Blake Lively suing Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment

[PrettyFlyforaMaiTai]

According to TMZ Blake Lively is suing Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment on the set of ‘It Ends With Us’.

According to the lawsuit, a meeting was held in regards to the hostile work environment. Blake demanded that Baldoni stop showing nude videos or images of women to her, no more mention of Baldoni's alleged previous "pornography addiction," no more discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others, no further mentions of cast and crew's genitalia, no more inquiries about Blake's weight, and no further mention of Blake's dead father and no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex or on camera climaxing by Blake outside of the script Blake approved when signing onto the project.

Baldoni’s representative have denied the allegations and state this is an effort for Blake to rehabilitate her recent poor image.

www.tmz.com/2024/12/21/blake-lively-sues-justin-baldoni-sexual-harassment-retaliation-on-it-ends-with-us-set/

It is honestly the most disgusting statement I’ve ever seen. People have been throwing around the term ‘mean girl’ about Blake but it seems that Abel and Co are the true mean girls. Imagine doing this to another woman and feeling justified and then still defending Justin as a feminist. Arrrrgghhhhh!

There is a PR company being paid to conduct a smear campaign against Blake Lively. Follow Megan Twohey’s reportage on this. Published in the New York Times, a newspaper with very high standards of fact checking.

Such a campaign would use social media, including MN.

Isn’t that a bit mean? We should care because she was a young woman who appears to have treated absolutely appallingly by the men in charge. I’ve seen the list of her 30 “demands”. All seem extremely reasonable… We should care not because she’s famous, but because something really awful happened to her!

The PR's statement is a car crash. First rule when there's litigation ongoing - say nothing.

As to the snippy comment about private texts and emails - no such thing. She'd been retained to do a job, therefore her correspondence was work-related. Even then, subpoena's can cover private correspondence if the judge rules it's relevant. The comment is either go-for-broke defensive, or naive in the extreme - either way it paints a supposedly accomplished and experienced PR professional in a very poor light.

The claims that it was all planning that wasn't actually executed are ludicrous, as even the most cursory read of the evidence in the legal papers shows that there was active engagement with the press.

As to why people should care - yes, they should. This case is much more than a couple of celebrities having a scrap. This is challenging employer-sanctioned sexual harassment of women in the workplace, and the consequential punishment of that woman for following the HR process of making a complaint to get it to stop. The resulting manipulation through diversion and then astroturfing on social media sites and small independent press sites, to get the mainstream media to pick up and amplify it, specifically to destroy someone's public image, is both frightening and repulsive.

Reddit is in meltdown about this, as the papers specifically mention using them to seed rumours and negative stories. There's been a big backlash on some of the celeb gossip subs.

If JB did the things she's accused him of, then he should absolutely be called out and carry the can for it. The PR stuff I'm less bothered about as it's the cut and thrust of the job frankly.

It's a separate issue entirely but no, I don't like her. I took my kids to see it (partly my fault for taking it at face value) as she billed it as a romcom. It's not in any way. It's a film with a very serious topic at its heart. Trying to then sell your drinks and hair care ranges on the back of a film about DV is highly insensitive, as was her answer about victims of DV.

So yes, I'll judge her for that. She's powerful enough to push back if the studio wanted her to promote the romantic angle and only she chose to use it as a platform to promote her merchandise. That said, she has my support if the list of demands came about from his inappropriate behaviour. I suspect more will come out on both sides before it reaches its conclusion.

Part of JB's strategy was to target DV victims on SM and use their stories and trauma to boost his image. Him taking it "seriously " was calculated and planned.

I find that a lot more despicable.

Months ago Gina Rodrigues his co star on Jane the Virgin came out to say that he was a gentleman to work with

I think they’ve done this to the wrong person. BL and RR are loaded and can afford the best lawyers. The whole thing is terrifying- the behaviour on set, the PR campaign. I hope these creeps get hung out to dry. Absolute shocker reading that list. Poor BL, I believed the stories too. Good on her for standing up to this. Brave woman.

Part of JB's strategy was to target DV victims on SM and use their stories and trauma to boost his image. Him taking it "seriously " was calculated and planned.

I agree it's a fair point. But I'd still rather the topic was taken seriously, even if it's for personal PR reasons, than being billed as a romcom and used as a platform to sell alcohol and hair products.

I watched the film and it was quite shocking. Didn't like the birth scene, thought that was too unrealistic as a revenge play. But it's not a romcom, it's a film about DV and no one should have been promoting it as anything other than that, irrespective of personal motivations. Or indeed pressure from above as BL has enough clout to call it out as inappropriate.

Interesting. I've certainly known of abusers who can be completely charming in one arena and a very different kettle of fish in another leaving people completely confused when the extent of the behaviour is revealed.

She's powerful enough to push back if the studio wanted her to promote the romantic angle

She couldn't even push back against being naked for the birth scene. She couldn't get this abusive man fired and replaced as he clearly should have been. She couldn't quit the film which was clearly a hideous experience.

Interesting. I've certainly known of abusers who can be completely charming in one arena and a very different kettle of fish in another leaving people completely confused when the extent of the behaviour is revealed.

I suspect the main difference was him being "just" a starting actor on the TV show and the power and control he had as director,producer and cofounder of the studio for the movie.

The co-founder of rhe Studio is a billionare though. He also allegedly said he was willing to spend up to 100m Dollars to ruin her and her families life.
If this ever geschrieben to court it will be a shitshow.

Did anyone read the bit about how they were trying to target Taylor Swift as well due to her friendship with Blake?

“we have seen the most innocuous issues turn giant due to socials or the hugest crises have no effect on social whatsoever. You just cannot tell at this stage. But, BL does have some of the same TS fanbase so we will be taking it extremely seriously.”

“our team can also explore planting stories about the weaponization of feminism and how people like Taylor Swift, have been accused of utilizing these tactics to ‘bully’ into getting what they want.”

Unbelievable. I think they definitely messed up targeting such a rich and powerful woman with rich and powerful friends.

She’s not powerful enough to refuse to comply with the marketing campaign. Even the biggest stars have to. Even the actors are clearly uncomfortable doing it like Johnny Depp, Hugh Grant and Cillian Murphy. BL is taking the fall for a poorly considered marketing campaign. Yes she could have considered the impact of selling hair care and alcohol lines but that’s as far as it goes.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, as in my opinion, intent matters. Using DV survivors to boost your profile and image , while pretending to care and be an ally is the lowest of the low.

"Find the most emotional and touching content from survivors"

"Find survivors sharing their story and amplify them on my page and TikTok".

Even more despicable, if you believe BL as it was a deliberate tactic set in motion to explain the "rift" between him, her, and the rest of the cast. Pretend to care about abuse to hide abuse.

Alot of that stuff. Particularly in refference to a intimacy co-ordinator should have been arranged prior to filming & the fact that these matters were addressed at the time will be taken into account ie. = what was specifically done after this meeting which none of the information actually lists

I 100% think he's a piece of shit & Im particularly put off him by the whole "I spoke to your dead dad" & inviting his mates to watch sex scenes

BUT the whole filming & subsequent promotion of it showed them to not be capable of both staring in & producing a film & that they are actively trying to tear each other down (her comments thanking her husband for working on the film & failing to properly promoted what it's about/him taking the piss & seemingly finding new ways to offend & irritate her everyday ect.)

This whole project has been a failure

She was the co-producer with 20+ years experiance in the film industry who held a meeting addressing concerns & offences while taking steps (admittedly belatedly) too hire a intimacy co-ordinator (who should have been employed before filming started)

I agree he's scum but she could have walked away so this is not "a young girl" being mistreated by "men in charge"

This was a crap film by 2 people who seemed to go out of their way to rile each other & are determined to tear each other down

I don't think she started out as co-producer. My read of the docs and the NYT article is that she was subsequently given the CP credit due to the re-write work she was involved with - which wasn't originally planned as part of the film schedule.

If you read the details her producer credit was added at the end as a result of her edit being chosen for the release.

Yes, sorry missed this.

I hope the PR group do pop in and look at MN. They'll see their smear campaign failed. They're probably on damage limitation now, trying to post as widely as possible that his behaviour wasn't that bad, she's a woman she could have said no, it was equal poor behaviour.
Feeble excuses for a toxic man.

This whole project has been a failure.

It's been a huge success - the film has to date grossed over $350 million and had a budget of $25 million.

For those of you determined to have a strong opinion on this while refusing to actually read the court submission (seems to be really common that people don’t like to read anything that might make them think differently);
Blake Lively wasn’t a co director on the film and she wasn’t a producer during filming. She was a hired actress and JB’s production company owned the rights to the film. She was given a producer credit after she made her accusations, away back in Autumn last year and after she and Reynolds created a Final Cut of the film which Sony chose to go with. I imagine a large part of the reason they did this is because of scenes filmed where JB made BL uncomfortable and which were filmed without an intimacy coordinator where she was partially nude and not allowed to cover herself in between takes.
There’s a shitload of evidence included in the submission including the Sony marketing brief which shows BL was marketing the film in the agreed way, a document signed by JB where he agrees not to do multiple highly inappropriate things which absolutely constitute sexual harassment
All of BL’s accusations of sexual harassment have witnesses.
There are dozens of text messages between the production company and the PR agency which evidence JB’s intent to “destroy” BL on the occasion that she speaks about her experiences on the film and celebrating the effectiveness of their PR campaign, including them discussing their intention to portal her as difficult to work with, weaponising feminism against men, a mean girl, promoting the film insensitively, she and Ryan taking over the film. It’s clear conversations were had with various journalists who took part in the pile on and bot farms used on Reddit and instagram.

Blake Lively’s “behaviour” when looked at objectively is no different to dozens of men in the industry who are celebrated or seen as quirky. We hold attractive wealthy women to far higher standards than men and gleefully knock them down. Even the PR woman in her text messages commented that it’s sad that the internet is just desperate to dog pile a woman.

In spite of other women on set making complaints about JB and the entire cast and author cutting him off afterwards, the internet was and even with all this evidence still are desperate to “innocent until proven guilty” him, while not affording Blake Lively the same grace with the accusations she’s a “mean girl”