The co-owner of the Brooklyn store at the center of Kelly Clarkson’s mechanical bird controversy is blasting the singer for her “reprehensible abuse of power” after her public complaints allegedly unleashed a torrent of online harassment against his small business.
“It’s a pop star, a mechanical bird, it’s surreal. When this thing first started, everybody wanted us to die,” Adam Rubin, co-owner of Art of Play in Brooklyn Heights, exclusively told Page Six Tuesday, referring to the hundreds of threatening messages his staffers have received since Clarkson dragged their store on social media.
“And as the truth has come to light, thinking people realize this is reprehensible abuse of power,” he continued. “We have to reconsider the place we give celebrities in our society.”
Rubin slammed Clarkson for using her platform to take down a small business.
“This is not how you can behave as a citizen in the world, like, if you are this famous and powerful and you try to squash someone like a bug, then we’re supposed to blame the trolls for all the damage that’s inflicted. She lit the fuse,” he said.
The children’s book author called the last 72 hours “totally surreal” after receiving an onslaught of hate from Clarkson’s fanbase.
“It’s been so intense — thousands of hateful phone calls, thousands of hateful text messages, Kelly Clarkson fans demanding we issue her an apology, and it’s just such a perverse distortion of reality, that anyone could look at the situation and think that we are the ones who owe an apology,” he said.
He also said that Clarkson’s fans “came out of the woodwork,” tracking him and his employees down on social media, spewing hatred at their friends and doxxing their neighbors.
Rubin assured us that every customer who walks through his shop doors gets treated equally.
“Regardless of what happened in the shop, a misunderstanding in a crowded shop – everybody that comes into the store is treated the same, like a normal person. That’s what pissed her off,” he said.
Clarkson didn’t get any special treatment due to her celebrity status, Rubin said.
“She was treated like everybody else who comes in, whether they’re in sweatpants or they’re 9 years old, or they’re a celebrity we don’t recognize,” he said, adding that nobody in his store had recognized her. “They all get treated the same way.”
He also blasted anyone demanding that the store apologize to the “Breakaway” artist.
“I mean, she threw a Molotov cocktail into our store, and while it’s on fire, they’re saying we owe her an apology?” he said. “This is asymmetrical social warfare.”
Rubin believes Clarkson was aware of the impact her words would have on his store and employees.
“We didn’t know this was gonna happen, but Kelly Clarkson did, and she needs to be held accountable for her actions,” Rubin said. “I know there’s a lot of people out there that have known Kelly Clarkson – ‘known her’ in a parasocial relationship – for 20 years.
“They don’t actually know this woman. So if you have the impression that she’s some down to earth, sweetheart, Midwestern gal, you’ve got to ask yourself, how do you explain the action she took this weekend? The whole f–king thing is ludicrous, man.”
Rubin did note that he has found a glimmer of amusement from the many memes popping up on the internet about their feud.
“Listen, I understand objectively, this is hilarious. If it wasn’t happening to me, I would think it was so funny,” he said. “The memes have been glorious.”
Rubin admitted that he has “sympathy” for Clarkson, but that it’s hard to forgive her actions.
“She knew what was going to happen,” he said. “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.”
As for whether the bird was actually for sale, Rubin explained the automaton in the store was similar to “a showroom” model and another bird would have had to have been specially ordered if Clarkson wanted to go through with the sale.
“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,” Rubin said. “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. They take years.”
Despite the explosive back-and-forth between the shop owners and Clarkson, Rubin said she is welcome back anytime.
“This is not about Kelly Clarkson. This is about the power that we acquiesce to celebrity, and how okay we are with it as a society when they abuse it,” he said. “They need to be held accountable. I’m not talking about Kelly Clarkson in particular. I’m saying, society is f–ked, and we need to take a look at ourselves in the mirror.”
The feud ignited this weekend when Clarkson dragged Art of Play on X, accusing an employee of treating her like Julia Roberts’ character in “Pretty Woman” after allegedly assuming she couldn’t afford a $15,000 mechanical singing bird.
Clarkson alleged that the staffer looked her up and down before condescendingly offering to find her a cheaper alternative, prompting her to call him an “idiot” who had lost a major sale.
However, the store fired back, insisting that the bird, named “Molly,” was not for sale, and said they offered to show her a different $2,000 automaton, an offer she did not take them up on.
Clarkson, 44, subsequently accused the store of lying about the exchange, while the owners said they had tried reaching out to her in hopes of making amends.
A source exclusively told Page Six Monday that Clarkson “must’ve been livid” over the exchange.
“You know something must have really bothered her because that’s just not who she is,” the source said. “She’s not someone who goes around making a big deal out of nothing. She’s just a really good, normal person who happens to be incredibly famous.”
Page Six has reached out to Clarkson for comment.