Kelly Clarkson & the Molly Bird Dust-Up

Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's chat. I can't believe we're going to be talking about this one today. All right. It is Tuesday, October 13th. Thank you for joining me today. Typically, we do these chats on Wednesday. I will be traveling this week, so I wanted to bump it on Tuesday. And good thing, because if If it were Wednesday, this story would be long gone. Of course, I'm talking about Kelly Clarkson and the Molly Bird story. This story already had its moment, and I want to ask you right off the bat, do you even care about this story? And if you do, tell me the level or why you care about this story. Why you care about it. Because I'm curious. This is worthy of a chat for us. You know, in this community, we love to hop on every week, and we talk about the headline stories, but we want to get into the story behind the headline. We want to talk about what really is going on here. Honestly, I don't care. I don't care about this story. Casey doesn't care. Other people are saying no, they don't care. They don't care. But a lot of people cared about this story. I wanna show you right off the bat how many people cared. And I'll give you just some insight too, real quick. Over the weekend— oh, I have to say, I have to point what Maddie said here. I am honestly enjoying the ridiculous nature of this story. And that is in contrast to Louise, who says, weirdly, I care a lot, but because I've had conversation with clients recently about leaving negative reviews, And what— and what to do about it. And Carla, I love it because it's nice to see celebs being human, like that— like that crazy aunt who overshares on Facebook. Slightly, because she seems more offended than someone that she was average, not wealthy. And would have sort of cared about it at first, and especially when the store responded. But then when she responded back, it really got interesting and really And one more. Amy said the Pretty Woman narrative only works when the character is poor Kelly coming across like an entitled person. Don't you know who I am? A lot of different angles to it. Now, let me just show you briefly here, uh, the context of how people care about this story, because a metric that I look at is the press, the press pickup. A story like this doesn't start with the press. It starts with an incident, but then it starts on social media. And that's where I come in. That's where my work comes in. It's the news aspect of it I find interesting, but that's well after the fact. I'm in for the messy circus of social media because it is filled with misinformation, nonsense, just craziness, but it's filled with sentiment. The press sees that sentiment and then takes off from there. Case in point, I was in New York City this weekend. Sunday morning, I wake up, Marriott Marquis. A little shout out to Greg, my boy Greg, who won 4 News Emmys on Saturday night. So big night, big night, and won a national Edward R. Murrow Award as well. So I was very proud of him. But we were in New York City Sunday morning. I opened up my phone while watching, and just a sidebar for a moment, just for shits and giggles, I put Fox and Friends on to watch. I honestly, I don't even know why, but I felt compelled to watch it at that moment. And it was Sean Duffy's wife, Rachel Campos Duffy, was there in the center. And I thought, how did I miss this? I didn't know that she was on Fox and Friends. And I immediately, Noted to myself, narratives. I thought Sean Duffy and Rachel were family first, family first, family first. They have 9 kids. So every weekend she goes to New York to be on Fox and Friends? Hmm. Doesn't quite fit the narrative. But quickly, I'll tell you, they did a segment with a paleontologist about using AI to extract— using AI from extracted DNA that could we possibly bring dinosaurs back to life? And it was so incredibly fascinating. to watch Fox News do a story like this because there's one goomba on the end who's not, you know, shaking his head the whole time, which I think he's thinking, and this is just me editorializing here, no, this is Adam and Eve. Dinosaurs. Silly. Like, this is what he did the entire interview. And then Rachel Campis, so you have all of these artifacts on the white, and she's picking up the tooth, the mammoth tooth, you know, like this. Yeah. And you could see the museum curators like, And then she says, and she's— I'm sorry, she's horrible, horrible at this job. But then she says, so where do people— like, you got these things, where do people find these things? Craig and I are like, um, a museum, which is where this guy works from. But anyway, but he was talking about extracting it in one of the first— And one of the first prehistoric Uh, mammals to bring back to life is the woolly mammoth. But Fox, the intro was a clip from Jurassic Park. It was all T-Rexes. And then even in the graphics behind was a T-Rex. Like those 3 dumb-dumbs, they all thought they were talking about, you know, a T-Rex. It's like, well, no, it's just a woolly mammoth. So it was, it was a, a Absolutely cringeworthy, uh, clip, um, to watch, or piece, segment on Fox News. So I just had to add that in there because it was— oh, um, I'd rather have a lot of other things extinct, things back before we get dinosaurs. There is, there is that. Um, but the guy in the middle, they got out of that segment so fast because it was a train wreck. But anyway, after I, after I watched that, I, I opened up my phone. The very first thing delivered to me was Kelly Clarkson. Okay, well, what's Kelly Clarkson up to? And we got— we'll start with the tweet, and then I want to show you the news on it. Okay, so let me share this. And I mean, you've all seen this, right? I mean, and I am going to tell you right now, this is not going to be a conversation where we get the magnifying glass out to see if the $15,000 sign was there or not. That's the stuff I really, really don't care about. Um, I want to, I want to look at the, the kind of human element of it. Oh, you probably can't see this that well. My apologies. Kelly Clarkson posting over the weekend, October 10th, 3:09. Just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out the 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 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. Okay, that is the first, uh, that's the first tweet that, that I saw about this. And, and actually, I probably didn't see the tweet on it because I'm definitely not on X anymore. Uh, but my mind went Oh, that's interesting, Kelly Clarkson. That's very interesting because yes, Herb, I was in the Kimberly Guilfoyle algorithm even on the way down to New York City. We were driving there. Oh, I, I was lapping up the Kimberly Guilfoyle story. That is a story that she wanted to go away. So if we look at the news cycle of this happening over the weekend, And I want to show you now the number of stories that came out about this story. And, you know, so these are articles. Again, this is with my partner, my media partner, Muck Rack. They, you know, I asked them to pull some numbers on, on, sorry, some numbers on this story. Dang it. I want to get an easier version of it. That's not it. That's not it. That's not it. Okay. We're, we're unfortunately, we're just gonna have to go here. Okay. So here's the whole dashboard. So over here on the left is articles over time. So I probably can't see that, but over from 10/10 to 10/12, you, you can see the spike and that ended up on 10/12. It's now October 13th. But over 2,000 articles, that's a lot of articles about a former American Idol contestant visiting, uh, a store, uh, like a car, a magic store in Brooklyn. I gotta give her more credit where credit's due. She's much more than that. Uh, now look at the sentiment. The red obviously is negative, uh, green positive, and then we have neutral is this gray, and then unknown. For all the times I show you sentiment, this is probably evenly spaced here. And not fully evenly, but there's, there's, this is where we're seeing really for the first time in our chats here where we have almost as much positive as we do negative. Usually these stories would be, typically they're just negative stories. You know, we just see all the negativity and the sentiment over time. So positive. And then that started whittled away and then it was negative. Now, this negative here is where we all intersect because this doesn't mean it's negative towards Kelly Clarkson or Art of Play. It's the context of the stories and the chatter. And that is where— this is where the symbiotic dynamic nature of the story sits. It's because this was a primarily social media-driven story. And social media-driven stories are driven with opinion. And people had a lot of opinions about this story. But what I found interesting, most people, I would say, just from a general point of view, do you agree with me? Kelly Clarkson has a pretty favorable rating. Would you guys agree with me on that? Even from winning American Idol through, you know, then everybody was all in on Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson was kind of there, but she kept chugging, chugging, chugging. She was putting the music out, putting the music out, just bangers, bangers. And she was doing really, really well. Then she gets her TV show. And I was at NBC doing an interview with Access Hollywood. So it was down the hallway, like Jimmy Fallon was here. And then Kelly Clarkson was right across the way, and it was right— like, her show was starting, like, right before that. And, and I remember passing by the studio thinking, damn, girl, good for you, good for you. And then we had what happened with her husband. And I was running this morning, and there's a Kelly Clarkson song that's on my, my run playlist called Mine. I haven't heard that song in ages. But as I was running to it, I, I remembered, like, Oh, she went through one doozy of a divorce. Now, her ex-husband has since passed away, but this girl has been through it. So to see this tweet happen and her kind of exploding like this, I thought, oh, this is, this is interesting because it's not typical Kelly Clarkson fare out there, but also how it kind of split. Okay, so Danielle said, I saw Brooklynites interviewed. Uh, and they all thought it was wrong for Kelly to say, you know, what she was saying about a, about a store and about, uh, you know, about the store. So what's interesting here about the sentiment going back and forth, you definitely have 2 lines of sentiment, and that's where our conversation is. It's not in Molly Bird itself. And can you get another Molly Bird? And was Molly Bird $15,000? And can you buy it or can you sell it? We don't know. Okay. We don't know. But to see the sentiment on both sides like that, um, but the truth is where it does bring the sentiment kind of to picture, you know, to, it's, there's some clarity here. So then on October 11th is when the store answers and And what, and what, and, and, and, okay. Okay. Let me, let me go into this and show what the store said, because this is where I find, this is where I find it kind of interesting. Is the store saying, uh, sorry, here, let me, let me go right here. And I'm going to, and I'm going to show you this, uh, even though I know you guys have seen all of this, you've seen all of this, but we have to, we have to read it from here. Article. Oh, come on. Hold on. Yeah, there we go. So October 11th. Yesterday, Kelly Clarkson visited us in Brooklyn inquiring about buying Molly, a one-of-a-kind singing and dancing bird automation who plays an important role in the music shows we host here. So when I found out that the bird's name was Molly, I was like, Even when the Kelly Clarkson thing came across my feed, I thought, okay, the Molly of 2 years ago would be over this, like all over this, like so quickly. But the Molly of 2026 in October who had, you know, cocktails the night before, I just, I didn't have the energy. I just didn't have the energy. And I thought, oh, but now the dog, the bird's name is Molly. I've got to say something. So I like how my mind immediately goes to Substack. When they, when they, when I started reading this, so now they're describing, uh, you know, Molly is permanently attached to the wall and isn't for sale. However, however, the negative experience described, that Kelly described on Twitter would resonate with anyone who ever felt judged in a shop. Now think about them writing this. Think about them sitting here and, and figuring out what are we going to say? What are we going to say? Is this written? By a local store owner, brick and mortar in Brooklyn. They just have this one store. They're keeping it going just by, you know, all their revenue is just from this one store. Like, this response is from someone who kind of has been to the rodeo, so to speak, that they're kind of in a bigger universe other than just that street in Brooklyn. At Art of Play, whether someone comes in to make a purchase or simply look around for a while, they're equally welcome. We greet everyone who walks in the door with an invitation to pick things up and play. And they do. Many stay for hours enjoying our puzzles, games, and toys. So now we have within the statement, we are clarifying what happened, but we are also getting an ad for our, for Art of Play. They are explaining to everybody what Art of Play is, and it is A PR art of play because they are taking their moment. And I think that's— this is a statement that is written by people who know they have a moment. This is not written by someone just picking up a phone and saying, you know, and like your typical notes apology app. No, there is an art to this statement. Love this line. Imagine our surprise. That framing right there is saying, no, Kelly Clarkson, this never happened how you think it happened. When our small, small local business— we come back to that— was suddenly attacked by 8 million people who have never visited our store. Context: it's been a surreal experience to be the focus of such widespread outrage after just one mention by a celebrity. Oof. Now you're coming after Kelly, but artfully written in a way where they are the victims. Thanks to all our friends for their support, and welcome to all the curious folks who have discovered us amidst the drama. No kidding. That should have been the opener. They buried the lead. We're going to keep our heads down and hopefully we can clear things up with Kelly someday. Nice, diplomatic. As a talented, popular singer once said, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Okay. Clever, clever, clever, clever, clever. The art of play. Do we like that? Do we like that response? Now, this is a story I'm not going to have any emotion attached to it whatsoever. Let's only look at the details of it. This is a story that's already trending over the summer, I mean, over the summer, over the weekend. And why is it trending over the weekend? Because it's a holiday weekend. Viral stories tend to travel over holiday weekends. That's just how it is. If this happened 2 weeks from now, if this happened closer to the election, heck, if it even happened a week prior, I don't think we would have this peak. We wouldn't see the numbers for muckraking go up like this on the coverage. We're getting it because it is a holiday weekend. People are kind of decompressed. People aren't necessarily opening up and reading the headlines or watching television or sitting in hotels watching Fox and Friends with my mouth open going, what am I watching? People are on their phones. And people don't wanna think. So that's why a story like this, when I immediately thought back to Labor Day a number of years ago, when, remember the whole Jonas Brothers divorce, Joe Jonas, Sophie Turner? That story exploded Labor Day weekend. So there's that. So there's that. Also, you're going to get newsrooms a little skeletony. Newsrooms over holiday weekends, you're gonna get a lot of younger people in there. You're gonna get, um, you're gonna get producers who are doing anything they can do to get to a story. And how I know this is because I gotta reach out from a network, uh, to speak on this, uh, to speak on the story. And I always, you know, I always love helping out media producers. They need a source. I'll help you with a source. But I'm— well, one, it was vacation and I didn't want to do it. And I certainly was not of face to do it. But I also didn't want to do it, honestly. I didn't want to comment on Kelly Clarkson. And I'll share that with you all right now. Like, I don't want to be that pop culture go-to. Like, we got a hole here. Can someone fill it? Can Molly fill it? And it's not to put myself above it by any means, But I'm not interested in the pop culture. I'm not interested in the Kelly Clarkson part of the story. And that's what they want. And of course, that's what they want because that's what's trending. That's, that's what everyone's talking about is Kelly Clarkson. I'm not interested in the pop culture. And I know this from a number of interviews that I've given over the past like 6 months. I will tell them, I know what angle you want, but that's not the angle I have right here. You know, and, and I, I think that's— That's starting to show in the media hits, you know, that I pick up. So I ended up not doing it, but I said, we have to go to Substack and talk about it. And here's where, um, I fall in what's going on, because I want to show you another tweet that just came up here and why I think this matters. They wanted me to take her down, Carla. Yeah, like, I think the narrative was It's either, yeah, they wanted me to offer, I'll agree with you here, they wanted me to offer criticism of some sort, like clutch the pearls, I can't believe this happened. No, that's not what this moment is. It's a store in Brooklyn who clearly now, a lot of people in the US know about this store. So we're going to call this, really, it kind of is a bit of a win-win, but I just saw this tweet here and I want to show it to you. Because I think it speaks to when we get into the extra layer of it. But look at this. I wish I could pop this out so you guys could see it better. Uh, @JoeMcBob, the owners of the Kelly Clarkson Drama Store are rich celebrity magicians. LMAO. They have a Wikipedia page that brags about how successful they are. One of their DVDs sets made over $2 million in sales. And I noticed that this morning. I, I did, cuz I looked them up. The owners of, of the store, you do not see their names in the coverage. That's what I found interesting about it. Like their names are not attached to it at all, but the store is just one part of their kind of magic card empire, you know, if, if you will. And so they, that's why they knew what they were doing here. They knew that they That they had a moment there. So getting into the details, so let's, let's go here for a moment. I'm curious, do you think Kelly Clarkson was snubbed? If you're looking at the responses, let's just look at the responses. Okay. Um, do you think she's telling the truth, or do you think the store is telling the truth? the owners of the store are telling the truth? Like, what is the truth of the matter? And without getting into, you know, like the microscopic price tag. So Danielle thinks she's telling the truth. Anyone else? What do you think is, is, is, is happening? Renee. Uh, happening here? Hold on one second. Um, I have a phone call I have to put forward. I'm so sorry, you guys. Um, do you think it was true? So I think Kelly's telling the truth. She has no reason to lie. The reason I, I tend to think she is telling the truth is there was unwritten law among celebs not to trash brands. Oh, interesting. I think it's hard to know. Both sides seem believable. Uh, she was treated as everyone else, not as a celebrity. Okay. I, I'm gonna look at this from, from my experience, what I think it is. I absolutely think what happened to Kelly Clarkson happened to Kelly Clarkson, 100%. Uh, first, we just have the type of celebrity Kelly Clarkson is. She's not our big entourage celebrity type person. She kind of gives that vibe. Like, I, I can picture Kelly Clarkson going to Brooklyn specifically to go to a store like this. I, I could see that. Yeah. And she's a mom. She's a single mom of 2 kids. Uh, I, I absolutely see her on a Saturday traipsing down there and going to the store. Uh, and, um, and the reason why, and this comes from my experience, the fact that she had that experience where she said she was talked down to, people tend to not misread that. People tend to know precisely the moment that happens. And I can say that as someone who knows, and I know there's probably other people here, you know when someone is doing that to you. And to get Kelly Clarkson to the point that she had to go to Twitter or into social media about this, we know it happened to her. 100%, we know that that happened to her. And this is not to disparage Kelly Clarkson at all. But she seems like that type of cool chick celeb where she is going to look like your average run-of-the-mill mom running around on a Saturday. You are never going to think when she walks in the door that she's a big-time celebrity. So I, I absolutely believe something like that could happen to her. Now, could it have been that they didn't think she had enough money? We don't know that. We don't know that. But dismissed? Yeah. And the, and the, so that's the first reason. When people, and when I said in Substack, all crises start from the same place. They start from that grievance. And Michelle pointed out here, when she said elevator eyes, I was like, yep, totally relate. You don't just come up with that. She knows exactly what she was doing because she felt it. And it wasn't Kelly Clarkson celebrity that wrote that. It was Kelly Clarkson, the woman who has been shat on in her life by her ex and probably by other people in the industry growing up, whatever. She knows what she knows in this industry. She's not your atypical looking celebrity. Like, she's someone who became a huge celebrity Despite, you know, like she's not the typical persona. So I believe her 100%. When people feel that aggrieved moment, that's where the crisis begins. That's every single crisis we have begins with an aggrieved moment. And then it mobilizes from there. So it's either a group mobilizing over something, an issue. That's what I get hired for usually. Or it's just one person. And in this case, it's one person who had 8 million followers on Twitter behind her, and then social media subsequently where she went there. So I don't think Kelly Clarkson was thinking, I'm Kelly Clarkson, I'm going to punch down at this store. She was already down here saying, you just punched down to me as a woman, as just a consumer treated this way. Now, the lesson though is, should Kelly Clarkson have done that? And that's where the reputation risk comes in. Uh, she could have not mentioned the store. That probably would've been a better move for her, uh, just from a reputation point of view. And I should say this, there's probably a part of her who absolutely doesn't care. At all. She's like, I said what I said and I'm not backing down from it. And, and I'm not apologizing. I'm not doing a response. I'm not doing any of that. And frankly, if I'd advise her, I'll give in the end, I'll give the, what I would advise on, on both sides. But she, um, she absolutely felt that she could have removed the name, but the fact that she didn't remove the name tells me that's why it happened. And some people were punching at Kelly Clarkson saying, well, now coming at her because she was bringing down a small business. Kelly Clarkson probably did not know how big of an empire these guys have in this company. She probably didn't understand that. Uh, but she looked at it as a moment of not a small business. And so that's why when she came back with her other With her other clapback of, of right here. Okay. I'll, I'll show this even though I know, I know we've all seen this. Okay, cool. Cool. Sure. It wasn't for sale because they're explaining in their follow-up with all the details. That's the other point I should say in all their explanations and their follow-up posts. Explain, explain, explain, explain, explain, explain. We've talked about this, what people, you know, when responses have a lot of explanations. Cool, cool. Sure, it wasn't for sale. That's the narrative Art of Play is going to go with. Thumbs up. So she named the company, she named the store again. 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, yes, it's for sale, but it costs $15,000. So if you'd like me to find something comparable for you, I can. I believe that 100%. And here's the other reason why I believe that is because contempt always arrives in a crisis. When there is contempt against another person, they always feel contempt. Contempt never goes unnoticed, ever, or unfelt. Okay, cool. So you're not only rude, you're also a liar. Got it. And I cannot tell you how many times I have said in my clapbacks in dealing with life where I end the sentence with, got it. Uh, and by the way, I obviously support small businesses because I was literally at a small business trying to purchase things. Zoom, bing bing. I love small businesses and know they are important and always support them, but you don't get a free pass to treat people less than in your store just because you are a small business. It's not that hard to be kind. I never blast people, but you, my friend, are an exception. Your store is really cool. Unfortunately, you aren't. Who can assume that that's not what she was feeling? I think that's— I think what happened absolutely 100% happened. It absolutely did. But what Art of Play did is You know, in their response, they made— here's the other reason why I think, um, here's the reason why I believe Kelly Clarkson and, and where the tells are with Art of Play. Because again, they, they know what they're doing. They, they know what they're doing here. We'd like to clarify one additional detail about Kelly Clarkson's visit during the 5 minutes she spent in the set— spent in the store. That's framing, right? It was only 5 minutes. Like, how did all of this happen over 5 minutes? She 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 automation is owned by the creator of the machines, a brilliant artist. So then they name the, you know, drop the, uh, the name of the artist. He told us he would be willing to part with Molly's twin for $15,000. We explained all this to Kelly Clarkson in 5 minutes. How did you explain all that in 5 minutes? How did you contact Bliss in Seattle in 5 minutes? We also offered to show her a different singing bird automation made by a traditional clockmaking shop in Germany, which is exactly what Kelly Clarkson is saying that you did to her. So in their details, and they are framing it as a misunderstanding. But here's the other tell why I believe Kelly Clarkson is because in responses in the professional world and in life, when people are wrong, instead of offering accountability, they offer details. And not just details, explicit precision-like details. And that's what they did. It's like they, it's the kitchen sink of details. They were, they were just putting everything in there. But they also said it was 5 minutes. How could all of that have been accomplished in 5 minutes? But you know what could be accomplished in 5 minutes? An elevator eye, the side eye, the stink eye, the contempt eye. That absolutely 100% could have been, that could have happened in 5 minutes. So I tend to believe Kelly Clarkson in this whole story. But what's our takeaway in all this? Should Kelly Clarkson have done this? Did ArtPlay do it? You know, what, what comes from all of this. So before we jump in, I want to hear what you have to say. Carla, their response was loaded with passive aggressiveness. There you go. Contempt. Like a smug, a smugness, calculated and transparent. I wouldn't be surprised if they tipped off the press. Oh, I mean, because, because these owners are in a much, much bigger arena. Millions and millions. This is not Kelly Clarkson punching down a small business, though we could argue at the time she, she probably thought it was just, you know, a small business. But they, they replied back in a way where they knew the stakes. They knew exactly how important, how important this was. So the crisis management read on all this is We have pro-Clarkson, we have pro-shop, we have anti-attacking small business, but we have, um, people who are skeptical of the shop because of the price tag was on there, which Kelly Clarkson indeed, uh, pointed out. But let's just pull away crisis management lessons from here. So for Kelly Clarkson, I, you know, I don't fault her. Like she had her moment and she's probably still pissed about it. And, and I don't blame her at all because this became like such a big thing. It's probably the last thing she wanted to deal with. But I think she had a legitimate grievance and she, she had a wound that was festering and she needed to heal it. And she did. But it's an example of that, the, the reputation management thing that we can pull away. It doesn't matter if you are Art of Play, which is now all over, you know, the news and they have all this publicity, or if you are just a lowly brick and mortar, mortar, just trying to stay afloat. And someone gives you a negative review on Google. I know from being in the middle of these crises, a negative Google review sends people. They don't like them. They don't like them because that's their reputation out of their hands and on Google. So their reputation is with a Google search engine and people can Google and look at someone's response, especially if they don't agree with it, like that negative review or 1 star or why they hate the place or that one negative reaction. It really becomes a sticking point with them, a problem. So if you have a Kelly Clarkson moment, like, geez, that is, that is a really big thing. So I don't think Kelly Clarkson needs to do a response. And honestly, if she did, I'd be disappointed. I really would. Because we need justice for people who are contemptuous to us and people Who got it wrong, right? So I don't think she needs to write a response. No way. If I worked with Kelly Clarkson, or if this got to Kelly Clarkson, because she is such an affable, positive sentiment type of a celebrity— she also is a very busy one. She pops up everywhere. She's in The Voice, she's doing interviews, she's in shows, she's singing, she's everywhere. This is an anecdote for the future. It's just an anecdote for the future. It can be a direct attribution, but if you're Kelly Clarkson and you wanna do the art of play on this one, you just do a side thing. You talk about mechanical birds, you talk about mollies, or you talk about whatever. You're gonna do a side, like, got it. Like, I'm gonna tell you, I'm aware of what happened, whatever. But I'm not backing down on this. They treated me like garbage. And it's sometimes it's just that acknowledgement. That's part of my framework. Own it, explain it, promise it. Part of own it is just acknowledging. You just acknowledge what happened. I think that's what people want to hear from Kelly Clarkson. Like, how is she feeling about this? So if I were her, I would not do, I would not do response. I would not apologize because she does not need to apologize for a very likely contemptuous behavior that happened to him. Also, from the business point of view, you know what they say is all publicity is good publicity, even bad publicity. There's some research that doesn't necessarily support that out there. There was a study for, well, there's one study for the caution, and it came from, and it said a study of 78 social media firestorms found Short-term brand perception declines for 58% of affected brands and long-term negative effects for 40%. So in general, negative publicity does not help you. It kind of leaves a stink. But there is a study out of Penn, Berger, Sorensen, and Rasmussen, and Jonah Berger has written a lot of books about, about sentiment and content that stinks, that, that sticks, found an estimated 45% sales increase For a study just in books, like when books got negative reviews and it was an unknown author, the spike in book sales went up. We've talked about this in our chats before with A Million Little Pieces, the Oprah Book Club choice. And when the author, blanking, someone's going to tell me, what's his name? 'Cause I did this last time too. I completely blanked on his name. His book skyrocketed when she accused him, well, essentially of lying, that the book was really a fiction. It wasn't an autobiography by any means. It was a piece of fiction. What was his name? James? James, James, James. Someone's gonna come with me. Uh, but there's an, but there is an example. So really, there, it's not, it's, it's not going to be a win for them. For Art of Play, but sometimes curiosity can be a win for you because now every time someone stops by the store, and also it should be said like today or even yesterday, they're back to business as usual on social media. Now I would assume the types of posts they had were the types of posts that you bank that were there anyway. So they're just going to keep Oh, Herb got it. We gotta go James Fry. James Fry. Thank you. Thank you. Hoogel, our Hoogel in the chat, that they're gonna get that bump, that curiosity bump. So we can say in this chat, like, the curiosity bump can help you. And I think that will help 'em here, but I don't think they won the reputation piece of it, honestly, because since these guys work, In a bigger arena and they, they do a convention, like they've got other things going on. They're now out there. So if there's anything negative that comes up with them again, that's gonna be a headline story. That's the risk of it. That's the risk. So it's not a massive hit to them right now. It's just a potential risk down the road. And for, for Kelly Clarkson, You know, did she punch down? Well, I would argue she just punched back. She just punched back. And you wanna know what? Art of Play did the same thing. They tried to show it with dignity, but I think we're all smart enough to know there was too much Art of Play in there. Too much Art of Play in there. And, and, and also from a crisis management point of view, the shop's explanation, if there's any lesson that came out of it, is this. The shop's explanation kind of missed the point. They kept talking about the details. This is why we believe Kelly Clarkson. It wasn't $15,000. We, we, you know, the, you know, we don't sell this. This is a part of our display. It's all these different things. All the details. When you get too much in the explanation, own it, explain it, promise it. The true response should have been about Kelly Clarkson's experience instead of trying to prove her wrong. And call her a liar, which essentially they did. They called her a liar, which is why she said that. Uh, they wanted to defend themselves and that's why defending as your response does not work. So is it a massive hit on them? Not necessarily, but it does lead people to believe Kelly Clarkson and that they probably did side-eye her in there. But what do you all think? That's my take. That's my take on this. So this is a story. It happened on a, on a holiday weekend. No surprise. Likely would not happen like this, this level any other reasons. So Danielle, they made their response an ad for the store. Of course, that's exactly what they did. That's exactly what they did. That's why they kept posting as well, because they knew the press would pick up on it. And oh my gosh, I saw so many headlines. That said, PR expert slams this. PR expert, like all these PR experts are out there talking about it. You know, they got what they want, right? Kelly doesn't need to be concerned in any way. She's ranked 11th on Billboard's 21st Century Female Artists and Rolling Stone's 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. I totally agree. I, I, I totally agree. This, this is not gonna hurt her. Look at Morgan Wallen. He had a terrible video release and then his album hit the charts. Yeah. Well, okay, Amanda, I'm so happy that you said it because it also falls, um, into another type of rule for me is when it comes to this, this I learned in cancel culture era. It's this. If people really want you to survive cancel culture, they will. If you are an artist and they don't want you to go away, you won't go away. You will come back. You will. You're going to take your lumps. And you might be put on the sidelines for a bit, but you will come back because people want you. You're, you're absolutely right. Like a Morgan Wallen, a Kanye West, uh, people are going to bring you back. Uh, someone who keeps trying, like a Kevin Spacey, he didn't want— he kind of defies it a little, but it's because of why he was canceled. I think he couldn't come back. But if Kevin Spacey did something that was not as third rail of what he was canceled for, he'd come back because so many people liked him as, as an article, as, you know, as an actor, right? Just saw an IG post. What was the point of winning American Idol if you can't buy the animatronic bird you want? Exactly. Uh, the store's in Brooklyn Heights, the most expensive part of Brooklyn. Okay, good to know. Thanks, Danielle. The biggest mistake was not taking a beat after feeling under attack. Yeah. And, and honestly, both could be said to both sides, you know, to Kelly Clarkson and to Art of Play. Uh, it feels like Kelly Clarkson tweeted right after it happened. Like that tweet was written before she even hit the crosswalk. That's my feeling on her, on, on her post. That's how she felt. And usually in these things, we always tell, and the person like, Write it down, write it, hit draft before we hit send. Let some time go. And she still could have posted it. Honestly, she still could have posted it, but she maybe would've taken out Art of Play and left all the things in there. And even if she said Brooklyn Heights, people would've figured it out. And honestly, it probably would've been more deadly had she done that. It would've been more damaging had she done that. Right? Because people would've figured it out. This business had no interest in appeasing Kelly Clarkson. They could have been— this could have been solved very simply with a short and concise apology for being mistreated and inviting her back into the store. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it could also have been like a salesperson who did it, you know? So they're just like, they're just, this is a hill that they're choosing to die on. I would never, The hill I would die on would never be the Kelly Clarkson hill. This business had— okay, I just read that. Sorry. The biggest mistake— oh, I'm sorry, I'm reading the same things over. A lot of positive reputation came from being a judge on The Voice. Yeah. Well, I would also say her talent. Kelly got triggered because she was judged on her looks, which she experienced her entire career. I see. Yeah, we don't know that, but I could see that. We can draw that conclusion 100%. She's talked about that. She's not the traditional mold at all. All right, so let's quickly move on from this and we'll do the last piece of it if you wanna stick around for a bit. Kimberly Guilfoyle and also the new press secretary just, just did a press conference. Did her first briefing. Substack does not allow me to share video. Shame, because that first press briefing. Oh my God! What's her name? Herb Hoogel. I want to say it's Zachariah, something like that. Oh, here we go. Katie. I feel like it's Zachariah, but it's not. It's Zachar. Zachariah, maybe Zachariah. She got up and made Caroline Levitt look like Barack Obama. I don't know, Abraham Lincoln. She was awful. So awful. She had to read from her notes to get up, to get up at a press briefing and saying, hey, it's great to be here. I'm your press secretary. She needed notes for that. She even looked up and she, and, and she was, you could tell her heart was beating. I think her name is former Miss America candidate. Is that true? I wouldn't be surprised, but it was so bad. So the, for the White House to have, this is your press secretary heading into the midterms. Oh, this is going to be fun. You guys, this is going to be fun. We are going to have to analyze this. Uh, so, but I did like her outfit. I'm going to give her this. She had the kind of the military jacket with the white blouse, the tie. I did like her outfit, but she is full-on MAGA persona. She's got the look, she's got the blonde hair coming down, very quirky. Then worse than Sean Spicer. Oh, please. Sean Spicer was a PIO and Sean Spicer had experience. He was just horrible for Trump. Sean Spicer, I would argue back in the day, which I remember clearly when he was our press secretary, he could have done the job with a different president. He, he could have filled, he would've been a good, like a, like a second run type of a press secretary, like the third press secretary of an administration. He would've been fine. Oh, she is way bad. Sean Spicer had to kind of deal. Remember, he's the one who had to get up and say, oh yes, it was the most people we've ever seen at inaugura— at an inauguration. You got it wrong. I was at that inauguration, at Trump's inauguration. I know, shame. I was, uh, we got tickets, but I was high enough at the first Trump inauguration where we could look out and see, and I could see, yeah, yeah, there were people there, but not that many people. Not that many people. And that, ooh, that weekend in DC was, ooh, it was. 'Cause remember all the women marches that we had at the same time? I was there with my kids and I said, let's sit down in this diner and let's talk about what's going on here with lessons. And then we had to get outta town and go to the Red Sox winter weekend. Like, let's get outta here. And now the other piece is Kimberly Guilfoyle. That story is such an interesting story. So Kimberly Guilfoyle, who used to be married to Gavin Newsom, who is a potential presidential, uh, candidate. She is now our ambassador to Greece. She was engaged to Don Jr. Were they engaged or dating? I think they were just dating. I don't think they were engaged because when he got engaged to Bettina, he wasn't engaged to Kimberly Guilfoyle, but I could be wrong with that. I could be wrong about that, but she was shipped off to Greece because they needed to get rid of her stat so Don Jr. could be with Bettina, his now wife who got married and Donald Trump was not at that wedding. Um, but Kimberly Guilfoyle, to have that donor who was— I don't have it on my notes here, but he was the owner of like Tomato Express or something like this, pizza joints, who's giving money to Kimberly Guilfoyle. And she is asking for money, $100,000 to pay off her Amex bill so she can have a smooth confirmation hearing to be the ambassador to Greece. And that guy to come out with those texts, the humility on that is crazy. She still has her position. I do not think she has her position for long. She can't. There would be no reason to keep her in there unless she's like a secret keeper. Unless she's a secret keeper. Unless she can bring down other people. But I can't imagine. The picture of Kim and Gav on the fur rug— Oh, yeah. The Kim and Gab days. Well, you wouldn't even recognize her. You would not even recognize her at all. US Ambassador to Greece says post was honor of a lifetime after Trump asked her to resign. Oh, she's gone? Are you just saying you think she's gone or is she actually gone? Oh, the White House has asked her to re— oh, to resign. She's already resigning. Oh my gosh. Wow. Nikki, I worked at the restaurant in DC during that time and they were nervous about riots. Nikki, I remember sitting at a restaurant with my kids in the glass and it was the first time I like, yeah, I totally agree. I don't want to disparage her, but I thought the same thing too. I thought we were going to be in the middle of a riot. Okay. Before we, before we head off, let's bring up Kimberly Guilfoyle. Yeah, I'm not surprised over the weekend that she's, that she's gone. And it's true, you know, when someone said, um, Kimberly Guilfoyle should thank Kelly Clarkson, uh, just for a moment, because you knew this story was not going, uh, away at all. All right. Oh, here we are, you guys. Thank you. You guys are on it. You guys are on it. So let's— let me share this. Imagine her life right now. Holy moly. Kimberly Guilfoyle resigns as ambassador to Greece amid ethics scrutiny. President Donald Trump will hold a rally for GOP candidates in Alaska later today. Once a top campaign surrogate said that she would resign amid misconduct allegations against her, which she has denied. Of course she denied. Guilfoyle's announcement came shortly after the new White House press secretary, Katie Zakaria told reporters that the, uh, oh, that the ambassador was asked to step down. Uh, her first briefing lasted just 14 minutes. She did start only yesterday. Let me see what she said. Let's go back here. Let's see if we have a statement from her. Okay, here we— oh, post to X. Is this following? Does it follow you? Okay, let me, let me stop the share and let me. Let's go to X and see what she has to say. I'll share it with you guys. They were engaged. She was engaged to Don Jr., John Jr. Um, you're right. She, that's right. She was engaged. Yeah. Sorry. My apologies. I can't keep up with them. I don't know if you can read this. Wow. That's long. Okay. So this was 11:10 AM. Serving as the United States Ambassador to Greece has been my honor of a lifetime. I'll forever be grateful. To Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for entrusting me, blah, blah, blah. I've worked tirelessly. I wanna see where she spins here. All the things that she's done, natural gas, reduced dependence on Russian energy, expanded opportunities. I'm especially proud of our role the embassy has played in strengthening. We'll call this the blah blah. Okay, here we go. Here's the me. I also wanna address the recent allegations against me. These allegations are false, and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity. I've dedicated my professional life to fighting for justice, standing up for what is right, and defending the values that make America exceptional. I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service. My gratitude and respect for President Trump and Secretary Rubio remain unwavering. Okay, I'll, I'll give my commentary in a second. I'm proud of what we accomplished together and will always be a loyal supporter in his mission to make America great again. While my time as ambassador may be coming to an end, my commitment to President Trump, the America First movement, and the country I love will never end. Honor of a lifetime. We already heard that. God bless the United States of America. Well, what do we think of that? So she starts the first half. The blah, blah. But then this is what I love. I also wanna address the recent allegations. These allegations are false, and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, my integrity. They're not allegations. He released her texts. That's not an allegation. They're her texts. Pizza guy didn't get up and say, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Asked me for money. He got up and showed everyone that Kimberly Guilfoyle was asking for money. And not just asking for money, admitting that she knew it was wrong and how to bypass, uh, to bypass the scrutiny if he just wired it to Amex directly. And then chastised him for writing This back and forth and not using Signal while she writes him. That is the ultimate, ultimate spin. Eric Dieters, there you go. He has the receipts. We love Eric Dieters. When I saw his quote, oh my gosh, he's, he's the best. Oh my gosh. This is a bad midterm look, a bad midterm look. I just want to say, how is she the only person resigning for ethical scrutiny, Josephine? Hear, hear on that one. You want to know why? Because maybe it's the receipts are so heavy. And also, she's already been cast aside once to Greece, so it's easier to cast her aside. That would be my argument on it. Uh, yeah, Carla, first rule of PR, never have receipts. Never have receipts. Wow. All right. So it's Tuesday, October 13th. What's coming up next? What is coming up next? I want to thank you all for joining me today. Uh, this was a good one. I think this was a good chat. Thank you for, for jumping in with all your intel. We have to keep watching. I think this might be the last we hear of Kimberly Guilfoyle. I don't know if she'll be, I don't know. She is low-hanging fruit, but is she interesting? I don't know. I think she's going to be banished from Team Mega. I don't think we're gonna hear from her again, uh, at all. But we're heading into the midterms, so that's why we're gonna see a lot of spin and we're gonna see a lot of things outta the White House right now. We're gonna see a lot of framing, a lot of spin, a lot of defending, whatever we can get. We're gonna see a lot of desperation. And when desperation happens is when we usually start to see these acts. Next Dancing with the Stars season. You know what, Herb? Sounds like a joke, but we all know here it's very well something that could happen. Absolutely. All right, you guys, I want to thank you for joining me this week. Thanks for coming in on a Tuesday for the PR Breakdown, where we don't take down, we only break down the PR moves and the spin that we all spot together. All right, everyone, thanks for joining me. Bye for now.