Pablo Torre leaving ESPN was maybe the best thing that ever happened to the man. He’s got a Pulitzer now, so he’s a serious journalism guy. Much to my surprise though, this week he dove straight into the Molly the bird Kelly Clarkson controversy. Clarkson moved to New York a few years ago, and this week she went on a social media rant about a Brooklyn-based store that allegedly gave her the “Pretty Woman” treatment. After the tweets went viral, Torre's curiosity was piqued, and he ended up nabbing security footage from the incident.
Then, he became a part of the story itself.
Why Did Pablo Torre Buy The Automaton Kelly Clarkson Rejected?
I spent 4 a.m. the other day watching Torre’s interview in full, and while most of its focus is on the Kelly Clarkson footage from the Art of Play shop, he does mention in the video that he actually bought the $2,000 automaton that was adjacent to the controversy.
The gist is that Clarkson wanted to purchase a $15,000 automaton named Molly that maybe or maybe did not have the price tag listed, but became upset when a shopkeeper tried to push her toward a second, comparable bird automaton. We don’t know exactly what went down with the verbal exchange, but the second automaton is the still-expensive $2,000 bird Torre ended up buying.
He ultimately did it to support a charity for a friend, telling THR he did it “in honor” of The Kyra Fund, an organization seeking to fighting glioblastoma.
So, in honor of that, in honor of having a charity and a cause close to home, I thought, what better way to harness the attention to something that feels profoundly stupid, like a truly petty grievance that had saturated all of our brains. How could we turn all of that attention to something positive?
He did this for David Samson, a personality who has popped up in another of his audio series and whose daughter died from the disease. And he did it because one of the things that made him so curious was the fact Ms. Clarkson seemed deeply uninterested in this other bird, which made him want to explore the story more. He ended up buying the bird as part of this, noting:
So we put it up for auction. And my hope is that some incredibly fiscally irresponsible person can realize that they can own a piece of pop culture history and find a cure for one of the worst forms of brain cancer that exists. So, yeah, I hope people take that part seriously as well.
At the time of this writing, the auction titled "Kelly Clarkson Turned Her Back on These Singing Mechanical Birds at Art of Play. Now You Can Buy Them for a Good Cause" currently has raised $5,200.
Why Was Pablo Torre Even Involved In The Kelly Clarkson Bird Controversy?
If you know Torre, you should probably know that a lot of what he covers is in the realm of sports. However, he does cover some in-the-moment pop culture stuff, and he also lives in New York City, where the Clarkson incident happened. He also told the outlet why he ultimately got invested in this story around the same time the rest of the Internet did.
I don’t think there is anything resembling a rule or a standard for when we blow up a given week that we had planned very carefully for months because a fucking bird automaton became the center of a national controversy. That is a sentence that, if you were to tell that to me a week ago, I would have felt like I was on acid. But maybe there’s a breaking news story that makes you feel like you’re on drugs, and the only way to sober up is journalism.
Kelly Clarkson is typically known for being a relatable human, and one would have to guess there was some misunderstanding or tone that led to her reaction on social media. However, as a public figure there’s a question of mindfulness surrounding how the Internet was going to respond to her taking a small business to task. Those who know her were even surprised about what happened. Plus, the shop’s owner, who happens to also be a children’s book author, has spoken out about his small business Art Of Play getting doxed and more.
Hopefully, attention will die down in the next few days, but with public figures like Pablo Torre weighing in, I would certainly say interest in this subject has lingered.
