moment, not just for everyone, but for her kids who need her to lead the way.
00:23:23
Speaker 1: This was never about the bird. It might be the case. That's what you're arguing, right?
00:23:26
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:23:26
Speaker 1: This might not actually be about the bird. But I hope everything. And a reminder, folks, just please give folks a little grace. Be kind as best you can. We all screw up. We all mess up. But just keep it in mind. Give people a little bit of grace, including... Somebody who won't sell you a bird and including a celebrity that comes in. Demanding that you do. A little pissed. With that, we appreciate you folks. I'm TJ. That's Rogues. We'll talk soon.