The fallout from Kelly Clarkson’s complaint has turned threatening, according to Adam Rubin, a co-owner of Art of Play in Brooklyn. Speaking to reporters on Oct. 13, 2026, Rubin said, “Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger,” describing menacing calls and emails, review-bombing across every platform, and hate speech surfacing on the shop’s point-of-sale iPad while staff rang up customers.
Art of Play said, “Kelly Clarkson put us in danger”.
People shouting accusations outside drew neighbors who called the police, Rubin says, and those neighbors were then doxxed. Its phone got shut off at the shop. “If an actual customer tries to get in touch with us right now, they will never be able to,” he said.
It started with a bird. Clarkson said on X on Oct. 10 that a salesperson treated her as though she couldn’t afford what she’d come to buy, likening it to Julia Roberts’ character in “Pretty Woman.” The item was Molly, a one-of-a-kind singing and dancing bird attached to the shop’s wall.
Rubin calls the whole thing “an insane misunderstanding.” He says the bird’s maker, Bliss Kolb, lives in a house he built himself in the woods, isn’t on social media, and takes years to build these machines. Only 2 exist.
Because it isn’t sitting in a warehouse, a serious buyer would need the shop to contact Kolb about commissioning one, he says. He likens it to a piece of fine-art sculpture.
There was a price tag on Molly, but Rubin says they added it only because so many people kept asking. On the day Clarkson came in the store was packed, he says, and she was inside for under 5 minutes. “We treated her like a normal person, but apparently that didn’t live up to her expectations,” he said.