“I know what it’s like to be Molly the bird,” Ruby Rose wrote in support of Kelly Clarkson, recalling how Clarkson once said she wanted to put Rose in her pocket. Molly is the singing mechanical bird Clarkson tried to buy at Art of Play in Brooklyn.
Rose was an MTV Australia VJ when she interviewed Clarkson in 2009. Recalling her exit, she wrote: “But right before I closed the door, I heard Miss Clarkson say, ‘she was adorable, I just want to put her in my pocket and take her with me,’ a reference to me. The door closed and I took a few steps.”
She continued: “Then I paused, and I asked my producer if I could find a way to become really tiny so that I could live in Kelly’s pocket. My producer laughed. We left and went on to another interview, but for years I wondered what my life could have been.”
In 2021, The Kelly Clarkson Show shared footage from the interview and described it as their first meeting.
Clarkson visited the shop on October 10, 2026, and wrote that day that an employee seemed to doubt her ability to pay. She also said he’d offered to find a similar item.
On October 11, Clarkson described asking about a purchase as she indicated a price label on the wall bearing the words “Singing Bird.” She said the employee named a price of $15,000 and suggested finding a similar piece, delivering the offer in a manner she considered patronizing.
Art of Play says Molly is its mascot and has always been kept off the market, attached to the shop’s wall. The $15,000 bird it offered for purchase, the shop says, belonged to Seattle artist Bliss Kolb and looked almost exactly like Molly.
Rose closed her post with: “I feel for Molly, I really do.”
