Kelly Clarkson trying to buy Molly sounds like the opening line of a blind item on DeuxMoi. Unfortunately, Molly is not a drug dealer in Brooklyn’s underground celebrity scene. The most famous Molly in America is a bird. This is a win for sobriety and ornithology. Molly is a mechanical singing bird displayed at Art of Play, a Brooklyn novelty toy shop that also hosts musical magic shows. And Kelly Clarkson, apparently, really wanted to buy her.
What followed was a public feud involving a disputed $15,000 price tag, allegations of classist customer service, an owner invoking “asymmetrical social warfare,” and a bird whose advertised price eventually reached 15 million USD. I need everyone involved to understand that this is not a normal way for a bird to become famous.
In Clarkson’s version of the story, she traveled to Brooklyn, saw Molly, asked about purchasing her, and said the staff treated her as if she couldn’t afford the bird because of her appearance. The shop reportedly offered her a cheaper alternative. Clarkson subsequently named the business publicly and criticized the interaction. As a member of the general public, what’s most upsetting here is that Clarkson was apparently so offended by the possibility of being perceived as unable to afford something… The true American nightmare is not being unable to afford healthcare. It is someone thinking you cannot afford an animatronic chickadee.
While I have many criticisms, something at the forefront of my mind is that, if the staff really were condescending, that is worth criticizing. However, being insulted does not automatically justify publicly directing a massive audience toward a small business. Moreover, if the store’s employees were judging customers by appearance, I have some questions about what they thought their clientele looked like. Was the dress code for a $15,000 bird formalwear? Was there a net-worth minimum for entering the gift shop?
Clarkson has said she loves small businesses. That’s a fair sentiment, and it is also deliciously ironic in this context. My argument here isn’t that small businesses should be immune to criticism. BUT a celebrity with an enormous platform has a different responsibility when criticizing one publicly. Kelly Clarkson loves small businesses the way a tornado loves a trailer park. Her celebrity status should not be a prerequisite for good customer service. If the shop would have been kinder had the employees recognized Clarkson, that is its own problem. Good customer service shouldn’t depend on the business’ size or whether someone has a Grammy.
The shop apparently raised Molly’s price from $15,000 to $15 million after Clarkson responded with a photo of the original price tag, meaning Molly’s valuation has increased 100,000 percent. So, if she goes public, I’m buying. While the store could have simply explained that Molly was part of the show and offered to connect Clarkson with the artist, we have arrived at a point in American history where a mechanical bird has been assigned a valuation greater than most people’s lifetime earnings. she goes public, I’m buying. While the store could have simply explained that Molly was part of the show and offered to connect Clarkson with the artist, we have arrived at a point in American history where a mechanical bird has been assigned a valuation greater than most people’s lifetime earnings.
In a TMZ interview, the owner made a claim that Kelly’s actions put the shop’s employees in danger, and his allegation that the store received thousands of threatening calls. He used the phrase “asymmetrical social warfare” which is almost too Bushwick to be real. This is a toy and magic shop, not the Pentagon. Although, given the terminology, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next Instagram post announced that Molly had been deployed. But ultimately, no, the shop’s employees absolutely should not be subjected to threats. Clarkson’s platform creates a power imbalance, and the internet can turn an ordinary dispute into a harassment campaign.
The artist, Bliss Kolb, created the bird. The attention has led people to express interest in buying the artist’s work and even related merchandise. Meanwhile, the public argument has almost completely eclipsed the person who made the object. Clarkson could end this entire saga by commissioning five birds directly from Kolb. Imagine the headlines: Woman Allegedly Denied Molly Acquires Entire Molly. This is also an opportunity to gently criticize Art of Play: if Molly wasn’t available, the shop could have offered to facilitate a commission or direct Clarkson to Kolb. That would have been a reasonable solution and potentially good for the artist.
There is one other recent Kelly Clarkson controversy worth mentioning here: her apparent love affair with artificial intelligence. On Sept. 30, Clarkson appeared on Las Culturistas and declared, “I love AI,” describing her enthusiasm for its creative applications and explaining how she uses ChatGPT to help with design ideas and communicate with her team. She did draw a line at AI-generated musicians competing directly with human artists on the same charts, suggesting they should have separate rankings. Still, the oddly anti-artist comments attracted understandable criticism, particularly given her earlier declaration that AI art “doesn’t have a soul.” For an artist whose career is built on a very creative human voice, her enthusiasm for technology that can steal her job from under her feet was always going to raise some eyebrows.
And then, roughly ten days after those AI comments went public, Kelly Clarkson found herself at the center of an entirely different internet controversy: Molly. I am not saying the Molly saga was a calculated PR stunt to redirect attention away from her AI opinions. I have absolutely no evidence of that, … the timing would certainly be convenient from a marketing lens. Nothing buries a discourse about AI’s threat to human creativity quite like a discourse about whether a celebrity can afford a singing bird. If this was an attempt at reputation management, I have questions about the strategy. If it wasn’t, then Molly has achieved the impossible: becoming a hostage of the free market.
At the end of the day, I cannot tell you whether Kelly Clarkson was rude, whether Art of Play was classist, or whether Molly is worth $15 million. I can tell you that this entire situation has convinced me that we need to take several steps back. Buy art directly from artists. Be nice to retail workers. Stop turning minor disagreements into international incidents. And perhaps think critically about the relationship between celebrities, technology, and the people who actually make things before the next internet controversy arrives to occupy our collective attention span.
I don’t know whether Molly was a PR distraction, an unfortunate coincidence, or simply the natural consequence of allowing a mechanical bird to become more famous than the people arguing over her. I do know that artist Bliss Kolb deserves to have his work celebrated outside of this bizarre feud, and that neither a celebrity’s platform nor a small business’s independence should exempt anyone from criticism.
And if anyone asks, I am on the bird’s side. Molly has done nothing wrong. She is a working woman with a job to do, and unlike everyone else in this story, she knows when to keep her beak shut.