Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The retaliation claim is weak because Justin’s defense is that he was not acting in retaliation for sexual harassment, but because of Blake’s campaign against him. It’s a question for the jury and that is bad for Blake. Her lack of likability will hurt her just as much as the actual facts.

This. And countering PR with PR is unlikely to be retaliation in any kind of EEO context. The PR was to support It Ends With Us as much as Baldoni. The troll who was all caps shrieking accusations at how horrible everyone here is - and yes I am getting to a germane point - also claimed to be living on TikTok and “seeing” this campaign develop. She came to this late. That ignores essential realities about Lively’s press for years and years and years. I’m the woman who wanted to talk intersectional issues and who has known and seen for years that Lively attracts bad press not because of her reproductive system but because she is an unusually aggressive, unusually tone-deaf interviewee for someone in her position. Leighton Meester played the spicy character in Gossip Girl and has opposite press. The cast of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants largely does not have her press problems.

Her likability was the goddamned ground floor for her spurious claims. And large swaths of the population do not like her and are absolutely entitled to feel that way and to vote with their wallets against supporting her hair and drink brands.

Hi, thanks for referencing me. I did not say I 'lived' on tiktok, I thought lawyers were supposed to be precise? I said I was on tiktok at the time witnessed what appeared to be in an inorganic smear campaign develop. And saw the internet turn its woman hating gaze on its next victim.

I didn't come that late I just took a break, I'm the poster who said on page 14 this would turn into a sh*tshow. I also haven't reporting a single GD one of your crappy posts. I just respond to you calling you sexist to your (digital) face. I'm not a troll, and I never called you a troll. Sorry my opinion is inconvenient for you.

I don't think a woman's prior behavior dictates whether she can or cannot be SA/Hed. Because that is misogyny to believe that. I said I didn't particularly like her. I even said I liked Leighton Meester better! It doesn't mean I think she is then asking to be SH-ed. I don't believe her being annoying entitles men to treat her poorly or for her to be subjected to poor working conditions. No one is saying you have to buy her hair and drink brands. What I'm saying is you are misogynistic and sexist if you decide that it is specifically her likeability that causes you to disbelieve her. Because that is not factual and its not evidentiary. And if you claim to be lawyer and pitch this well I hope I never hire you that's for sure.

So far the ‘facts’ provided to the public do not support a SH/A claim imo. She chose to take on this role, a role meant for someone about 15 years younger, not a postpartum late 30s mother of 4! She was miscast, causing distress in that she was attempting and ultimately failing to transform into a believable character. And again, this is a fantasy, it’s a movie set, she is a seasoned actor as is RR and her immediate family, in fact I believe her sister was on this movie set as well. Her texts to JB are of a sexual nature, obviously the standards were different for her. Blake’s arrogance and unlikeability are just icing on the cake.

[Anonymous]

Jed Wallace is now suing Blake:

https://www.tmz.com/2025/02/05/blake-lively-sued-crisis-pr-firm-justin-baldoni-legal-war/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jed Wallace is now suing Blake:

https://www.tmz.com/2025/02/05/blake-lively-sued-crisis-pr-firm-justin-baldoni-legal-war/

I love this for her.

This is a story about straight-up bullying and power by a morality-free “power” couple who had earned rotten press for lang years and yet insisted they were being victimized by a much smaller fish in a particular pond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The retaliation claim is weak because Justin’s defense is that he was not acting in retaliation for sexual harassment, but because of Blake’s campaign against him. It’s a question for the jury and that is bad for Blake. Her lack of likability will hurt her just as much as the actual facts.

This. And countering PR with PR is unlikely to be retaliation in any kind of EEO context. The PR was to support It Ends With Us as much as Baldoni. The troll who was all caps shrieking accusations at how horrible everyone here is - and yes I am getting to a germane point - also claimed to be living on TikTok and “seeing” this campaign develop. She came to this late. That ignores essential realities about Lively’s press for years and years and years. I’m the woman who wanted to talk intersectional issues and who has known and seen for years that Lively attracts bad press not because of her reproductive system but because she is an unusually aggressive, unusually tone-deaf interviewee for someone in her position. Leighton Meester played the spicy character in Gossip Girl and has opposite press. The cast of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants largely does not have her press problems.

Her likability was the goddamned ground floor for her spurious claims. And large swaths of the population do not like her and are absolutely entitled to feel that way and to vote with their wallets against supporting her hair and drink brands.

Someone needs to send Freedman links to Lipstick Alley and Oh No They Didnt, because posters have been talking about how awful Blake Lively is for years, and that is absolutely relevant to the case as you've outlined.

PP: https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/91682146.html

People have been chomping at the bit for her downfall for over a decade now.

Owens had a good take on this: To paraphrase, these celebs are such ego maniacs and so paranoid they truly can’t grasp the masses simply not liking them and their inability to browbeat and use PR to force the masses to like them. It MUST be a conspiracy, there MUST be people plotting against them. They are freakin’ kooks. Low watt kooks at that. Ryan nor Blake have any higher education.

Part of the issue is the incredibly privileged life Blake has led. From a well off family and a star at a very young age. Then she marries another star that makes some good investments and becomes a billionaire. She doesn't seem to be able to see beyond this, and has become accustomed to having her every demand met, no matter how silly. Same for her husband. They have no perspective.

You see people’s true colors when they come into money and power. Blake is an unreformed teen mean girl. Ryan is a catty psycho.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to talk about the retaliation claim. I still think Blake's PR mistakes were largely self-inflicted. But reading Blake's complaint, there are some texts confirming Jed Wallace did do work, and if you read Justin's lawsuit, the only thing I get out of that is that they didn't use bots -- which still doesn't mean they couldn't have planted stories.

For example, in a text from Jennifer Abel, according to Blake Lively’s complaint, she says this: “We've also started to see a shift on social, due largely to Jed and his team's
efforts to shift the narrative towards shining a spotlight on Blake and Ryan.”

What do lawyers have to say to that? Is that problematic for you, or does it still fail to pass muster given that it seems Justin was doing this to protect his reputation and it wasn't in retaliation to the SH claims?

I used to do sexual harassment/retaliation cases and you are totally right that this appears to be (1) retaliatory and (2) damaging. It has always been her strongest argument. But there’s a lot more she still has to prove - especially that the retaliation was due to her harassment complaint, which is not actually totally clear. She would also have to prove (for damages, not to prove the retaliation happened) that the damages to her brand sales and reputation are due to the retaliation and not other factors.

Too bad Justin didn’t consult with a lawyer who would have told him this was a dumb*ss move …

Funny, because just like during the filming of the movie, I think he felt cornered and like he had nowhere to go. He hired Melissa Nathan after Ryan Reynolds went to WME and called him a sexual predator — shouldn’t that really help his case? I don’t know how a court will see that though.

But presumably he had the option to pursue a different remedy (e.g., file a defamation claim). That, of course, would have then prompted her to go public with her sexual harassment claims, which is what he was trying to avoid. But if the claims were BS, then he still could have defended those with all his evidence. He made a dicey gamble there, and it may cost him.

But this raises the question of maybe the claims were not BS and at least *some* were legitimate. Like the stuff he hasn't really addressed in his complaints so far -- did he and Heath pressure her to be nude in the birth scene the day of, and other "irregularities" in the way that scene was filmed? did Heath refuse to leave a makeup trailer when he was asked, when Lively was topless? To me these are her two strongest claims and the ones that I don't think Baldoni has responded adequately to.

I also think these are things that may have happened due to poor management and inexperience by Baldoni and the whole Wayfarer team, not necessarily due to Baldoni being a "sexual predator." But with harassment, sometimes it happens because an organization is just really disorganized and poorly run. Humans are inherently flawed and prone to miscommunication and misunderstandings. A good organization guards against that becoming a problem with good process, good oversight, and good culture. Crappy organizations are much more prone to harassment because it makes it much easier for one person's human foibles (maybe a bit of myopia about what it's like for a woman to film a birth scene, maybe a misunderstanding about the level of privacy an actress can expect on a film set, maybe some inexperience with when to call in an intimacy coordinator and when not to) become huge problems, because the organization fails to prevent problems via training and cultural tone-setting, and also fails to address smaller problems when they arise, leading them to pile up and get bigger.

That's what I think might have happened here. Which I think would still make Baldoni and Wayfarer liable, especially if they responded to the rumors about Lively's issues on set by hiring a PR team to smear her in the press and online (again, a sign of a bad organization/culture because it's an escalating defensive move instead of a resolving one).

For the umpteenth time, she was not nude in the birthing scene. There is not point in posting paragraphs of allegations that have already been debunked literally hundreds of times.

It has not been "debunked." According to her complaint, they wanted her to be completely nude, she says she ultimately wound up partially clothed but she did not feel comfortable with it. There is a debate about what she was actually wearing on the bottom and if it constituted being fully clothed. Baldoni does not dispute that she was pressured to do the scene nude, nor the allegation that the intimacy coordinator was not present for any of this (the negotiations on what she would wear, or the scene itself).

It is also in dispute who was on set the day of the birth scene (whether there were unnecessary personnel there) and who had access to monitors of footage from the scene or dailies from the shoot.

All of this is relevant to whether or not Baldoni/Heath/Wayfarer behaved improperly in a way that could result in sexual harassment. And no, it has not been "debunked" by a couple statements from Baldoni that don't even address most of theses claims, or by the online community and their rampant speculation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jed Wallace is now suing Blake:

https://www.tmz.com/2025/02/05/blake-lively-sued-crisis-pr-firm-justin-baldoni-legal-war/

The basis for this suit is exceedingly thin, this is probably the least valid lawsuit that has been filed in this whole fiasco yet.

Regardless where you come down on the Lively/Baldoni feud, Jed Wallace runs a super shady, deeply immoral business that explicitly seeks to destroy reputations online through underhanded means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jed Wallace is now suing Blake:

https://www.tmz.com/2025/02/05/blake-lively-sued-crisis-pr-firm-justin-baldoni-legal-war/

The basis for this suit is exceedingly thin, this is probably the least valid lawsuit that has been filed in this whole fiasco yet.

Regardless where you come down on the Lively/Baldoni feud, Jed Wallace runs a super shady, deeply immoral business that explicitly seeks to destroy reputations online through underhanded means.

I totally trust your opinion because you clearly have no bias against him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to talk about the retaliation claim. I still think Blake's PR mistakes were largely self-inflicted. But reading Blake's complaint, there are some texts confirming Jed Wallace did do work, and if you read Justin's lawsuit, the only thing I get out of that is that they didn't use bots -- which still doesn't mean they couldn't have planted stories.

For example, in a text from Jennifer Abel, according to Blake Lively’s complaint, she says this: “We've also started to see a shift on social, due largely to Jed and his team's
efforts to shift the narrative towards shining a spotlight on Blake and Ryan.”

What do lawyers have to say to that? Is that problematic for you, or does it still fail to pass muster given that it seems Justin was doing this to protect his reputation and it wasn't in retaliation to the SH claims?

I used to do sexual harassment/retaliation cases and you are totally right that this appears to be (1) retaliatory and (2) damaging. It has always been her strongest argument. But there’s a lot more she still has to prove - especially that the retaliation was due to her harassment complaint, which is not actually totally clear. She would also have to prove (for damages, not to prove the retaliation happened) that the damages to her brand sales and reputation are due to the retaliation and not other factors.

Too bad Justin didn’t consult with a lawyer who would have told him this was a dumb*ss move …

Funny, because just like during the filming of the movie, I think he felt cornered and like he had nowhere to go. He hired Melissa Nathan after Ryan Reynolds went to WME and called him a sexual predator — shouldn’t that really help his case? I don’t know how a court will see that though.

But presumably he had the option to pursue a different remedy (e.g., file a defamation claim). That, of course, would have then prompted her to go public with her sexual harassment claims, which is what he was trying to avoid. But if the claims were BS, then he still could have defended those with all his evidence. He made a dicey gamble there, and it may cost him.

But this raises the question of maybe the claims were not BS and at least *some* were legitimate. Like the stuff he hasn't really addressed in his complaints so far -- did he and Heath pressure her to be nude in the birth scene the day of, and other "irregularities" in the way that scene was filmed? did Heath refuse to leave a makeup trailer when he was asked, when Lively was topless? To me these are her two strongest claims and the ones that I don't think Baldoni has responded adequately to.

I also think these are things that may have happened due to poor management and inexperience by Baldoni and the whole Wayfarer team, not necessarily due to Baldoni being a "sexual predator." But with harassment, sometimes it happens because an organization is just really disorganized and poorly run. Humans are inherently flawed and prone to miscommunication and misunderstandings. A good organization guards against that becoming a problem with good process, good oversight, and good culture. Crappy organizations are much more prone to harassment because it makes it much easier for one person's human foibles (maybe a bit of myopia about what it's like for a woman to film a birth scene, maybe a misunderstanding about the level of privacy an actress can expect on a film set, maybe some inexperience with when to call in an intimacy coordinator and when not to) become huge problems, because the organization fails to prevent problems via training and cultural tone-setting, and also fails to address smaller problems when they arise, leading them to pile up and get bigger.

That's what I think might have happened here. Which I think would still make Baldoni and Wayfarer liable, especially if they responded to the rumors about Lively's issues on set by hiring a PR team to smear her in the press and online (again, a sign of a bad organization/culture because it's an escalating defensive move instead of a resolving one).

For the umpteenth time, she was not nude in the birthing scene. There is not point in posting paragraphs of allegations that have already been debunked literally hundreds of times.

It has not been "debunked." According to her complaint, they wanted her to be completely nude, she says she ultimately wound up partially clothed but she did not feel comfortable with it. There is a debate about what she was actually wearing on the bottom and if it constituted being fully clothed. Baldoni does not dispute that she was pressured to do the scene nude, nor the allegation that the intimacy coordinator was not present for any of this (the negotiations on what she would wear, or the scene itself).

It is also in dispute who was on set the day of the birth scene (whether there were unnecessary personnel there) and who had access to monitors of footage from the scene or dailies from the shoot.

All of this is relevant to whether or not Baldoni/Heath/Wayfarer behaved improperly in a way that could result in sexual harassment. And no, it has not been "debunked" by a couple statements from Baldoni that don't even address most of theses claims, or by the online community and their rampant speculation.

There is no debate. She didn’t allege what she was wearing. He alleged briefs, a pregnancy suit, and a gown. Unless she specifically alleges to the contrary, his description has not been contradicted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jed Wallace is now suing Blake:

https://www.tmz.com/2025/02/05/blake-lively-sued-crisis-pr-firm-justin-baldoni-legal-war/

The basis for this suit is exceedingly thin, this is probably the least valid lawsuit that has been filed in this whole fiasco yet.

Regardless where you come down on the Lively/Baldoni feud, Jed Wallace runs a super shady, deeply immoral business that explicitly seeks to destroy reputations online through underhanded means.

I totally trust your opinion because you clearly have no bias against him.

He’s just an imperfect victim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jed Wallace is now suing Blake:

https://www.tmz.com/2025/02/05/blake-lively-sued-crisis-pr-firm-justin-baldoni-legal-war/

The basis for this suit is exceedingly thin, this is probably the least valid lawsuit that has been filed in this whole fiasco yet.

Regardless where you come down on the Lively/Baldoni feud, Jed Wallace runs a super shady, deeply immoral business that explicitly seeks to destroy reputations online through underhanded means.

I totally trust your opinion because you clearly have no bias against him.

DP, but wait, can you explain some of the helpful and super-not-shady practices you think Jed Wallace engages in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jed Wallace is now suing Blake:

https://www.tmz.com/2025/02/05/blake-lively-sued-crisis-pr-firm-justin-baldoni-legal-war/

The basis for this suit is exceedingly thin, this is probably the least valid lawsuit that has been filed in this whole fiasco yet.

Regardless where you come down on the Lively/Baldoni feud, Jed Wallace runs a super shady, deeply immoral business that explicitly seeks to destroy reputations online through underhanded means.

I totally trust your opinion because you clearly have no bias against him.

DP, but wait, can you explain some of the helpful and super-not-shady practices you think Jed Wallace engages in?

He is a pr guy, he does pr. I have no knowledge of his personal character, nor is it relevant

[Anonymous]

Very interesting and long profile of Bryan Freedman from last summer, before the Baldoni of it all:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/entertainment-lawyer-bryan-freedman-hollywood-dark-knight-1235919993/

Worth reading all the way to the end. Gets into varying opinions on his tactics, his big successes and also some questionable stuff that has gotten him in trouble, etc. He seems like a complicated person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jed Wallace is now suing Blake:

https://www.tmz.com/2025/02/05/blake-lively-sued-crisis-pr-firm-justin-baldoni-legal-war/

The basis for this suit is exceedingly thin, this is probably the least valid lawsuit that has been filed in this whole fiasco yet.

Regardless where you come down on the Lively/Baldoni feud, Jed Wallace runs a super shady, deeply immoral business that explicitly seeks to destroy reputations online through underhanded means.

I totally trust your opinion because you clearly have no bias against him.

DP, but wait, can you explain some of the helpful and super-not-shady practices you think Jed Wallace engages in?

He is a pr guy, he does pr. I have no knowledge of his personal character, nor is it relevant

Pretty sure whether or not Wallace regularly engages in hiring people to spread false rumors on social media - and specifically did so here - is relevant, but go off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very interesting and long profile of Bryan Freedman from last summer, before the Baldoni of it all:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/entertainment-lawyer-bryan-freedman-hollywood-dark-knight-1235919993/

Worth reading all the way to the end. Gets into varying opinions on his tactics, his big successes and also some questionable stuff that has gotten him in trouble, etc. He seems like a complicated person.

Also I wanted to add that you can see the connecting lines to Baldoni even though this was written before this case emerged. Freedman represented FKA Twigs in her suit against Shia LaBouf; FKA Twigs appeared on an episode of Baldoni's podcast not that long ago. Freedman made his name by representing Megyn Kelly in her wrongful termination suit against NBC; Kelly has been a vocal proponent of Baldoni's side in his battle with Lively.

And some other stuff of note:

- Freedman was accused of filing a "frivolous sexual assault claim" in 2023, as part of a complicated home renovation dispute. However when another attorney tried to recover damages for his client due to the claim, the court rejected it.

- Freedman once waived around a document on TMZ that said "Slave Contract" on it and alleged it was a real contract involving talent he represented and Bravo/NBCUniversal. It appears it was later revealed that the "contract" was actually a prop related to a BDSM relationship in a different case Freedman was on.

- Freedman is currently being sued by a guy named Christian Lannge for, among other things, hiring third parties to create deepfake stories about Lanng online. Freedman has vigorously denied the accusation (said it sounds like a CIA plot) but the litigation is ongoing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, it sounds like Jed Wallace is one of the defendant(s) who's going to be added to Lively's lawsuit:

https://deadline.com/2025/02/blake-lively-trial-strategy-justin-baldoni-1236278393/

So BL allegation is that Wallace/his company was hired by JB and others she is suing to do the social media takedown? Yes I read article linked, but honestly got confused by how written since don’t know all the names to know who is on which side.

Yes. Wallace is known for his unmoral pr tactics.

It's really unclear to me what's immoral and particularly, illegal here. It seems sort of sleezy and dirty to use bots but...is that sanctionable? At the end of the day, even that effort would not have been successful if they didn't have the underlying footage of Lively being absolutely heinous on multiple occasions. To me, whatever they did to boost those views is sort of secondary to the fact that the worst offense is those tapes were available in the first place.

Not to detract from your underlying point, but I think Jed's team may have planted stories, not used bots. TAG denies the use of bots, but I don't see anything Justin's complaint denying the planting of negative stories by real humans. denial of bots, pg. 148: https://thelawsuitinfo.com/downloads/amended-complaint.pdf

Planting stories, unless false, seems even less actionable to me! Maybe it's because I think celebrity PR is sort of inherently bereft of dignity, but something like re-introducing old (but verified) interviews seems...fine? Sure, it's a powerplay. But again, you couldn't do this without the underlying footage.

The factual question will really be whether he did this PR stuff in retaliation for her SH claims (as she is arguing) or completely separately (as he says) to protect himself from the bad PR that was coming out of how she treated him during the movie press tour and PR. It will be pretty tough to untangle IMO.