Blake Lively

[Theremedy]

Evidence is emerging about a coordinated smear campaign against Blake Lively after she was sexually assaulted and harassed on the set of It Ends With Us.

The claim is that her co-star and Director of the movie Justin Baldoni engaged in unwanted sexual behaviour during intimate scenes. Such as “improvised” kissing and biting of her lip. That he whispered inappropriate comments in her ear during filming and was a general all round creep.

Also that the film’s producer Jamey Heath showed her sexual photographs of his wife.

That both of them would walk into her trailer while she was changing.

She complained to the studio at the time and requested an intimacy director to be present during sex scenes. She also got protections written into her contract, such as no improvisation during sex scenes. She started to request her husband (Ryan Reynolds) presence on set.

During the promotion of the movie all the above was spun on social media into a tale of her being unreasonable and a diva. Obviously nothing was mentioned of the behaviour of the men. She was contractually instructed not to talk to deeply about the theme of the movie (ironically, domestic violence) and to keep interviews light. This was spun into her making light of DV and victims.

I remember seeing the stories at the time, and she really was made out to be a bitch.

Now, in a law suit BL has filed we can see text messages between the publicists and a PR firm that were brought in specifically to smear BL. They appear to admit to orchestrating the whole thing and we can see in writing that the PR firm confirm the behaviour and can’t quite believe how well the smear campaign worked. As one of the messages says “it’s quite scary how much people want to hate women” [sic]

Scary indeed.

a self-important person who is temperamental and difficult to please (typically used of a woman).

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast what's the male equivalent?

Narcissist probably 🤷‍♀️

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast that's a mental health condition. So, no. Getting my point yet?

It’s late. Just make your point.

Good grief, perhaps don't wonder into the feminist section if you're so ignorant you need this spelling out to you. Blake Lively is a woman, she is held to a higher standard than a man. A man cannot be a diva, because his sense of self importance would be celebrated as self confidence, success, "no bull shit attitude", women are absolutely not afforded that level of leeway. Successful men and women will make mistakes sometimes, it will go to their heads, they will do bad interviews. But men will be forgiven. Can you imagine if a woman gave an interview like Cillian Murphy? We laugh at his standoffishness, would we a woman? No. They must be demure. Humble. Grateful.

Another example may be James Corden, but he seems to have been quickly forgiven and not had his career dragged into question has he not?

Is Blake Lively a "diva"? Or does she have boundaries? Standards for success? Has she made a few mistakes along the way as a young woman?

I don't know the answer, but I presume as you used the misogynistic term, that you must know.

Thanks OP, have been wondering what on earth this is all about.

The thing is she wasn't even that rude. A bit brusque maybe to an intrusive question, but that's enough to have her labelled a diva and have it brought up constantly as a 'but' when it comes out that she has been seriously sexually harassed.
In all honesty, I think one of the reasons she is targeted with such disdain is because she is a very beautiful woman and that makes far too many people want to take her down a peg.
That says something very sad about humanity.

Links to the actual legal submissions, which are long but written in easy language and VERY illuminating.

This is Blake Lively's against Baldoni, Abel (PR person), Nathan (PR person), Wayfarer, etc.

static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/1629cc34e562e325/4410b1d9-full.pdf
BLAKE LIVELY, an individual, Plaintiff,
V.
WAYFARER STUDIOS LLC, a California Limited Liability Company, JUSTIN BALDONI, an individual, JAMEY HEATH, an individual, STEVE SAROWITZ, an individual, MELISSA NATHAN, an individual , THE AGENCY GROUP PR LLC , a Delaware Limited Liability Company, JENNIFER ABEL, an individual, RWA COMMUNICATIONS, LLC, a California Limited Liability Company, JED WALLACE, an individual, STREET RELATIONS INC., a California Corporation, and DOES 1-100, Defendants

And this is Jennifer Abel's former employer at a PR agency, Stephanie Jones, against Baldoni, Abel, Nathan, Wayfarer, etc. It was when Jones sacked Abel and recovered Abel's work phone that the incriminating messages about Abel's anti-Lively campaign were found.

https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=Xc9lTZnkJAsclCjfCv0G4g==
Stephanie Jones, Jonesworks LLC, Plaintiffs,
-against-
Jennifer Abel, Melissa Nathan, Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios LLC, and JOHN DOES 1-10, Defendants.

I am not that shocked. I am highly suspicious of any man that claims to be an advocate for women. Especially, vulnerable women.

She got loads of shit for not promoting the film by talking about the domestic violence. He got loads of praise for ‘centring women and victims of domestic violence’. Except that’s how she was told she had to promote it. And he decided to use domestic violence victims and women to his own advantage. He went off script to try and cover his own arse.

Many men who claim to be feminists do this exact thing. It’s a cover for how abusive and misogynistic they actually are.

He even had members of his own team replying to women, pretending to be him, when they messaged thanking him for bringing attention to DV. I get he won’t be sat answering his own DMs. But they could have made it clear the team were responding. Not personally him.

the podcast The Rest Is Entertainment (Marina Hyde and Richard Osman) did a piece on this last week.

Reynolds and Lively and the director were all represented by the same agency, who have dropped the director.
The director (and/or film company, i can't remember) have engaged a Crisis PR team and the messages are absolutely damning in their openness about what they intended to do to Lively's career. Her aside, who the fuck takes on Ryan Reynolds?

But we need to keep pushing and asking and demanding answers and changes to how women and men are treated. In the film industry in particular, but anyone in the public eye and anyone in our lives. The hipocricy and double standards MUST be called out every time.

(i read elsewhere about Harry Windsor and how the media are ramping up criticism of him and his wife, coincidentally just as he is taking Murdoch to court. The [mis]use of vast media platforms is a massive issue of our times. Whether it's celeb-gossip-type stuff or foreign agents interfering in politics)

The entire affair has definitely made me more suspicious about the anti-Meghan and Harry crew.

A male diva is a divo - but for some strange reason we don’t seem to use that word much 🤔

Yes joking about killing his wife was definitely absolutely fine. He's disgusting and the PR around that trial was horrifying.

I remember thinking at the time how orchestrated it all seemed. The BL smears were coming up on all my feeds on YouTube and twitter etc. I was wondering how has this had come up on my algorithm when I’ve never even seen one of her films. I’m glad that this has ended up in the public domain. People need to learn to be a lot more savvy about analysing the kind of PR they are served up. It’s awful. I hope this is the last we hear of JB too. Never heard of him before and never want to hear of him again.

the "do it to Julia" vibe is VERY strong (and with good reason) with many women

I just want to add to the discussion that Justin Baldoni is suing Blake Lively and the NYT because she edited his texts and he provided the originals.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/justin-baldoni-nytimes-lawsuit-blake-lively-b2673732.html

I think the whole thing is a giant shit show to be completely honest and neither of them come out well out of this

The article you've linked to says Baldoni is suing the New York Times, @CoraTheExplora , I don't think it says he is suing her. Per this article in the Independent his lawyers have suggested he intends to sue her but he has not yet done so as far as I know.

I agree that (so far) the evidence is that Justin Baldoni in NOT suing Blake Lively. He is solely suing the New York Times.

However, I imagine the information that the NYT subsequently gives up to Baldoni's legal team will determine how he then proceeds with regard to suing individuals (or not). This process itself will be mired in legal arguments about sources, freedom of the press (extensive in the US), and privacy.

I’m not particularly into celebrity culture and had never heard of Blake Lively before seeing a thread on MN last year (ostensibly by a TV/film insider) that attempted to raise awareness about this phenomenon.

My thoughts are:

Ms Lively doesn’t have to be nice to be a good actress or good at her job.

She does seem to have a case of ‘foot in mouth’ when speaking to people and often seems to blunder her words or say the wrong thing on the red carpet. She would probably be better advised to just nod and smile, but she seems to want to interact authentically, so she takes that risk.

None of this should matter when it comes to her experiences on set. There is no ‘unless you’re a mean girl’ clause in the Equalities Act or, I imagine, the equivalent US legislation. She could be the biggest bitch around but still doesn’t deserve to be sexually harassed on set.

The fact that so many sources are pointing me towards thinking ill of Ms Lively makes me wonder if the reverse is indeed true.

So I am ‘Team Lively’ and wonder how this will play out in the longer term.

Look what happened to Sean Young (Rachel from Blade Runner). She had 'cunt' pinned to her back by Charlie Sheen, and worse.

'It’s strange, how the Blade Runner legend now leaves out both Young and her co-star Daryl Hannah, presenting it as the collective triumph of [Harrison] Ford, Rutger Hauer with his “tears in rain” speech, and Ridley Scott orchestrating it all. Then again, that kind of thing often blights actors. Like a lot of what befell Young, it could only have happened to a woman.'

Good article and interview from 2015:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/26/blade-runner-sean-young-interview

I'm not on Facebook or Twitter, so would be interested in what others think of today's announcement by Facebook that they are completely removing factcheckers, and will leave it to posters to "community note" content.

Where obviously the posters might be organised troll accounts as discussed seen above.

Does "community noting" give the ability for a pile-on which will drive down or otherwise deter engagement with target posts?

I don't know if this looks like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/07/meta-facebook-instagram-threads-mark-zuckerberg-remove-fact-checkers-recommend-political-content

Hey I love this! Can I ask you where you found the evidence that PR told her to keep things light in the interviews which ended up making her look bad? I’ve heard this in multiple sources but am not sure where the info came from and someone is asking me for it. I 100% believe it but am just curious how to answer my friends question with something solid :)

I seem to be getting a lot of negative Blake Lively content again. Nothing all month and now my feed is full of it again. It’s just impossible to know what’s going on in that industry.

Is it full of spoiled starlets stomping their feet and getting innocent men in trouble?

…..or are rich and powerful men protecting their reputations at all costs?

You can even believe screenshots these days because AI and photoshop can fabricate pretty much anything you want it to.

It seems that a number of intimacy coordinators interpret that video as supportive of BL's case.