The Kelly Clarkson Tapes, Revealed: What Really Happened in That Brooklyn Store?

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out, brought to you by Apple Card. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Right after this. I should explain that I don't think Kameen has any idea what we're doing here today. Zero. We went to the Edward R. Murrow Awards last night, and. You and producer Matt Sullivan, very rude. Very rude. Guys sitting there, texting away, and they're writing on their phones feverishly, and I'm sitting here, I'm like, hey, we need to respect the other award winners. But I also think that's the most respectful thing you could do at an Edward R. Murrow Awards, is be doing journalism. I think anyone who wasn't should have their award revoked. Thank you, Wyatt. To refresh everyone on this, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, a very prestigious journalism award, literally everyone walking up on stage, and he spent six months in a hole in Afghanistan with the Taliban. Every story was. That was actually one of the stories. Life or death in a war zone, and then here come the silly sports guys. I should say, as Kameen diminishes our own existence, that I do have new stuff that I want to show the internet. Why? More? And both of you guys here today for the first time, thank you, Wightson Eck, Kameen Elhassan, for being here. Sure, and also congratulations. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. On your Edward R. Murrow Award, and for actually being serious and doing journalism while receiving an award. Well. I think if you're at the ESPYs, you should be playing sports. The ESPYs would be a hell of a lot more interesting if each row, you're just. Patrick Mahomes is just throwing footballs. For people who have never seen this show, by the way, an episode of Palo Torre Finds Out, before this one, we should say, yes, we are the Edward R. Murrow Award winning Pulitzer Prize, quote-unquote, sports show. That does investigate powerful people in sports, like Magic Johnson. But also, I mean, we happen to investigate stories about actual magic, like this episode from earlier this year. Debunking Oze Perlman's tricks. Is he a fraud? Wow, that's great YouTuber-y right there. Meanwhile, another one of our favorite episodes, Wyatt, was a bit harder to advertise on YouTube, but it dove into the world of competitive birdwatching, and this introduced us to the concept of. A nemesis bird. A nemesis bird is, for anyone who's a birdwatcher, that, their white whale, that bird that they keep going out and trying to find, and they can't, they can't find, because the bird is trying to hide from them, or so they think. Thar she blows. It is an elusive quest that has driven various competitors mad, it turns out. All of this brings us, today, to the story that we're here to report. A story of magic, happening right here in New York City, as well as, uh, the story of one of the most beloved celebrities in this country, I mean. Three-time Grammy Award-winning recording artist, noted Dallas Cowboy Superfan, and former American Idol, Kelly Clarkson. Kelly Clarkson! Singer Kelly Clarkson is locked in a, he said, they said, social media feud with a Brooklyn store. It started when Clarkson claimed to. Kelly Clarkson! is locked in a, he said, they said, social media feud with a Brooklyn store. Kelly Clarkson! is locked in a, he said, social media feud with a Brooklyn store employee who didn't recognize her, insinuated she couldn't afford an animated bird. One shopping experience left her feeling like this. Hi! Hello! Do you remember me? No, I'm sorry. I was in here yesterday. You wouldn't wait on me? Oh. You work on commission, right? Uh, yes. Big mistake. Big. Huge. I have no. Kelly's pretty woman moment started on Saturday when she posted on X, just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out the. about this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy and literally was looked at as if I couldn't afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me. 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. But the store says the item Clarkson wanted, a mechanical singing bird, wasn't for sale, saying the bird is part of a show the store puts on. The store going on to say, "Imagine our surprise when our small local business. was suddenly attacked by 8 million people who have never visited our store. As a talented popular singer once said, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Clarkson responding, posting a photo she says shows the price tag. People on social media taking sides. One post saying, "When does the apology part happen?" It's crazy because literally on the way to the Edward R. Murrow Awards, I'm in a group chat where the sides have been taken. People divided one side. Kelly Clarkson is an angel. How dare they treat her like that? But another. It's crazy because literally on the way to the Edward R. that the other side she's an entitled rich person how dare she pick on the little small local business actually why what i mean does not realize is that he is i think a control group he is somebody who doesn't quite know the backstory of this the way that you longtime brooklyn resident may know and i should point out here the extent to which everybody now is weighing in on this is due to the fact that kelly clarkson's original post has been viewed more than 45 million times now and this whole thing yes has mushroomed into a morality play and this was evidenced by some more of that social media feedback that good morning america was referencing there beginning in the story's instagram comments is it okay if i come to your store to look or is your space only for the uber wealthy like richer than kelly clarkson kind of wealthy maybe you only cater to billionaires i don't know i don't know i believe kelly that woman is not controversial and the one time she said something publicly is because in fact she was treated disrespectful and i 100 believe her let's do something post the camera security and let's clear the air either she's wrong or you have to apologize in case you hired rude employees six likes clearly no one should come to this store unless you want to be discriminated against 90 likes they're really throwing out those blue checks to anybody now the craziest part of the kelly clarkson animatronic bird situation is the concept of them finding a comparable item were they gonna pull out big mouth billy bass 72 000 views which really seems like a lot and 83 saves really 83 so what happened in response to all of this was the store in question art of play released a new statement an attempt to clarify some additional details about this yes allegedly comparable item quote during the five minutes she spent in the store parentheses kelly clarkson inquired about our mechanical bird puppet named molly we explained that while molly is permanently attached to the wall and serves as a de facto mascot for our shop a nearly identical automaton is owned by the creator of the machines a brilliant artist named bliss kolb who lives in seattle he told us he would be willing to part with molly's twin for fifteen thousand dollars we explained all of this to kelly clarkson we also offered to show her a different singing bird automaton made by a traditional clock making shop in germany that she could have taken home with her that day because she did drive all the way all the way to brooklyn i i seized on that one yeah all the way to brooklyn i don't like the way that sounded no i'm sorry were you coming from north dakota let me finish the quote it costs about two thousand dollars she did not stick around long enough to see it end quote i love that part the whole how dare you show me an automaton fit for a sex worker aka the profession that julie roberts yes has in pretty woman when she walks into the store and you know her street clothes big mistake and it also feels like why we should disclose here that one reason i wanted to investigate this is because you and i have both been customers at this very store before get out of town we both have bought things there i believe yes yeah automatons no they're too steep for my blood we've also both talked a bunch in the past with one of the owners a guy named adam rubin who declined to comment appalachia finds out but who notably i mean happens to be the author of the best-selling children's book dragons love tacos really that's right but most importantly wyatt you and i have witnessed molly the bird's crucial role in what they do there in the back room of art of play in the back room they do close-up magic shows after hours and there's a secret passageway that one enters and before you do all of that they do a performance with molly the the bird which when you're in the shop they have a sign that says you know nobody should touch this because it's very fragile and the only time they operate it is to welcome people into the magic shows that they do after hours forgive me i might sound ignorant here what exactly does molly do in the back room of art of play in the back room of art of play in the back room i mean i'm so glad you asked because i was scrolling through my phone over the weekend endlessly and i did find this video i took from november 20 2025 Molly is a mechanical puppet, what's known as an automaton. She was designed and built by our friend Bliss Kolb out of Seattle, Washington. She's one of two in the world. So Molly is very rare, and she's very delicate. So we only ask her to perform on special occasions like tonight. When I turn this crank here in a second, Molly's going to sing and dance, like I said, but please keep in mind there are no electronics involved. Everything you see is made by hand. These nine wooden cams and these seven metal strings, that's what controls the movement. That's what makes Molly dance. The leather bellows at the bottom with a brass whistle hiding at the back, that's what controls the sound, that's what makes Molly sing. But when I turn this handle, all that machinery disappears, and Molly comes to life. I mean, it looks like something that you would, like, churn butter with if you went to some trad wife's ranch and they said, oh, would you like some butter? And then they're cranking some stuff and making it for you. On, like, from scratch in the moment. But in this case, turning that crank makes this bird move and its wings flap and it moves around and it also is singing. And, yeah, behind the crank there's a whistle and the way in which all of the gears turn. Yes, the wires attach to this crank. And, I mean, I would love a shop bird to live in this studio. I get why Kelly Clarkson would want to buy Molly for $15,000. What kind of Molly are we talking here? I mean, something that is somehow even more addicting. Molly the automaton bird and the question around this vile morality play, which is about class and discrimination and customer service, really, I think, about getting what you want. This question is why we're here. It's to decide the question of, like, okay, how do we assign responsibility for who did what in this story? And responsibility. In a story like this, as you can imagine, is incredibly difficult to prove. Because to fact-check the anatomy of this scandal, you can't just rely on the he said, she said of this, as Whoopi Goldberg alluded to. As, in fact, one of the millions of Kelly Clarkson fans from earlier demanded, we kind of need some way to see what actually happened in the store to see how pretty woman this entire thing actually was. Do we have the tapes? You don't have the tapes. Come on! Come on! I mean, what we're here to show you and Wyatt and the internet is the tapes. This is what you were doing yesterday instead of paying attention to Terry Gross's Lifetime Achievement Award. Terry Gross is a legend, but it's time for another kind of fresh air after the break. So, before we proceed here, guys, I just need to disclose to any of our new viewers out there, including any potential calibrities, that's what her army is. No. Her army is called the calibrities? They're calibrities. Wow. Cal me now. We are, how dare you, Pablo Torre finds out is on the record as being a, pro-Kelly Clarkson podcast, insofar as we did an episode in 2024, that was kind of devoted, in part, to how pretty much any song she has covered on her television show, which is now over, was better than the real version that the original artist sang. If we're talking about American Idol, Mount Rushmore. Kelly Clarkson is obviously the George Washington. I think it's four Kelly Clarksons, to be honest. It's kind of a boring mountain, but you're like, actually worth it. And if you don't know the ballad. Ruben Stutter just. Erased from history. Sorry 2004 was a hit, okay? Also, you earlier referred to her as a former American Idol, but is being an American Idol a bit like a Marine, in which you are always an American Idol? Or a Nick. Once a Nick, always a Nick. That is why Amin is here, to compare Kelly Clarkson to Othella Harrington. But if you do not know the ballad, as Amin put it, of Kelly Clarkson herself, she is basically a rags-to-riches story. Growing up in Texas, where. Wyatt Snack also grew up. Sure, yeah. And that's how she got to where she is now. I've always had, like, three or four jobs. If I wanted something, like a car, I had to buy it. After I won Idol, people were like, oh, she's a millionaire. No, I wasn't. It's still a hustle, like, every bit of it. At 42, it's still a hustle. Did you say Etsy? Oh, my God. I, like, all of my money goes there. But the place Kelly Clarkson was trying to spend her money on the afternoon of Saturday, October 10th, 2026, was Atlanta. Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, not far from the BQE. In this screenshot, we are looking at the security footage we have exclusively obtained from Inside Art of Play, the magic shop at the center of this viral controversy. I'd like you to tell me, where is Kelly Clarkson? I'm looking around, and I. Maybe one of these people towards the back? I. I don't. I can't see her. Yeah, I'm gonna say no. She's not in this picture. Why? One of the first things I noticed from this footage in this shop is that everyone here is kind of abiding by a similar dress code. If you can help us describe what you see here as a longtime Brooklyn resident yourself. Sure. It's a lot of sweatshirts. We got a lot of folks in sweatshirts. We got a lot of folks in hats. And it's all very kind of J.Crew casual. With a little bit of that Zoomies store vibe. A lot of skate jeans that are just a little too baggy, where I'm like, how do you ride a skateboard like that? Because that's just. That's so much wind draft that you're dealing with right there. You need a speed suit if you're gonna do some tricks. I can't even. The fit is very relaxed, even baggy, in this store. Yes. And what you eventually see when you play through the actual tape, which I'd like to roll here, Okay. Oh, is that her? That's her with the oversized blazer and the satchel? And the hair in the bun? Well, no. What you see is that at 2.49 p.m., a woman wearing a grayish baseball cap and sunglasses and a yellow t-shirt and those baggy jeans and sneakers with a Fall Raven backpack walks into the shop. She's tiny! What is she doing as we're watching this footage? She appears to be browsing. She's now at a shelf. She's picked something up, which that is something that the shop, they say on all the shelves, they say pick it up, play with it, except for the bird, everything else, pick it up, check it out. She's looking at stuff. Kaleidoscope? Or what is she looking at? Yeah, it looks like she's looking through a kaleidoscope. I mean, this is what Kelly Clarkson, by the way, had said in her tweet to more than 45 million people. Quote, Just drove all the way to Brooklyn All the way. to check out this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy. And literally was looked at as if I couldn't afford it. And was told he could find something comparable for me. End quote. She's really going to town on this kaleidoscope, man. Yeah. We're going to try our best to not edit anything out here. Sure. But as the shop gets busier and busier over time, what I do want to do is switch security cameras here. Because there's another angle in store that we have exclusively obtained. So the first angle was as people are walking in through the door, you're seeing their backs. This one is the reverse angle. So this is from the back of the store looking at the entrance directly. And at 2.52 p.m., this is just three minutes after she entered the store, Kelly Clarkson finds herself standing in front of what, Wyatt? Molly the bird. Molly the automaton bird. And I want to show you the previous angle for a second just because at the top of your screen, you can see right behind the number four in the timestamp. Oh, there it is. Yeah, there she is. Just to clarify, she's peeking over the leaf from a fig tree. A very, a very healthy fiddle leaf fern. I mean, just very well lit, well fed. I tried to take care of one of those, killed it in two weeks. What I want to do now, though, is get to the split screen that I think will help see both angles at the same time. Because what you see in front of, Molly the bird, is that she gets the attention of the aforementioned shopkeeper in question. This is the dude that she referenced, called an idiot, said that he was treating her like Julie Roberts' character in Pretty Woman. And I just want to note that his appearance also, Abin, seems very of a piece with everyone else here. Yes, very Brooklyn chic. He's got a t-shirt and, he's got some khakis or brown pants of some sorts. He's got the dad hat. He's got the, I have either an astigmatism or just a great personality type glasses. And what kind of shoes are those? It looks like. Sneakers of some kind. Yeah, but like skateboarder sneakers. I want to see, like some dunks maybe. Who knows? I wouldn't have necessarily clocked him as the shopkeeper because he is dressed pretty casual. He looks like he could be a shopper as much as he could be the shopkeeper. I gotta say I've watched Pretty Woman a lot. Watched it recently. Great movie. Great movie. Love Julia Roberts. Love Richard Gere. But in that scene, Julia Roberts walks in, the original scene where she walks in and gets rejected service, she's dressed as for her profession, right? I think it's like cut-off jeans, shorts, and then like the thigh-high boots that are PVC or whatever, that material, right, patent leather, and kind of like, you know, her shirt's tied up. Mean Gross increasingly specific as if he doesn't remember this. But the idea is that she looks out of place from the typical clientele of this store establishment. Here, Kelly Clarkson looks exactly like everyone else who's in the store. Including the shopkeeper. Including them. Who she's talking to. So in order for this kind of like classist kind of profiling to occur, she would have to appear to not be like everyone else, and that's clearly not the case here. So this shopkeeper is wearing the grayish hat, talking to Kelly Clarkson, also wearing this grayish hat. We cannot hear what they're saying, of course. These cameras do not have audio. But you see Kelly Clarkson pointing. Yeah. She's pointing at Molly as she looks at the shopkeeper. And the shopkeeper. Is kind of nodding, and it's like he's telling her something. And she's looking at it and looking back at him. And is, I guess, trying to confirm something, it looks like. And he just pointed to something. Like, he makes a point at something, not Molly itself. Maybe it's how Molly works. Maybe it's. That sign that says do not touch. Yeah, maybe it's a sign that says don't touch. But he seems to be pointing. To indicate something, which is, yeah, part of this conversation. I'm sorry. I got to reset something. Because a central part of this controversy that was a follow-up to that original tweet is that it was for sale. And here's the price tag, $15,000. But you two have been to the store and seen Molly up close and personal. Can we confirm that there is or is not a price tag next to that particular automaton? Well, I do now, to Amin's point. Want to have Wyatt read Kelly Clarkson's follow-up tweet on Sunday. Cool, cool. Sure. It wasn't for sale. That's the narrative art of play is going to go with thumbs up emoji. So the whole conversation we had when I asked you if it was for sale, whilst pointing to the price tag hanging on the wall with the title singing bird didn't happen? As you elevator eyed me saying in a condescending tone. Quote, yes, it's for sale, but it costs $15,000. So if you'd like me to find something comparable for you, I can. End quote. That all never happened. And now it's not for sale. Okay, cool. So you're not only rude, you're also a liar. Got it. Checkmark emoji. I love the addition of the emojis. Like, I don't think it lands. Quite as well. If I say, just say, got it. Oh, I'll do a checkmark right here. Yeah, now. Yeah, in my furious typing, I'm going to go to the part in my phone where I have to switch over to emoji and then go and scroll through because the checkmark is not the first one. No. The first one is. Is it in a frequently used pile? Oh, that's also very true. Maybe she does this a lot. This is the sort of journalistic question. Yeah, yeah. That we need to be asking ourselves. Yeah, you need to find that out. Well. This is what I have found out about the price tag in question. Because in response, the store has since clarified that the $15,000 price tag, which was hanging on the wall, as she says, refers to the only other version of Molly, the automaton bird in existence. Remember, we had the video from before in which Adam Rubin is saying there are only two of these things. And this only other version of Molly, the automaton bird, is in the possession of the Seattle-based artists that they work with. Who created her by hand. The aforementioned. Bliss Kolb. And therefore, the other Molly is not in the shop to take home. Because again, this Molly is drilled into the wall and is the opening act of all of their close-up magic shows that they do. And you can go and see Molly perform before each of them. But right now, over there, they have a comparable other singing bird automaton engineered by those German clockmakers that they do have in store. Which costs. $2,000. Instead of $15,000. None of this is exactly cheap. No. Sure. Do we have a picture of that $2,000 automaton? Well, what I want to do first, Wyatt, is show you that in this interaction, Kelly Clarkson and this shopkeeper, they part ways. Before Kelly Clarkson can even see the bird that Wyatt just asked about. Before she. She learns that it costs $2,000. You can now see it, right? The whole interaction lasts seconds. And she goes off into the corner. The shopkeeper goes in the other direction. And what happens? He's pointing. But her back is turned. He seems to be looking in her direction and pointing as though, if you're interested in getting a bird, there's this one here. But yeah. She's now looking at the back where there are a bunch of different playing cards that they design that are for sale. Now, I mean, what happens right after that? Now, she turns around and he's now talking to another customer, a guy in a tan shirt and a white hat. Yet another guy wearing a grayish baseball cap and T-shirt and jeans and sneakers, incidentally. Now, Kelly Clarkson. She passes Molly, goes back to the shelf with the kaleidoscope that she can't get enough of. And put it back. Puts it back on the shelf. Now, we'll pause it here because I just got to point out that now that the shopkeeper is engaged with this other customer who is wearing a gray hat and a T-shirt as well. Yeah. And is now standing next to another guy wearing a gray hat and a T-shirt as well. Good God. Yeah. It's gray hats all the way down in this story. It really is. So, I want to point out here as well that that time that the shopkeeper pointed off to the corner to the automaton fit for. A sex worker. Mm-hmm. Is the last time that he will even look at Kelly Clarkson in the seconds that remain in this video. Because he gets pulled out to talk to the other customer and then his customer's friend. They're now standing by the counter. And Kelly Clarkson, meanwhile, who has put the kaleidoscope and the other stuff she was holding back on the shelves is headed to the exit. And right now, I just want to timestamp this. We are. 254.06. It's 254 p.m. And 6 p.m. This is, again, she entered the store minutes earlier. And what happens next with Ms. Clarkson at the door? She's clasping her hands. She heads to the exit. She turns around and seems to be saying something to the person behind the cash register. There's a lot of gesticulating. And she's walked out and he seems to be gesturing to the bird. Yeah. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't seem to want to hear whatever he has to say. I mean, this guy has not interacted with her at all before. This is a different guy from the shopkeeper. There are two customers at the front of the desk. There's a dude with the afro next to a woman. And they're, like, at the counter. The woman you thought was Kelly Clarkson. Yeah. Kelly Clarkson is now standing behind the woman Amin thought was Kelly Clarkson. And is giving the guy behind the counter who worked at the store a piece of her mind. And, again, we can't hear what they're saying. But you can see. What the energy seems to be. I mean, it's a lot of gesturing where it seems as though she's upset. I'm not a lip reader. This is where we need, like, you could kind of do some lip reading there. But there's a lot of gesturing, a lot of gesticulating, a lot of, like, throwing the shoulders forward and back in a way that would suggest this person is upset and wants to let you know. She does the two-handed kind of the Trump thing where when he talks, he does the. He does the two-handed kind of flat hands pointing in the direction, then points at herself two hands, right? And then there's a hands up, almost Thriller Dance style. And she's, like, whoop, like, kind of, like, oh, I can't touch it. With a sassy shoulder shrug. There's a little sass. It's almost a LeBron silencer. But she stops short of tilting her palm down. The body language of the customers at the counter, as well as the guy behind the counter. Everyone seems. Kind of baffled in terms of how their bodies are moving. All right. So then. The black guy kind of clocks it, but clocks it in a way where it's like, yeah, glad it's not me. So, yes, he does. The woman, after Kelly Clarkson has walked out, sharply turns her head around like, what did she just say? Kind of. That's her body language. The brother definitely did the, look, hey, this is white people on white people's eyes. Yeah. He's like, oh, good. Okay, yeah, yeah. This is an equal opportunity Karen moment. And I'm just going to be here and not move so that the bear doesn't see me. My name's Bennett, and I ain't in it. Yeah. What I want to do the math on here is how long Kelly Clarkson was in this store. Because as explosive as the tweets were and the saga has become and the morality play became, she was in the store for a grand total of four minutes and 50 seconds. And the blow-up that has become the subject of a national discourse is the boats passing in the night kind of dynamic that you just saw, it seems. Where the people in the store, by the way, if you continue to watch the video after that, they don't even really huddle up to talk about any of this. If you plan on fast-forwarding, we will, they just go about the rest of their jobs. And what you're left thinking about, I suppose, is just the inevitable. It's the anatomy of, like, how the f**k did we go from this footage to this misunderstanding or miscommunication? That's what we're all debating. Yeah. We have reached out to a rep for Kelly Clarkson, requesting comment about the security footage and what we saw. We have not heard back, not immediately. We will post a response if we do get one. I've reached out to Justin Guarini. From Justin to Kelly. But what I can't imagine here is that something, which is, is not in question, is that she felt offended, right? Like, that part is very clear. Right. She felt disrespected, perhaps. She is, again, as we heard earlier, this woman who grew up poor, working three jobs at a time, long before she won eight daytime Emmys. And so I am left thinking about the store employees in the aftermath who just seem to have no idea what had happened, let alone who it happened to. And you mentioned what happens when she leaves a store. Well, there is, I mean, one more security camera angle that I want to show you. This is the Orville Nix film to Arzapruder Tape. Yes. Okay. Wow, the phone comes out immediately. Wait, do we have a timestamp on the tweet? We do. The tweet was sent at 3:09 p.m. Eastern. Okay. So. 15 minutes later? 15 minutes later, on the drive back from Brooklyn, perhaps. You know what? You know what this is? This is a lot of editing. And I was like, what's the right emoji I can throw in here to bring this all home? In terms of what happened when Kelly Clarkson walked off with her phone in hand and sent what she sent to now, you know, 45 million people. People who saw it. I can report what it's been like a bit to be this local magic shop, right? So she sends that at 3:09 p.m. Eastern last Saturday within minutes of the post. Of course, as you might imagine, Avin, as a person on the internet, there was a flood of accusations, of threats. People started calling the shop. Their previously pristine Google rating was temporarily overrun. And not only were the employees' personal social media accounts attacked, their family members, their accountants, their accounts got swarmed as well. And in fact, the store's neighbor, an art school for kids, got doxxed in large part because influencers like this almost immediately showed up. - We here in Brooklyn and the boy arts and play, which yesterday they disrespecting racial profile, Kelly Clarkson, the famous Kelly Clarkson. So I'm gonna see what they gotta say, what this is about, bro. - Yeah, we need some answers. It's facts news. For what happened yesterday to Kelly Clarkson. - Yeah. - At this shop. - Yeah. - Yeah, how you, what you guys got to say about that? - We're not commenting at this time, but we'll be releasing a statement shortly. - I mean, I need some answers, it's over facts. She says she was racial profile at this shop. Oh, you good? Oh, you call 911? I'm telling you, we in that neighborhood. Why you calling 911? I'm right here. I look dangerous to you? She said I look dangerous. We're definitely in that neighborhood right now. They're locking their doors. Yeah, they definitely racial profile her. Arts and play. This shop is not for the people. - Even though everything about this annoy me, there's something just so damn endearing about someone who up every name. Kelly Clarkson, he said arts and play. - When that video started, that is not what I would have, he is not who I would have profiled. I would have profiled as a Kelly Clarkson fan. And to that, I owe that person an apology. I racially profiled you as not being a Kelly Clarkson fan, where I will take some umbrage with that. She was racially profiled in what was a store full of white people. - These are the incentives of the internet. And that video, by the way, at last count, watched approximately 400,000 times on Instagram, likes more than 1500 comments. But that is a guy who's gaming the algorithm. - Yes. - And so, look, after all the research we've done here, all the footage we reviewed, what this episode is about, to me at least, is a celebrity, seemingly unprompted, activating an army of fans, sicking them on a store that, as you saw in the video, does not have any security, other than the security camera, I guess, the footage that we have obtained, and is, on any given day, including the day Kelly Clarkson was there, and including in the video that the influencer posted, just like hosting kids from the neighborhood also. I mean, that's in part, I would imagine, why they locked the doors on this guy with a camera who like stormed in, and why they apparently feel genuinely afraid about all of this. And again, we await comment from Kelly Clarkson and her camp about this footage. But I mean, Wyatt, she's been famous for almost 25 years. - Yeah, more than half her life. She knows how to monetize and galvanize her audience. - Well, and this is the part of it that troubles me, is you had a bad experience at that store. - Leave a review. - But the moment you mobilize your social media audience, and the moment you engage that, that is a power. And I feel like, like if I were ever to do subway takes, like this is, this feels like one of those things where if you are a celebrity, if you get some level of audience, there should be a DMV where you have to learn how, you've got to go to driving school because that is a power, and you know what you're doing. You know, the minute you say, this person hurt me, this place, I didn't like how I was treated here, and then you name it, you know that you are mobilizing all these people. - Whether you're Beyonce or Taylor Swift, or BTS, or any, or Donald Trump, anybody. - Or Donald Trump, any of those people. - Anyone with an army, by the way, an army of 8.8 million followers on Twitter that she posted to twice, right? - Right. - And then also on Instagram, 8 million people, 'cause you put in her stories as well. - See, there's another layer to this, right? Because what the followers, what they subscribe to in a situation like this specifically, is the cloak of relatability, meaning, oh, Kelly Clarkson, did what any of us would do. I have a friend named Megan, who's in our group chat, and she's very pro-Kelly Clarkson, and she says, "One time, Southwest did me dirty, and I complained, "and I ended up getting a voucher for it," right? And so, in my friend Megan's mind, Kelly Clarkson's just like me, where, yeah, you're upset by the service, and so you complain about it on Twitter, and as a result, the customer service comes back and makes you whole in some sort of way. The difference is, number one, Megan, I love you. You're not Kelly Clarkson. - Yeah. - You don't have 8 million followers. - You don't have the pipes. - Right, so, exactly, and you don't have the pipes. And then, the second thing, and this is perhaps more important, that's not Southwest Airlines. - There you go. - That's not American Airlines. That's not Target. That's not Costco. That's not a massive, multi-billion dollar conglomerate. It is a small, locally-owned shop that sells curios, for crying out loud. - And so, what we're really saying is that, I think it seems quite logical, reasonable, for Kelly Clarkson to consider the consequences of her voice, of those pipes, right? And this interaction at the store that she was in for four minutes and 50 seconds, this store that wanted to sell her some $2,000 automaton instead of a $15,000 one, the follow-up question is, does it feel, based on what we know, does it feel like they deserve all of this? - In reality, this is a class warfare kind of thing, but it's the opposite. You aren't the underdog. You are the ruling oppressive class, in essence, by treating these people who, again, are not on your level financially in any sort of fashion. To behave in that way is the entitlement of the rich. And we talk about this a lot with the Kawhi Leonard, Steve Ballmer thing. The idea, obviously, we're talking about billionaires in that story, but the idea that, hey, you know these rules that y'all have set in play for society? Yeah, a bunch of broke people made those rules. I have money. Those rules don't apply. - Yeah. - Those rules don't apply to me. - I think what we're grappling with is, yes, who is allowed to get what they want and what do they have as a means of getting it that other people don't other people who are left to deal with all of the consequences but i think that's why i'm asking what is the intention here because again for your friend megan it is if i do this i can presumably get my money back right if you're walking out of a shop with eight million social media followers and you're saying i'm gonna go to them like i like that to me is the question that i'm like do you just want to do you just want them to destroy this business yes yes is that is that you want revenge it would seem yeah that is what this whole thing feels like to the store and it's dark right when you get to this part of the story it's kind of dark this is how the internet behaves this is how celebrities are aware that it behaves this is what they do anyway and this is why they need a dmv for this well as i try to drive us home here i am glad to report that there is a silver lining to this scandal because something i found out guys after investigating this whole celebrity versus store clerk throwdown that wasn't on footage at least is that in fact there was one bird device still available right yes why it asked about it and while it is true that kelly clarkson didn't even get to see her quote-unquote comparable two thousand dollar consolation prize this automaton for a sex worker pretty woman style the good news is that you guys do because here no you don't have it that was heavy yeah wow that's got some weight to it i am now happy to introduce to both of you guys ptfo 's new shop birds whoa designed by german clock makers meet the two thousand dollar automaton that kelly clarkson did not want at all so for the price of a macbook pro uh-huh you do get not one bird miss clarkson you get two can you please describe what you guys see it's designed to look like a bird cage i believe because the shape of the bird cage is the shape of the bird cage of the glass the cloche yes the containing uh device there cloche you have is that what it's called that's i've i learned that word and now i have to use it whenever i see it yeah it's under a glass cloche there are two birds one is red one is yellow they look exactly the same but they're just different colors with black beaks and little black tops and some black tips on the ends of the tails and they're on a little plastic plant of some sort with a red flower underneath where the the birds are there is a very complicated looking almost like a what's a rube rube rube goldberg device yeah gears yeah a lot of brass gears and other things so we decided to name these two birds julia and robert oh oh i thought you're gonna go kelly and clarkson i thought clarson i thought it was gonna be justin and kelly oh that's i like that one yeah from justin to kelly look uh i love this two thousand dollar automaton we got is it good does it work well the thing i gotta say first though is that we are going to do something that will also hopefully bring a smile to the people in our audience because we are going to auction off julia and robert and this german clockmaker automaton that is beautiful to our audience we're going to even allow all the celebrities out there to to bid on it and it's going to be auctioned in honor of julia and robert and this german clockmaker i mean of the kira fund no that's terrific that's which is named of course for our good friend david sampson's late daughter kira sampson who died from glioblastoma at age 28 in june of this year we're going to try and find a cure for this horrible brain disease and the link is going to be in the bio in the show notes and yeah i i hope it finds a good home you know if this were like a nice tidy little disney movie kelly clarkson would buy it would be the highest bidder and just hey look everyone has a bad day i do want to make a sales pitch to miss clarkson to anybody else who's interested even vaguely because i mean you asked how this thing works and thanks to the german clockmaker engineering here you see the bellows the black part which fill with air you see the gears which spin and the whole thing is so meticulously made with care it is not digital in the least no batteries no batteries no wires in this age of the internet and technology making all of us insane yeah this feels like a bit of yeah you know an old school antidote yeah buddy you're saying a lot of words i just want to know do the birds sing or not my bird automaton also no batteries i mean in fact much like the celebrity who didn't want to even consider purchasing this automaton it can get a little wound up oh on the bottom oh yeah it's like a little key he's turning it it's on the bottom of this device and now he places it down gently they do have some amazing pipes that's the positive tweet storm this has been pablo torre finds out a meadowlark media production and i'll talk to you next time you