Kelly Clarkson vs the Brooklyn puzzle shop. Whose side are you on?

[TheDearFinch]

Has anyone else been following this? Kelly Clarkson went into a little puzzle and magic shop in Brooklyn, asked about a singing bird automaton on the wall, and came out saying she got the Pretty Woman treatment. The shop says the bird was never for sale and she was offered a cheaper one.

Now a podcaster has put out the shop's security video. It's under five minutes, no sound. So you can see her point at the bird and leave looking annoyed, but not hear a word. There's a sensible minute-by-minute breakdown of the clip here https://beautypositive.org/gossip/kelly-clarkson-art-of-play-security-footage/ and honestly it doesn't settle anything.

The owner says staff are getting threats now, which is grim. But I also get why she was upset if she felt looked down on. DH thinks she should never have named a small shop to millions of followers. I keep going back and forth. What would you have done?

I get the impression that you can order the item? Not just buy the one on display on the wall? I think the shop assistant was snotty to KC, but… Get over it? People aren’t able to assert themselves anymore, and prefer to whine on the Internet. If it was me I’d say “I don’t want Item B, tell me more about Item A” Did she not do that? Maybe she’s just used to her “people” looking after things for her…

I tend to believe KC but I wonder if she's now regretting what she did. The shop owner does indeed sound like a right dick.

Neither.
The shop owner sounds like a bit of a twit and the fact they haven't/won't address why the bird had a (overpriced) tag next to it is pretty suss.

But, Kelly didn't have to name the exact shop and she certainly doesn't have to allow her followers to troll the business and it's staff incessantly. She has the power to say she doesn't endorse this kind of behaviour and encourage her followers to stop and use their keyboards better.

I'm confused, was the bird actually for sale? Like did it have price tag? Or did she see a display item and ask to buy it when it wasn't for sale?

The bird was for sale. There was a price tag right beside it. But the ‘too cool for school’ sales assistant decided Kelly Clarkson was too uncool to buy it so said it was not for sale. Those of us who have ever been looked down on by hipster shops will get the drift.

Maybe Kelly should have moved on quickly but sometimes you get fed up being looked down on by people who think your money isn’t good enough.

I’ve followed this on SM and am firmly on the side of KC .

The bird had a price tag of £15k next to it so she asked how much it cost. You can see the response of the shopkeeper is a short reply while leaning on the counter sipping coffee, then he turns his back to her.

After her initial tweet the shop responded that it wasn’t for sale and had never been and she had been rude. No apology or grace about it.

Then she doubled down and seemed incredulous at their response. Then their story changed that they had spoken at length about an alternative bird on offer … this doesn’t really tally with the video.

Then the owner who seems like a massive dick was interviewed dramatically talking about his cancer and how ‘Kelly Clarkson has put us all in danger’ including pointing out that the shop next door had been doxed (how do you dox a retail shop?).

When he was asked if he’d reviewed the cctv footage to see how the interaction played out, the clip gets cut and he seems to evade it.

The owner is an established published author on the NYTime bestseller list so hardly ‘woe is me the small little person fighting against the big bad celebrity’ that he makes out to be.

i think the shop comes out of this terribly here and the £15m ‘joke’ new price tag just makes him seem like a bigger twat than he does already

Come on people. The $15000 price was clearly a joke in the first place and a celebrity who was bored with her diamond shoes was the only person out of touch with reality enough to try and buy it. She should have taken a photo/video and found a local craftsperson to make her one.

Are you suggesting that the 15k price tag was a joke and that Kelly didn’t realise it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously?

if that’s the case, why didn’t the shopkeeper just say so? It sounds as though he was rude in his response and that’s why the whole thing escalated

Also, it is not inconceivable for a custom crafted singing and dancing wooden bird to cost a lot of money. They are considered pieces of art.

even if you wanted to pragmatically consider that they’ve both behaved badly, surely KC is the biggest dick here, stropping on social media about a 15k clock, when many people are struggling to eat and pay their bills? Almighty diva! Her fans will back her up whatever she does though.

I believe it happened (purely based on why would she make it up?) but I don’t think she should have named and shamed the shop for it.

Shop. KC needs to watch her posts. You’d think she would realise that by now. just because she got a bit of ‘you’re not that special’ treatment she has to go online about it?
what a princess.

The bottom line is that lied about it not being for sale.

it had a PRICE TAG. She asked to buy it. They said no, it’s not for sale.

^^ that’s a real arsehole thing to do

what then follows is her then believing that they thought she couldn’t afford it so turned their back on her - sure that’s supposition but hardly unreasonable since it HAD A PRICE TAG.