The security video runs four minutes and 50 seconds, and it has no sound.
Kelly Clarkson walks into Art of Play with her children, wearing a baseball hat, a bright yellow top, baggy pants and a backpack, and she browses and picks up a few items.
Before she leaves, she stands at the entrance, waving her hands and talking emotionally to a worker. Her first post about the store went up 15 minutes later, according to the time stamps.
Pablo Torre, host of the investigative podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” obtained the footage and released it around the 18-minute mark of his video. Just Jared reported that it shows her visit to the Brooklyn shop on Saturday, October 10, the day she said the store gave her the “Pretty Woman” treatment.
The Footage Shows Kelly Clarkson Pointing at Molly, the Bird at the Center of the Fight
TMZ noted that she talks with an employee and points to Molly, the automaton bird on the wall. Clarkson said the worker assumed she could not afford Molly, a $15,000 singing and dancing bird, and that she “literally was looked at as if I couldn’t afford it.” She called out the store on X.
“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 wrote.
In the 1990 film, Roberts plays Vivian Ward, who is snubbed while shopping and later comes back with the line, “Big mistake. Big. Huge.”
Art of Play answered on Sunday that Molly is a one-of-a-kind automaton permanently attached to the wall and is not for sale. The shop had called her its beloved bird and mascot, with a Do Not Touch sign, in an Instagram post in February 2025.
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Clarkson fired back, “That all never happened and now it’s not for sale. Okay, cool. So you’re not only rude, you’re also a liar,” and she shared a photo of a $15,000 price tag on the store’s wall, insisting an employee pointed to it before offering to find something comparable.
The store said that price was for a nearly identical bird owned by Seattle artist Bliss Kolb, and that staff offered to show her a different singing bird for about $2,000 before she left.
The Store’s Owner Says She Was Dressed Like Everybody Else, and His Staff Has Been Harassed Since
“When Kelly came in, the shop was crowded. She was dressed like everybody else in the shop. We treated her like a n𝐨rmal person, but apparently that did not live up to her expectations,” store owner Adam Rubin told Inside Edition on Tuesday.
Clarkson once told the Associated Press that she usually goes around in a mom bun or a hat and gets away with it. “I know what the receiving end feels like,” she said.
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Her first post was viewed by at least 40 million people. Rubin said the store has been review-bombed since she named it, and that employees and neighboring businesses have been harassed.
“We are afraid for the safety of our shopkeepers. Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger… Things changed when she used her platform to attack us. It’s just social warfare,” he said.
The footage shows how long Kelly Clarkson stayed at Art of Play, what she wore and where she pointed, but with no audio, every word said at that door still lives only in what each side has said since. Art of Play said in a follow-up statement, “We’ve reached out to Kelly directly to try and clear the air.”
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