Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[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/

And her attorney’s response is that wallace’s lawsuit is retaliation against lively? And that he will be “held accountable” in federal court even though they didn’t name him in their federal complaint? Doesn’t that all make her legal team look silly?

It's standard practice for an attorney to flatly deny allegations in a new lawsuit in broad terms. And I took the "held accountable" comment to mean the case would be thrown out or lose on summary judgment, not that they intended to countersue.

Whatever side you take in the Lively/Baldoni thing, I think it's weird to act like everyone involved in the side you don't like is an idiot. Lively's attorneys are experienced and highly qualified. They've been very successful in other cases (and have lost cases, as have Baldoni's attorneys).

I don't get what the point is in personalizing this like it's a game of capture the flag at camp. That's a run of the mill statement in response to litigation being filed.

Dp, I’m an attorney and believe that Lively’s attorneys are asshats. It’s clear that their client has already gotten them to do several things they shouldn’t have, and wouldn’t have if they had control over the case.

Ok, well I am an attorney and I think that's a boilerplate response in this situation and will have no bearing on anything, ever.

[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/

And her attorney’s response is that wallace’s lawsuit is retaliation against lively? And that he will be “held accountable” in federal court even though they didn’t name him in their federal complaint? Doesn’t that all make her legal team look silly?

It's standard practice for an attorney to flatly deny allegations in a new lawsuit in broad terms. And I took the "held accountable" comment to mean the case would be thrown out or lose on summary judgment, not that they intended to countersue.

Whatever side you take in the Lively/Baldoni thing, I think it's weird to act like everyone involved in the side you don't like is an idiot. Lively's attorneys are experienced and highly qualified. They've been very successful in other cases (and have lost cases, as have Baldoni's attorneys).

I don't get what the point is in personalizing this like it's a game of capture the flag at camp. That's a run of the mill statement in response to litigation being filed.

Yikes. Who’s personalizing it? I think it’s weird to call everything “retaliation” when they’re trying to prove actual retaliation in their lawsuit.

It's not weird if they are about to add Wallace as a defendant in their amended complaint. In that case it actually makes perfect sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

None of this is that big of a deal. Litigators with big personalities like this are often high conflict in their personal lives too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

None of this is that big of a deal. Litigators with big personalities like this are often high conflict in their personal lives too

Nothing in the prior post involves Freedman's personal life, though.

Actually his personal life sounds super solid -- long married to one partner, three grown kids who sound relatively successful. Stable.

He's certainly audacious/volatile professionally though.

[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/

And her attorney’s response is that wallace’s lawsuit is retaliation against lively? And that he will be “held accountable” in federal court even though they didn’t name him in their federal complaint? Doesn’t that all make her legal team look silly?

It's standard practice for an attorney to flatly deny allegations in a new lawsuit in broad terms. And I took the "held accountable" comment to mean the case would be thrown out or lose on summary judgment, not that they intended to countersue.

Whatever side you take in the Lively/Baldoni thing, I think it's weird to act like everyone involved in the side you don't like is an idiot. Lively's attorneys are experienced and highly qualified. They've been very successful in other cases (and have lost cases, as have Baldoni's attorneys).

I don't get what the point is in personalizing this like it's a game of capture the flag at camp. That's a run of the mill statement in response to litigation being filed.

Dp, I’m an attorney and believe that Lively’s attorneys are asshats. It’s clear that their client has already gotten them to do several things they shouldn’t have, and wouldn’t have if they had control over the case.

Ok, well I am an attorney and I think that's a boilerplate response in this situation and will have no bearing on anything, ever.

Yes that’s boilerplate but overall they have been pretty unimpressive.

[Anonymous]

Plaintiff’s attorneys are always theatrical. It’s an accepted part of the gig.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I think it will be relatively easy to untangle.

PR activity to boost Baldoni's positive press, get him interviews, place positive stories about him, even seeding positive comments about him on social media using Jed Wallace/bots (as unsavory as that practice is IMO) -- not retaliation.

PR activity to attack Lively, place negative stories about her in the press, seed social media with negative comments and discussion of her whether via his PR firm or using Jed Wallace/bots -- maybe retaliation (depending on whether the underlying sexual harassment claims survive).

Lively has some other stuff in her complaint kind of arguing that Baldoni intentionally deviated from Sony's marketing strategy for the movie in order to look Lively look bad (by talking about DV and DV survivors while Lively was talking about "wear your florals"). I think that's much dicier and unlikely to go far unless the underlying SH claims are viewed as very strong.

So it really may come down to exactly what the stories were that they were planting or what the comments were that they were having Wallace seed online. If they were exclusively about Baldoni and how he's great, I don't think there's any retaliation claim. If they were about Lively, I think he has a problem.

That isn’t how it will work, not even remotely. He can still win if he placed negative stories about her if he can show it was in response to actions she took to hurt his reputation.

“Gordon Reynolds” was thanked by Lively in the end credits of IEWU. “Gordon Reynolds” was in the end credits as portraying “Nicepool,” the nasty, killed off character satirizing Baldoni in the Deadpool-Wolverine film. Lipstick Alley has a thread, started today on the celebrity gossip part of the board, showing screenshots of now-deleted Reels by the trainer who Baldoni went to regarding whether he’d be able to lift Lively without destroying his back muscles. The idiot trainer has been a friend of RR and BL for years, laughed at Baldoni being satirized, and tried to delete the stories he liked and laughed at in his social media being harshly critical of Baldoni.

Lively and Reynolds engaged in an extensive and expensive all-out reputational eviscerating of Baldoni across a theatrically released international blockbuster film that Baldoni had nothing to do with. They flooded social media and had friends repost stories cruelly critical of Baldoni, mocking him publicly, at the same time. This PR sht she claims is a projection of what she and her team are fully guilty of and which we can see and verify with shocking ease.

They pulled the pin out of a grenade and stuffed it up their own buttholes (Reynolds is the one obsessed with the perineum as we can see by the published texts, along with his wife’s gentle oral practices). If Wallace scores a hit off of them, it’s because they cleared the path for him in their absolute joint arrogance that they can treat anyone like trash and they have to take it in silence.

That last paragraph of yours…did I miss these texts from RR and Blake? 😳

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I think it will be relatively easy to untangle.

PR activity to boost Baldoni's positive press, get him interviews, place positive stories about him, even seeding positive comments about him on social media using Jed Wallace/bots (as unsavory as that practice is IMO) -- not retaliation.

PR activity to attack Lively, place negative stories about her in the press, seed social media with negative comments and discussion of her whether via his PR firm or using Jed Wallace/bots -- maybe retaliation (depending on whether the underlying sexual harassment claims survive).

Lively has some other stuff in her complaint kind of arguing that Baldoni intentionally deviated from Sony's marketing strategy for the movie in order to look Lively look bad (by talking about DV and DV survivors while Lively was talking about "wear your florals"). I think that's much dicier and unlikely to go far unless the underlying SH claims are viewed as very strong.

So it really may come down to exactly what the stories were that they were planting or what the comments were that they were having Wallace seed online. If they were exclusively about Baldoni and how he's great, I don't think there's any retaliation claim. If they were about Lively, I think he has a problem.

That isn’t how it will work, not even remotely. He can still win if he placed negative stories about her if he can show it was in response to actions she took to hurt his reputation.

“Gordon Reynolds” was thanked by Lively in the end credits of IEWU. “Gordon Reynolds” was in the end credits as portraying “Nicepool,” the nasty, killed off character satirizing Baldoni in the Deadpool-Wolverine film. Lipstick Alley has a thread, started today on the celebrity gossip part of the board, showing screenshots of now-deleted Reels by the trainer who Baldoni went to regarding whether he’d be able to lift Lively without destroying his back muscles. The idiot trainer has been a friend of RR and BL for years, laughed at Baldoni being satirized, and tried to delete the stories he liked and laughed at in his social media being harshly critical of Baldoni.

Lively and Reynolds engaged in an extensive and expensive all-out reputational eviscerating of Baldoni across a theatrically released international blockbuster film that Baldoni had nothing to do with. They flooded social media and had friends repost stories cruelly critical of Baldoni, mocking him publicly, at the same time. This PR sht she claims is a projection of what she and her team are fully guilty of and which we can see and verify with shocking ease.

They pulled the pin out of a grenade and stuffed it up their own buttholes (Reynolds is the one obsessed with the perineum as we can see by the published texts, along with his wife’s gentle oral practices). If Wallace scores a hit off of them, it’s because they cleared the path for him in their absolute joint arrogance that they can treat anyone like trash and they have to take it in silence.

That last paragraph of yours…did I miss these texts from RR and Blake? 😳

Dp, but check out the texts released yesterday, Daily Mail Online

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I think it will be relatively easy to untangle.

PR activity to boost Baldoni's positive press, get him interviews, place positive stories about him, even seeding positive comments about him on social media using Jed Wallace/bots (as unsavory as that practice is IMO) -- not retaliation.

PR activity to attack Lively, place negative stories about her in the press, seed social media with negative comments and discussion of her whether via his PR firm or using Jed Wallace/bots -- maybe retaliation (depending on whether the underlying sexual harassment claims survive).

Lively has some other stuff in her complaint kind of arguing that Baldoni intentionally deviated from Sony's marketing strategy for the movie in order to look Lively look bad (by talking about DV and DV survivors while Lively was talking about "wear your florals"). I think that's much dicier and unlikely to go far unless the underlying SH claims are viewed as very strong.

So it really may come down to exactly what the stories were that they were planting or what the comments were that they were having Wallace seed online. If they were exclusively about Baldoni and how he's great, I don't think there's any retaliation claim. If they were about Lively, I think he has a problem.

That isn’t how it will work, not even remotely. He can still win if he placed negative stories about her if he can show it was in response to actions she took to hurt his reputation.

“Gordon Reynolds” was thanked by Lively in the end credits of IEWU. “Gordon Reynolds” was in the end credits as portraying “Nicepool,” the nasty, killed off character satirizing Baldoni in the Deadpool-Wolverine film. Lipstick Alley has a thread, started today on the celebrity gossip part of the board, showing screenshots of now-deleted Reels by the trainer who Baldoni went to regarding whether he’d be able to lift Lively without destroying his back muscles. The idiot trainer has been a friend of RR and BL for years, laughed at Baldoni being satirized, and tried to delete the stories he liked and laughed at in his social media being harshly critical of Baldoni.

Lively and Reynolds engaged in an extensive and expensive all-out reputational eviscerating of Baldoni across a theatrically released international blockbuster film that Baldoni had nothing to do with. They flooded social media and had friends repost stories cruelly critical of Baldoni, mocking him publicly, at the same time. This PR sht she claims is a projection of what she and her team are fully guilty of and which we can see and verify with shocking ease.

They pulled the pin out of a grenade and stuffed it up their own buttholes (Reynolds is the one obsessed with the perineum as we can see by the published texts, along with his wife’s gentle oral practices). If Wallace scores a hit off of them, it’s because they cleared the path for him in their absolute joint arrogance that they can treat anyone like trash and they have to take it in silence.

That last paragraph of yours…did I miss these texts from RR and Blake? 😳

Dp, but check out the texts released yesterday, Daily Mail Online

Perfect! Thank you

[Anonymous]

I just read Wallace’s complaint. It’s short. Can anyone weigh in on what they think of it? Someone up thread said it was exceedingly thin, but I’m curious about why. Variety links to the complaint in their article about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I think it will be relatively easy to untangle.

PR activity to boost Baldoni's positive press, get him interviews, place positive stories about him, even seeding positive comments about him on social media using Jed Wallace/bots (as unsavory as that practice is IMO) -- not retaliation.

PR activity to attack Lively, place negative stories about her in the press, seed social media with negative comments and discussion of her whether via his PR firm or using Jed Wallace/bots -- maybe retaliation (depending on whether the underlying sexual harassment claims survive).

Lively has some other stuff in her complaint kind of arguing that Baldoni intentionally deviated from Sony's marketing strategy for the movie in order to look Lively look bad (by talking about DV and DV survivors while Lively was talking about "wear your florals"). I think that's much dicier and unlikely to go far unless the underlying SH claims are viewed as very strong.

So it really may come down to exactly what the stories were that they were planting or what the comments were that they were having Wallace seed online. If they were exclusively about Baldoni and how he's great, I don't think there's any retaliation claim. If they were about Lively, I think he has a problem.

That isn’t how it will work, not even remotely. He can still win if he placed negative stories about her if he can show it was in response to actions she took to hurt his reputation.

“Gordon Reynolds” was thanked by Lively in the end credits of IEWU. “Gordon Reynolds” was in the end credits as portraying “Nicepool,” the nasty, killed off character satirizing Baldoni in the Deadpool-Wolverine film. Lipstick Alley has a thread, started today on the celebrity gossip part of the board, showing screenshots of now-deleted Reels by the trainer who Baldoni went to regarding whether he’d be able to lift Lively without destroying his back muscles. The idiot trainer has been a friend of RR and BL for years, laughed at Baldoni being satirized, and tried to delete the stories he liked and laughed at in his social media being harshly critical of Baldoni.

Lively and Reynolds engaged in an extensive and expensive all-out reputational eviscerating of Baldoni across a theatrically released international blockbuster film that Baldoni had nothing to do with. They flooded social media and had friends repost stories cruelly critical of Baldoni, mocking him publicly, at the same time. This PR sht she claims is a projection of what she and her team are fully guilty of and which we can see and verify with shocking ease.

They pulled the pin out of a grenade and stuffed it up their own buttholes (Reynolds is the one obsessed with the perineum as we can see by the published texts, along with his wife’s gentle oral practices). If Wallace scores a hit off of them, it’s because they cleared the path for him in their absolute joint arrogance that they can treat anyone like trash and they have to take it in silence.

That last paragraph of yours…did I miss these texts from RR and Blake? 😳

Dp, but check out the texts released yesterday, Daily Mail Online

Perfect! Thank you

I am Team Justin but the “never with teeth” sounds like she was saying that she does the whole “spicy girl”thing in a nice way and not a mean one. I didn’t find it sexual at all and I think it tracks because she appears to be very passive aggressive in most of her interviews. I only saw one text from Ryan “the I adore you” one. I must be missing something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just read Wallace’s complaint. It’s short. Can anyone weigh in on what they think of it? Someone up thread said it was exceedingly thin, but I’m curious about why. Variety links to the complaint in their article about it.

Okay, interesting. He is seeking both a declaratory judgment and damages in his defamation claim. I'm just skimming because I have to leave in 10 minutes, but looks like in the DJ request he's asking the court to issue a declaration that says Lively essentially can't sue him. Premise appears to be that since he never had any contract with Lively and they never actually had a professional relationship, he can't be joined in a lawsuit alleging harassment/retaliation or anything related to an employment contract. Which actually makes sense and is probably why she didn't actually name him in the complaint she filed to begin with.

He's also seeking defamation based on being named in that precursor to a complaint that got leaked to the NYT. He's saying he lost work/business and had his professional rep damaged by her allegations there.

It's a very bare bones complaint so unlike the others that have been filed related to these events, he doesn't include a bunch of evidence. This is what most complaints look like though -- appending all the texts and evidence is not typical because usually you file the complaint and then use discovery to collect evidence. Sometimes a complaint will include a critical piece of evidence like a copy of a contract but often it will just have the alleged facts.

Based on super quick review I'd say that he's likely to get the declaratory judgment unless Lively can explain what their relationship is that would justify a lawsuit (and also there may be some aspect of employment law that would allow them to extend the lawsuit to him, I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert). It seems straightforward and makes sense. She hasn't sued him yet so I don't know how much this matters.

As for the defamation all the same issues apply as with the Baldoni case except that it would be hard to argue Wallace is a public figure. So lower standard. I'd have to review exactly what Lively's filings said about Wallace to judge that. Remember truth is a defense to defamation so if she can prove he did what she says, that's enough. But I can't remember exactly what she says so I don't know, maybe it's really over the top and speculative.

[Anonymous]

Thank you PP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

None of this is that big of a deal. Litigators with big personalities like this are often high conflict in their personal lives too

Disagree, for what it's worth. If abhorrent personalities and distasteful acts are relevant as they seem to be in this thread, then no one is exempt, including Baldoni and his attorney.

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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.

I think it will be relatively easy to untangle.

PR activity to boost Baldoni's positive press, get him interviews, place positive stories about him, even seeding positive comments about him on social media using Jed Wallace/bots (as unsavory as that practice is IMO) -- not retaliation.

PR activity to attack Lively, place negative stories about her in the press, seed social media with negative comments and discussion of her whether via his PR firm or using Jed Wallace/bots -- maybe retaliation (depending on whether the underlying sexual harassment claims survive).

Lively has some other stuff in her complaint kind of arguing that Baldoni intentionally deviated from Sony's marketing strategy for the movie in order to look Lively look bad (by talking about DV and DV survivors while Lively was talking about "wear your florals"). I think that's much dicier and unlikely to go far unless the underlying SH claims are viewed as very strong.

So it really may come down to exactly what the stories were that they were planting or what the comments were that they were having Wallace seed online. If they were exclusively about Baldoni and how he's great, I don't think there's any retaliation claim. If they were about Lively, I think he has a problem.

That isn’t how it will work, not even remotely. He can still win if he placed negative stories about her if he can show it was in response to actions she took to hurt his reputation.

“Gordon Reynolds” was thanked by Lively in the end credits of IEWU. “Gordon Reynolds” was in the end credits as portraying “Nicepool,” the nasty, killed off character satirizing Baldoni in the Deadpool-Wolverine film. Lipstick Alley has a thread, started today on the celebrity gossip part of the board, showing screenshots of now-deleted Reels by the trainer who Baldoni went to regarding whether he’d be able to lift Lively without destroying his back muscles. The idiot trainer has been a friend of RR and BL for years, laughed at Baldoni being satirized, and tried to delete the stories he liked and laughed at in his social media being harshly critical of Baldoni.

Lively and Reynolds engaged in an extensive and expensive all-out reputational eviscerating of Baldoni across a theatrically released international blockbuster film that Baldoni had nothing to do with. They flooded social media and had friends repost stories cruelly critical of Baldoni, mocking him publicly, at the same time. This PR sht she claims is a projection of what she and her team are fully guilty of and which we can see and verify with shocking ease.

They pulled the pin out of a grenade and stuffed it up their own buttholes (Reynolds is the one obsessed with the perineum as we can see by the published texts, along with his wife’s gentle oral practices). If Wallace scores a hit off of them, it’s because they cleared the path for him in their absolute joint arrogance that they can treat anyone like trash and they have to take it in silence.

That last paragraph of yours…did I miss these texts from RR and Blake? 😳

Dp, but check out the texts released yesterday, Daily Mail Online

Perfect! Thank you

I am Team Justin but the “never with teeth” sounds like she was saying that she does the whole “spicy girl”thing in a nice way and not a mean one. I didn’t find it sexual at all and I think it tracks because she appears to be very passive aggressive in most of her interviews. I only saw one text from Ryan “the I adore you” one. I must be missing something.

People are only giving her crap because she’s a hypocrite.