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The Blake Lively (Ryan Reynolds's wife) Controversy


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An amusing chapter in this post-#MeToo era. We've got a guy with a feminist podcast, who tried to make a movie about domestic abuse, and got cancelled in the process after trying to get ahead of bad press by hiring professional smear artists to discredit a more famous actress married to an A-list celebrity.

What happened?

Famous actress (Blake Lively) did a movie about domestic violence directed by "feminist" dude Justin Baldoni. They feuded on the set. Around the time the movie came out, a bunch of negative press about Lively came out. Then she filed a discrimination complaint against him where text messages were leaked from Baldoni's team describing how the negative press was part of a coordinated "smear campaign" against her. Now all the negative press is about him and the shit he did to her on the set (allegedly). Now there are lawsuits all over the place. (The movie did well, by the way).

Here's some shitty, possibly AI-generated video summary

Spoiler

 

More:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/31/entertainment/justin-baldoni-blake-lively-lawsuit/index.html

Quote

Justin Baldoni sues New York Times for $250 million over Blake Lively story

Justin Baldoni is firing back after being accused of sexual harassment by his co-star Blake Lively, filing a libel suit against The New York Times on Tuesday, claiming that the newspaper published an article “rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions” that relied on Lively’s “self-serving narrative.”

Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department in December, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation. In the bombshell complaint, Lively claimed that after she raised concerns of sexual harassment on the set of their film, “It Ends With Us,” Baldoni and his team retaliated against her, leaking unflattering press to try to ruin her professional reputation.

Lively’s complaint was first reported in The New York Times, which published an article titled, “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” on December 21. The 4,000-word article contained contents from the Civil Rights Department complaint, which typically remain confidential.

In the wake of the New York Times article and Lively’s complaint against Baldoni, he was dropped by the talent agency, WME, which also represents Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. Lively received swift support across Hollywood SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, releasing a statement in support of her. Sony, the studio behind “It Ends With Us,” also released a statement standing by Lively.

Now, Baldoni is alleging that Lively created false sexual harassment accusations so she could take control of the film, then set out on a campaign to “reshape her public persona” with “salacious, headline-grabbing allegations” in The New York Times at Baldoni’s expense.

“Lively’s cynical abuse of sexual harassment allegations to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production was both strategic and manipulative,” Baldoni’s lawsuit states. “Simultaneously, her public image suffered as a result of a series of high-profile blunders, which she tried to deflect by blaming Plaintiffs for the public’s prying interest into the foibles of an A-list celebrity. This is nothing but an excuse. Fame is a double-edged sword, but Lively’s tactics here are unconscionable.”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/leylamohammed/blake-lively-lawyers-address-justin-baldoni-lawsuit-details

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Blake Lively’s Legal Team Has Responded To Justin Baldoni's $250 Million Lawsuit Against The New York Times

Among several claims, the lawsuit accuses Ryan Reynolds and Blake of allegedly “berating” Justin in an “inappropriate and humiliating” manner at their NYC penthouse while other celebrity guests walked in and out.

 

Blake's legal team has since responded to Justin's lawsuit, revealing that the actor has filed a federal complaint.

 

"Unfortunately, Ms. Lively’s decision to speak out has resulted in further retaliation and attacks. As alleged in Ms. Lively’s federal Complaint, Wayfarer and its associates have violated federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns. Now, the defendants will answer for their conduct in federal court," Blake's attorney's said in a statement shared with BuzzFeed.

 

"Nothing in this lawsuit changes anything about the claims advanced in Ms. Lively's California Civil Rights Department Complaint, nor her federal complaint, filed earlier today," Blake's attorneys said in a separate statement shared with BuzzFeed. 

"This lawsuit is based on the obviously false premise that Ms. Lively's administrative complaint against Wayfarer and others was a ruse based on a choice 'not to file a lawsuit against Baldoni, Wayfarer,' and that 'litigation was never her ultimate goal,'" the statement continued.

"As demonstrated by the federal complaint filed by Ms. Lively earlier today, that frame of reference for the Wayfarer lawsuit is false.  While we will not litigate this matter in the press, we do encourage people to read Ms. Lively's complaint in its entirety. We look forward to addressing each and every one of Wayfarer’s allegations in court," the statement concluded.

The text messages offer a behind the scenes look at how "smear campaigns" can be waged with money and the right "consulting agencies" who can get them done. Makes you think who else might have been subjected to these kinds of tactics, and will more of this happen in the future.

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10 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

The importance of the story is that it lays out to John Q Public exactly how orchestrated misinformation campaigns can affect perception.  

This.  I tell my kids all the time perception is a dangerous thing.   You have to able to see through the noise to hear the news.  

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2 hours ago, TonyTexas said:

The importance of the story is that it lays out to John Q Public exactly how orchestrated misinformation campaigns can affect perception.  

Yeah this was a movie star with tens of millions to spend. Imagine someone with literally FOUR ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more money to spend. You could buy a whole social media platform and disseminate an industrial level of dis and misinformation 

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19 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Yeah this was a movie star with tens of millions to spend. Imagine someone with literally FOUR ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more money to spend. You could buy a whole social media platform and disseminate an industrial level of dis and misinformation 

Man. That would be scary. I hope it never comes to pass. 
 

 

 

 

 

shit

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It is wild how, starting a few months, I started getting bombarded with "Blake Lively is a garbage person" clickbait. Don't have a Twitter account, don't visit reddit, only use Facebook for event planning with friends, never clicked on any of the links (or any Hollywood-related drama, for that matter), and it still finds its way to you on the peripheral of otherwise "normal" websites. Didn't have a clue--or care--what any of it was about until yesterday, but pretty crazy how easy it is to professionally push a narrative that gets through to almost everyone with internet access.

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1 hour ago, ClubWhatever said:

Isn't she still an entitled bee otch?

This is the part I found funny about her legal complaint. She never actually says the stories in the "smear campaign" were false (or if she did, I missed it). So, basically, Baldoni wasn't wrong he was just an asshole. Apparently using hired guns to tell unflattering truths gets you cancelled these days.

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

Yeah this was a movie star with tens of millions to spend. Imagine someone with literally FOUR ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more money to spend.

So I was curious about this part too and I think Baldoni had a billionaire on his side to finance the smear campaign, for some reason, either because the billionaire just hates Lively (or all women) or because he thought it would protect his investment in the movie's success.

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11 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

I still don’t understand wtf is going on here.

-Blake Lively said she was being harassed while making It Ends With Us and retaliated against for reporting it. 
-Baldoni and the Wayfair Billionaire who helped produce the movie get their egos bruised and engaged a PR company to smear Lively (there was a NYT article quoting the PR exec “we can bury anyone”)

-Baldoni sues the NYT (but not Lively) for libel

-Lively files a federal lawsuit against Baldoni and others on the film 

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2 hours ago, aggie08 said:

It is wild how, starting a few months, I started getting bombarded with "Blake Lively is a garbage person" clickbait. Don't have a Twitter account, don't visit reddit, only use Facebook for event planning with friends, never clicked on any of the links (or any Hollywood-related drama, for that matter), and it still finds its way to you on the peripheral of otherwise "normal" websites. Didn't have a clue--or care--what any of it was about until yesterday, but pretty crazy how easy it is to professionally push a narrative that gets through to almost everyone with internet access.

I don’t do social media anymore, save this place. And was unaware of this story until this thread. 

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1 hour ago, TonyTexas said:

A very myopic attitude. This isn’t just a Hollywood story but one that will increasingly happen in areas that you do care about like politics and business. It makes it difficult to distinguish the truth from the bullshit. 

I still dont care.

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31 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

-Blake Lively said she was being harassed while making It Ends With Us and retaliated against for reporting it. 
-Baldoni and the Wayfair Billionaire who helped produce the movie get their egos bruised and engaged a PR company to smear Lively (there was a NYT article quoting the PR exec “we can bury anyone”)

-Baldoni sues the NYT (but not Lively) for libel

-Lively files a federal lawsuit against Baldoni and others on the film 

What was the harassment?  Was it a legit concern or two narcissists having an expensive slap fight?

If he did something serious/inappropriate, Deadpool should have handled it. 

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32 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

What was the harassment?  Was it a legit concern or two narcissists having an expensive slap fight?

 

Based on her request of changes needed to continue working on the project, it sounds like behavior that would get most people fired from their job...

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The list of agreed-upon demands included, the complaint says: No more showing nude videos of women, including the producer's wife, to Lively and/or her employees; no more mention of Baldoni's or Heath's previous "pornography addiction" to Lively or to other crew members; no more descriptions of their own genitalia to Lively; and "no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex, or on camera climaxing by [Lively] outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project."

https://www.npr.org/2024/12/22/nx-s1-5236870/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us

Edited by KaiserSoze
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The director also hired his friend to play a gynecologist and insisted on Blake being nude in the scene. There was no intimacy coordinator or any other support system for her. Normally you would go to the producers about something like that...but the director was also the producer.

The whole situation really fucked up and a prime example of how pervasive a force misogyny remains in the modern world. Like a lot of other things.

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3 hours ago, aggie08 said:

It is wild how, starting a few months, I started getting bombarded with "Blake Lively is a garbage person" clickbait. Don't have a Twitter account, don't visit reddit, only use Facebook for event planning with friends, never clicked on any of the links (or any Hollywood-related drama, for that matter), and it still finds its way to you on the peripheral of otherwise "normal" websites. Didn't have a clue--or care--what any of it was about until yesterday, but pretty crazy how easy it is to professionally push a narrative that gets through to almost everyone with internet access.

It was similar to (though never really went viral to the same extent) as all of the Depp/Heard stuff from a couple of years ago. I haven’t followed this closely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the same PR people were involved in both.

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40 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

Something about Ryan Reynolds’s personality makes it hard for me to believe he’d be married to someone that’s a super bitch. 

Wasn’t she still in her first marriage when she started hooking up with Ryan?

anyway, treating her like a sex toy because she’s under contract is obviously unethical and amoral but it should be illegal. Actors don’t sign up for carte blanche and they have rights. Is SAG involved on her side?  Has PGA weighed in on the accusations?

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4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

It was similar to (though never really went viral to the same extent) as all of the Depp/Heard stuff from a couple of years ago. I haven’t followed this closely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the same PR people were involved in both.

Depp used the same PR women that Baldoni hired to smear Lively

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13 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Wasn’t she still in her first marriage when she started hooking up with Ryan?

She's only ever been married to him, so no. Are you thinking about him being married to Scarlett Johansson when he met Lively on the set of Green Lantern? 

It is interesting just how much she was shit on in the press and social media when this movie came out since she didn't really do much for it. I think if she did Ryan Reynolds was with her. Now we see perhaps why that was. 

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1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

Well, you've got people with the talent, connections, and resources to go anywhere and do anything, and apparently they chose to repeat middle school.

https://www.surlyhorns.com/board/topic/3382-elon-musk-officially-a-fraud-and-piece-of-shit-official-or-unofficial-war-criminal/page/473/#comment-6793977

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6 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

It was similar to (though never really went viral to the same extent) as all of the Depp/Heard stuff from a couple of years ago. I haven’t followed this closely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the same PR people were involved in both.

Was gonna say wake me up when someone shits in a bed.

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