I Spent 4 AM Watching Kelly Clarkson Security Footage. Let’s Talk About It.

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This morning, I was awoken by the sound of hard-hitting rain on my rooftop at 4 a.m. and obviously couldn’t go back to sleep. So, I started doomscrolling, when to my wonder, the footage of Kelly Clarkson in the Brooklyn curio shop Art of Play found its way into my life. I spent the hour watching clips of the usually relatable Kelly Clarkson getting agitated in the store in question and storming out, but not before returning items she’d picked up seemingly to purchase on their shelves.

To be clear, the credit for landing the tapes goes to former ESPN reporter Pablo Torre, who is known for analyzing this sort of thing on “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” just more typically on the sports side of things.

I’d seen the owner of the shop mention having security footage in place yesterday, so I doubt Torre would have been the only person the footage might have been shown to, but he did the leg work, and if you’d like to watch the full rundown video, it’s below.

Watch On It’s a lot, and we don’t all have time to watch a multi-minute analysis of a celebrity having an interaction that was maybe or maybe not the most pleasant, and then storming out of the business and tweeting to the world about it.

The footage ends, and a second camera catches Clarkson right outside of the shop and already furiously typing on her phone. It seems clear given context clues she was unhappy about what happened inside the shop. We can’t hear the actual conversations she had, but even if the exchanges went poorly, Torre and co. also noted several things about the incident we can infer.

The first is that Kelly Clarkson was not shamed for how she looked in a Pretty Woman-type incident. She was welcomed in the shop, dressed similarly to other customers, and spent six minutes inside. She also has a large social media following and you could argue she should have understood the consequences of what would happen if she called the store out by name. She clearly wasn’t happy about how the interaction went down or what was said, but one of the weird side effects of being famous is she certainly is in more of a position of power than a small business. What’s next? Chaos ensued.

Owner Adam Rubin talked to USA Today and various other outlets and social media several times yesterday to make his feelings clear after the shop, its employees and more started dealing with a deluge of Internet hatred. While he said Ms. Clarkson would be welcomed back into the store, he shared what has been happening to his staff and neighbors after her review calling them out by name went viral.

We are afraid for the safety of our shopkeepers. Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger. Not just are people showing up in person, but our neighbors are getting doxed, and review bombed. People are getting threatened on the street. The worst part is, we didn’t know this was gonna happen, but Kelly Clarkson did.

Rubin did try to put a bit of a bow on the whole thing, and invited the star back to look around and see one of the shows the shop is known for putting on. Though he did say it’s a pretty common tact to show customers comparable items in the store. He also wanted to clarify he feels the misunderstanding is “insane,” and that “nothing happened” on the level to “justify” the singer “scolding” his shopkeeper — and especially not what happened next.

There’s been a lot of discourse on the incident, but the Torre video does go a long way to illuminate more about what we didn’t see when it came to Clarkson’s initial tweet and Instagram posts.

Jessica Rawden Managing Editor Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways. 

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