Art of Play has priced its mechanical bird Molly at $15 million after Kelly Clarkson’s disputed Brooklyn visit drew threats and trolls to the shop.
A Brooklyn novelty store has flipped the script on a messy celebrity dust-up, putting its singing mechanical bird up for sale at a figure most people will never see outside a sports contract.
NBC News reported that Art of Play, the Atlantic Avenue shop behind the bird known as Molly, now says the automaton can be bought for $15 million after a weekend clash with singer and “The Voice” coach Kelly Clarkson spilled onto social media and brought a wave of harassment to the small business.
What started as a short stop in a toy-and-puzzle shop turned into competing online narratives, a viral pile-on, and a price tag meant to make a point.
Co-owner Adam Rubin told reporters the bird is not warehouse stock. It is a fixture treated like sculpture. The attention that followed Clarkson’s posts, he said, did real damage on the ground.
Clarkson posted after the visit that she had driven to Brooklyn to see Art of Play and left unhappy about how staff handled her interest in Molly.
She framed the stop in Hollywood terms.
"But y’all should go check out Art of Play in Brooklyn if you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman,"
Clarkson wrote on social media, comparing the encounter to the famous shopping snub scene.
The store’s first response was blunt. Molly was not for sale. The bird, the shop said, is permanently affixed to a wall and serves as an unofficial mascot.
Clarkson pushed back the next day. She disputed the “not for sale” line and said she had pointed to a nearby tag that appeared to list a price. In her telling, staff said Molly would run $15,000 and that the shop could find something comparable for less. She posted a photo of a purported price tag and wrote that the store’s version was the story it preferred.
"Sure, it wasn’t for sale. That’s the narrative Art of Play is gonna go with,"
she posted.
Clarkson did not respond to multiple requests for comment from NBC News.
Art of Play posted again to fill in details it said got lost in the rush.
In the store’s account, Clarkson was inside only about five minutes. Staff told her Molly stays on the wall. They also pointed to another path: artist Bliss Kolb of Seattle owns a nearly identical automaton and, the shop said, was willing to part with that twin for $15,000.
"a nearly identical automaton is owned by the creator of the machines, a brilliant artist named Bliss Kolb who lives in Seattle."
the store wrote, adding that Kolb “told us he would be willing to part with Molly’s twin for $15,000,” and that “We explained all of this to Kelly Clarkson.”
The shop said it also offered to show her a different bird priced at $2,000 the same day, but that she did not stay long enough to see it. Kolb did not respond to NBC News requests for comment.
Journalist Pablo Torre later obtained surveillance video of Clarkson inside the store. Public posts also included a separate creator account accusing the shop of racial profiling, an allegation the store has not treated as the core of the dispute in its public remarks.
By Tuesday, Rubin was outside the store talking to reporters. He called the whole episode an “insane misunderstanding” and “asymmetrical social warfare.” He said the in-store moment was so mild that staff would not have flagged it as a problem without the online storm.
"If this tweetstorm had not happened, we wouldn’t have realized there was a negative interaction in the shop; it was that undramatic,"
Rubin said, per a condensed transcript of his remarks published by Curbed and carried in the NBC account. He also accused Clarkson of “scolding our shopkeeper on the way out.”
His core complaint was simpler than the meme war.
"We treated her like a normal person, but apparently that didn’t live up to her expectations."
The New York Post reported Rubin’s view that every customer gets the same standard treatment, and that the lack of special handling is what set off the anger. The Post also described the aftermath he tied to her audience: threats, doxing of people connected to the shop, and review-bombing of nearby businesses.
Rubin did not soft-pedal the cost to his team. Friends and neighbors, he said, were attacked and doxed. People were threatened on the street. Media camped outside. The shop turned the phone off because of the call volume. In his words, “Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger.”
"I want to be very clear about this,"
he said. “Nobody who has ever visited this store in person is taking Kelly Clarkson’s side.”
Then came the price. After first saying Molly could not be sold, the store changed course under the glare: Molly could be purchased for $15 million.
Rubin stressed why the number sounds absurd on purpose. Molly is not inventory on a shelf.
"This is not something that’s sitting in a warehouse. It’s like a piece of sculpture. It’s a fine-art piece,"
he said.
Speaking to NBC News on Wednesday, he sketched what he would do with the money if anyone ever paid it. Each store employee would get a $15,000 bonus. He would send $1 million to the bird’s artist. The rest, he said, would help build a display for automata, the kind of mechanical art pieces Molly represents.
No sale at that figure has been reported. The offer reads less like a normal retail tag and more like a small business drawing a hard line after a famous customer’s posts turned a five-minute visit into a public brawl.
Strip away the memes and the Pretty Woman punch line, and the sequence is familiar. A celebrity leaves unhappy. Social posts go out. A local shop’s name becomes a target. Staff and neighbors absorb threats and doxing they did not ask for. The owner is left explaining a wall-mounted bird to national cameras.
Clarkson’s camp has offered no on-the-record reply in the coverage. The store has offered receipts of a different kind: a short visit, an affixed mascot, an alternate bird at $2,000, a twin via the artist at $15,000, and then a $15 million statement price once the mob arrived.
Readers can weigh the dueling stories. What is not in dispute is the imbalance. One side has a prime-time platform and a mass following. The other has a shop on Atlantic Avenue, a mechanical bird on the wall, and a phone it had to shut off.
When a famous visitor decides ordinary service is an insult, the people who keep the lights on are the ones who pay for the sequel.
