The original American Idol winner and singer-songwriter Kelly Clarkson recently found herself in a major bit of controversy after one of the tweets went viral. Recently, the 44-year-old shared an update on social media, reflecting on her visit to the Brooklyn curio shop, Art of Play, and how she had an unpleasant experience there.
“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 social media.
She also compared the entire situation to Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman. “Wow, dude. You’re an idiot and just lost a huge sale. But y’all should go check out Art of Play in Brooklyn if you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman. For sure, check it out,” she finished.
However, sports journalist and podcaster Pablo Torre has now exposed the real security footage of the store and revealed the moments Clarkson spent there. However, the CCTV footage by Torre features quite clear video but no audio.
According to the footage, Clarkson spent around four minutes and 50 seconds before walking out of the store. However, her brief time there did not bode well, as toward the final moments of the footage, she was seemingly seen having an argument with the cashier.
More details on Kelly Clarkson's Art of Play visit as revealed by Pablo Torre
Clarkson spends much of her time in the shop fiddling with what looks like a kaleidoscope close to the shop’s entrance. She appears to inquire of the shop owner about “Molly,” the automaton bird mounted to the wall [More on Molly could be found below]. However, after a brief conversation, Clarkson is seen walking away to another part of the store, while the owner tries to regain her attention.
However, Clarkson does not respond, and the owner moves on to another customer. Later, on her way out of the store, she was again seen on camera, this time expressing strong feelings and hand gestures toward another man behind the cash register. Later, almost 15 minutes after exiting the store, Clarkson expressed her feelings on social media, which in turn led to her millions of followers attacking the shop online.
While the Pablo Torre video does not prove who was right or wrong in the exchange, it surely does provide a more transparent video of the situation that happened there in Brooklyn. Later, Art of Play addressed the incident on social media and shared several statements regarding their exchange with Kelly Clarkson.
Article Continues Below“During the 5 minutes she spent in the store, she inquired about our mechanical bird puppet named Molly. We explained that while Molly is permanently attached to the wall and serves as a de facto mascot for our shop, a nearly identical automaton is owned by the creator of the machines, a brilliant artist named Bliss Kolb who lives in Seattle. He told us he would be willing to part with Molly’s twin for $15,000. We explained all of this to Kelly Clarkson.
“We also offered to show her a different singing bird automaton, made by a traditional clockmaking shop in Germany, that she could have taken home with her that day. It costs about $2,000. She did not stick around long enough to see it,” Art of Play wrote on social media.