Yeah this is the part of her narrative that never made sense to me. I've yet to come across any false stories about her being a shitty person. A good PR firm will actively seek out the organic negative comments and videos and then find ways to shine a spotlight on them, find ways to get the algorithms to pick them up, and just get people talking about whatever that thing is that the target doesn't want people talking about.
Maybe you remember a few months ago there was an indictment of foreign actors who were paying YouTubers (Tim Pool being one of the biggest ones) without their knowledge, basically as a reward for having the anti-Ukraine or anti-woke opinions that the foreign actors wanted to boost. That's what I believe people like Melissa Nathan are paid to do. They go to forums and comment sections and find the actual people who are already aligned with or telling the narrative they want told, and then they use money and other tools to get those actual people's posts and comments to be seen by more people and more influencers with the hope that the chosen narrative goes viral. At the same time they're using techniques to bury anything that doesn't align with the chosen narrative.
If they went around spreading made-up stories about Lively (for example, a made-up story about how she was unfaithful) then I would completely understand filing a lawsuit. But true stories that aren't violating her privacy? I'm sorry but as a professional and as a celebrity, that's always been fair game. You reap what you sow, and if you're a terror on the set or to waiters or to the "little people" in your life, I don't have a shred of sympathy for you when people find out about it. (James Corden and Ellen Degeneres both come to mind).
On the flip side, we're being told Baldoni did seriously unprofessional and creepy shit. But instead of coming from multiple sources, it sure seems like we basically need to take Lively's word for it. I think Johnny Depp has a lot of demons and is definitely not a good person nor someone deserving of sympathy or praise, but he was smart to hire a good PR firm. Should I assume Baldoni is as fucked up as Depp just because he also felt like he needed a strong PR team? Nah, I won't do that.
They're scummy, hired guns, but what else could he do when he was dealing with that kind of clout being weaponized against him at a time when he thought his directorial career should be taking off? If Lively can prove he's a sex pest in a court of law, he deserves to lose. But if not, I hope he wins a big award.