SHOCKER: Kelly Clarkson Might've Overreacted At The Brooklyn Novelty Shop, As Security Footage Of The Animatronic Bird Saga Comes To Light
A couple days ago, I came to this blog to report the facts of the biggest story in the world right now. Of course, the story I'm referring to is whether or not Kelly Clarkson was profiled in her attempt to buy an animatronic bird fixture over the weekend.
The facts we had at the time were really just a bunch of "he said, she said." Clarkson said she was Pretty Woman'd, as a store employee looked at her as if she couldn't afford this fucking bird. The store responded with a statement saying it wasn't for sale and the whole thing was a giant misunderstanding. Yada yada yada. But there wasn't much proof as to what actually happened.
HOWEVER, the most damning piece of evidence in this giant shitshow has finally come to light.
On the fateful evening of Tuesday, October 13th, the security footage from inside the Art of Play novelty shop in Brooklyn was released. Watching the footage, you can see the 4 minutes and 50 seconds in which Kelly Clarkson roams around the store this past Saturday.
I'll never forget seeing this security tape hit Twitter, man. A true "Where were you when" moment on the timeline.
Shoutout to Pablo Torre Finds Out, by the way. This show lost me when they tried to debunk the magic that Oz The Mentalist was doing. As if everyone fully believed Oz was actually reading minds, and Pablo needed to EXPOSE him for tricking us. It was utterly baffling.
But now I'm back in on Pablo. Until, of course, he goes after LeBron. Then I'm back out.
But as you can see in the security footage that PTFO tweeted out, Kelly Clarkson walks into the store, lays eyes on the bird attached to the wall, and then she has a brief interaction with a store employee. Obviously, we can't tell what's being said in that conversation because the security camera doesn't capture audio. But yes. There's absolutely a chance that the guy was a douchebag to her in that moment. Sure.
The story does line up, though, with the statements that the store has released in the past few days. They said that they offered to show her a different bird that WAS for sale, but Kelly didn't stick around long enough to see it. Lo and behold, there's a moment in that clip where Pablo highlights the store employee walking over to a different product and trying to flag Kelly down to show it to her, but she's already wandered off. And then she storms out of the shop entirely by throwing a hissy-fit in a total Karen moment.
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If you wanna watch the in-depth breakdown of the security footage, you can check out the full Pablo Torre Finds Out episode here:
For research purposes, I watched the whole thing myself. And I gotta say…it seems like Kelly Clarkson is TERRIBLY in the wrong here. Hopefully nobody comes at my throat for saying that, but I think this is a really bad look. Granted, maybe the audio would change my entire perspective, but the body language of these people makes me believe she blew this thing entirely out of proportion.
Also, the fact that she called this a Pretty Woman scenario is egregious. Julia Roberts walked into a fancy store dressed like a prostitute. Kelly Clarkson walked into this toy store dressed the same as everybody else -- like a semi-young, affluent hipster. She wasn't profiled for being too poor. Give me a break.
Even if the guy did talk down to her, did he say anything racist? Sexist? Did he fucking spit on her and tell her to kick rocks? Or is a mildly-condescending tone seriously enough to take to social media and blow up a small business? These poor employees aren't getting paid enough to deal with 50 million people online coming at 'em with torches and pitchforks, guys.
Sidenote: The quote of "Kelly Clarkson put us in danger" from the owner of the shop is fucking hysterical.
I assume this guy is exaggerating at least a little bit in what he's saying, but still, this tiny shop has been forced to navigate thousands of people trying to tank their business all of a sudden. As he said, there have been tons of people showing up in person to harass the employees. Not to mention, you have the worst "influencers" in the world showing up to the store to do whatever shitty content they can think of. I saw one video which was so irritating that I refuse to link it in this blog and give the little toolbag more clicks. The point stands that this business shouldn't have to deal with any of this random bullshit.
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It's one thing for a celebrity to open up another celebrity to this type of carnage, but to expose everyday people to it -- people who aren't prepared at all to handle this level of outrage and attention -- I mean, that's fucking nuts. When she first put out the tweets explaining the situation, I was willing to hear her out and possibly take her side. But after watching how much of a nothing-burger this interaction seemed to be, I can't defend her choice to air these people out in the slighest.
And by the way, she still hasn't called off the dogs. She still hasn't told her fans to pump the brakes and quit attacking this store. She just lit a fire on this place, went back to her penthouse, and watched it burn.
Like dude, you're a MASSIVE celebrity. You had an awesome singing career. Now you have a highly-successful television career. You have this amazing platform, and you're really gonna use it to destroy a local business? All because of a misunderstanding over an animatronic bird? I'm sorry, that's just not acceptable.
Hopefully additional info comes to light that makes Kelly look a little more favorable here. But if this stands, I will never view her the same again. And I will never sing "Since U Been Gone" at karaoke again, either. I'll fucking tell ya that right now.