The co-owner of the Brooklyn store at the center of Kelly Clarkson's mechanical bird controversy is blasting the singer for her  reprehensible abuse of power  after her public complaints allegedly unleashed a torrent of online harassment against his small business.

 It's a pop star, a mechanical bird, it's surreal. When this thing first started, everybody wanted us to die,  Adam Rubin, co-owner of Art of Play in Brooklyn Heights, exclusively told Page Six Tuesday, referring to the hundreds of threatening messages his staffers have received since Clarkson dragged their store on social media.

 And as the truth has come to light, thinking people realize this is reprehensible abuse of power,  he continued.  We have to reconsider the place we give celebrities in our society. 

10 Art of Play co-owner Adam Rubin (seen here inside his store on Oct. 13) ripped Kelly Clarkson for going after his small business using her massive platform. USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

10 Rubin said that people see Clarkson's actions as an  abuse of power.  (Clarkson is seen here in 2025.) Jackie Brown / SplashNews.com

Rubin slammed Clarkson for using her platform to take down a small business.

 This is not how you can behave as a citizen in the world, like, if you are this famous and powerful and you try to squash someone like a bug, then we're supposed to blame the trolls for all the damage that's inflicted. She lit the fuse,  he said.

The children's book author called the last 72 hours  totally surreal  after receiving an onslaught of hate from Clarkson's fanbase.

 It's been so intense - thousands of hateful phone calls, thousands of hateful text messages, Kelly Clarkson fans demanding we issue her an apology, and it's just such a perverse distortion of reality, that anyone could look at the situation and think that we are the ones who owe an apology,  he said.

He also said that Clarkson's fans  came out of the woodwork,  tracking him and his employees down on social media, spewing hatred at their friends and doxxing their neighbors.

Rubin assured us that every customer who walks through his shop
#pagesix  #podcastdailynews