Rubin said neither he nor his staff recognised Clarkson when she visited but insisted customers, whether celebrities, children or casual visitors, are treated identically.<\/p>\n
The latest comments mark an escalation in the public dispute, which began when Clarkson claimed on social media that a staff member looked her up and down before suggesting a cheaper alternative, leaving her feeling judged on her ability to pay.<\/p>\n
The American Idol winner wrote on X: \u201cIf you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts\u2019 character in Pretty Woman. For sure, check it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the film, Roberts\u2019 character is humiliated in a luxury Beverly Hills clothing store by employees who judge her on her looks.<\/p>\n
The store then defended itself, saying there had been a misunderstanding, but Clarkson later doubled down, accusing the store of lying about what happened during the interaction.<\/p>\n
Rubin rejected suggestions that the employee had acted improperly and accused Clarkson of exposing a small business to intense public backlash.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe threw a Molotov cocktail into our store,\u201d he told the New York Post.<\/p>\n
According to Rubin, the fallout has gone past negative online reviews, with supporters of Clarkson allegedly targeting neighbouring businesses and individuals associated with the store.<\/p>\n
The dispute centres on \u201cMolly\u201d, a singing and dancing mechanical bird displayed in the shop. The store has previously said the item was not for sale because it forms part of its in-house magic shows.<\/p>\n
Clarkson had posted a photograph that appeared to show a US$15,000 price tag beside the mechanical bird.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear if the price was a joke or if it was the amount it would cost to order a similar item from the manufacturer.<\/p>\n
However, Rubin told the New York Post the toy bird was now for sale but he had upped the price to US$15 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody walks into the shop with $15 million [$26m], they can take the thing off the wall and enjoy it in their home,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The store has previously said it hopes to resolve the dispute with the singer, but both sides remain at odds over what happened inside the Brooklyn shop.<\/p>\n
The dispute may not be over yet. Pulitzer-winning journalist Pablo Torre has announced on social media that he has obtained CCTV footage of Clarkson in the store and will be releasing the footage on his show tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rubin said neither he nor his staff recognised Clarkson when she visited but insisted customers, whether celebrities, children…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[22061,138,1550,18221,134510,3054,4731,13731,27253,156,60044,5504,18220,111,139,69,2738,56769,19764,312,1326,43655,2742,26452,24172,143077,5143,1354],"class_list":["post-629927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-brooklyn","tag-business","tag-centre","tag-clarkson","tag-clarksons","tag-criticism","tag-days","tag-dispute","tag-endured","tag-entertainment","tag-followed","tag-following","tag-kelly","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-owner","tag-pretty","tag-received","tag-says","tag-shop","tag-singers","tag-thousands","tag-threats","tag-toy","tag-turmoil","tag-viral","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}