Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a tale as old as time. A he said she said, the he is a prominent hollywood player who hires a vicious PR firm, the internet rips the woman apart. Zero attempts to look at the situation from both sides. Please provide a single example where in a contentious dispute between a man and a woman in hollywood the woman is believed and the man is injured.

It only happens when someone is SUCH a predator that they assault SO many women that it can't be explained away (weinstein/cosby). And even then they end up getting out of jail!

Prediction: this turns into a 150 page thread talking about what a see you next tuesday you all think she is. Just like all the other multi hundred long page threads in this forum. There isn't one about a man though! It's ALWAYS about the woman. Examine your ingrained misogyny people.

Second prediction: I get a bunch of people replying to me yelling about Blake being awful and Baldoni being her victim and I just blindly take the woman's side.

I'll just get in front of all of those and tell you what I would say in response. These situations are almost always complex with different levels of power at play (in this case, while Lively and Reynolds have significantly higher household name recognition, Baldoni has extremely powerful industry connections, so is not the david to their goliath). And I believe that almost every celebrity is somewhat egotistical/narcissistic almost by the nature of the gig. Therefore it is my belief that there is almost NEVER a party completely innocent here. There is always blame to be found on both sides because it is almost always giant egos fighting with each other. But here, there is never nuance, it is always the woman sucks and the poor man we had a crush on 10 years ago because he was hot in that movie that one time is innocent.

I tend to agree with a lot of this but she fired first…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a tale as old as time. A he said she said, the he is a prominent hollywood player who hires a vicious PR firm, the internet rips the woman apart. Zero attempts to look at the situation from both sides. Please provide a single example where in a contentious dispute between a man and a woman in hollywood the woman is believed and the man is injured.

It only happens when someone is SUCH a predator that they assault SO many women that it can't be explained away (weinstein/cosby). And even then they end up getting out of jail!

Prediction: this turns into a 150 page thread talking about what a see you next tuesday you all think she is. Just like all the other multi hundred long page threads in this forum. There isn't one about a man though! It's ALWAYS about the woman. Examine your ingrained misogyny people.

Second prediction: I get a bunch of people replying to me yelling about Blake being awful and Baldoni being her victim and I just blindly take the woman's side.

I'll just get in front of all of those and tell you what I would say in response. These situations are almost always complex with different levels of power at play (in this case, while Lively and Reynolds have significantly higher household name recognition, Baldoni has extremely powerful industry connections, so is not the david to their goliath). And I believe that almost every celebrity is somewhat egotistical/narcissistic almost by the nature of the gig. Therefore it is my belief that there is almost NEVER a party completely innocent here. There is always blame to be found on both sides because it is almost always giant egos fighting with each other. But here, there is never nuance, it is always the woman sucks and the poor man we had a crush on 10 years ago because he was hot in that movie that one time is innocent.

lol at Baldoni being considered a Hollywood power player with "extremely powerful industry connections." Baldoni is backed by a billionaire with no ties to Hollywood. That matters, and is why Blake and Ryan were able to throw around their weight so much. You seem to acknowledge the complicated dynamics here yet are getting so many basic things wrong.

Thanks for the bolded, exactly. While blake attended the film with other cast members, baldoni attended with sony execs. He has a whole production studio with deep deep pockets. I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to further expound upon that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a tale as old as time. A he said she said, the he is a prominent hollywood player who hires a vicious PR firm, the internet rips the woman apart. Zero attempts to look at the situation from both sides. Please provide a single example where in a contentious dispute between a man and a woman in hollywood the woman is believed and the man is injured.

It only happens when someone is SUCH a predator that they assault SO many women that it can't be explained away (weinstein/cosby). And even then they end up getting out of jail!

Prediction: this turns into a 150 page thread talking about what a see you next tuesday you all think she is. Just like all the other multi hundred long page threads in this forum. There isn't one about a man though! It's ALWAYS about the woman. Examine your ingrained misogyny people.

Second prediction: I get a bunch of people replying to me yelling about Blake being awful and Baldoni being her victim and I just blindly take the woman's side.

I'll just get in front of all of those and tell you what I would say in response. These situations are almost always complex with different levels of power at play (in this case, while Lively and Reynolds have significantly higher household name recognition, Baldoni has extremely powerful industry connections, so is not the david to their goliath). And I believe that almost every celebrity is somewhat egotistical/narcissistic almost by the nature of the gig. Therefore it is my belief that there is almost NEVER a party completely innocent here. There is always blame to be found on both sides because it is almost always giant egos fighting with each other. But here, there is never nuance, it is always the woman sucks and the poor man we had a crush on 10 years ago because he was hot in that movie that one time is innocent.

I tend to agree with a lot of this but she fired first…

Only someone who was not on tiktok or social media in September or October would be able to say this with a straight face.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw something today about how the metadata on the NYT story showed that they had the info from lively’s team days before the California complaint was filed. Can anyone weigh in on whether that would have any impact on the defamation or false light claims? The YouTube video was tying it to the gag order request, but I was curious if it might have any larger implications. Or does it not matter at all?

Yes, it could matters. It could be used to show state of mind, and also that they had time to get a fuller picture from Baldonis side. The NYT didn’t just happen to be covering a newsworthy lawsuit (which is a defense to a defamation claim if it’s ’fairly reported’ which arguably this wasn’t), this implies there was collaboration and intent to run this story in an unflattering way towards Baldoni and the PR folks.

When was the last time the NYT ran to report on a he said/she said EEO claim by two B/C list celebrities? They’re not TMZ. They seemed to want to run this as a follow up angle on#metoo and they messed up royally, imo.

I agree with your whole post but especially the bolded. They wanted a #metoo story and BL wanted a #metoo moment.

This makes sense. Megan Twohey must be mortified.

She appeared on their podcast this morning and clearly stands behind the reporting. I had misgivings about the NYT reporting but actually found the podcast quite persuasive.

Me too. No pun intended. If anyone is interested, it’s very easy to skim the transcript.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP but hard, hard agree from me with these last two posts. Thank you for voicing my concerns better than I have.

What does DP mean? I’m sort of new here

"Different poster" meant to differentiate themselves from the posters they are referencing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP but hard, hard agree from me with these last two posts. Thank you for voicing my concerns better than I have.

What does DP mean? I’m sort of new here

Different Poster. Why would you come here just for this? (And are you on someone's payroll, and if not, prove it. lol)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like hiring that PR firm, after he had promised not to retaliate against Lively, and then egging the PR firm on to protect him, would be retaliation. Especially if it was successful. The PR form reported that Jed Wallace's team, in particular, had been successful. Wallace's team engages in astroturfing and social media manipulation. The PR firm reported that "we've started to see a shift on social, due largely to Jed and his team's efforts to shift the narrative toward shining a spotlight on Blake and Ryan."

That sounds like retaliation. Someone else in the thread noted that Lively noticed a deposition for Wallace, maybe for tomorrow?

Seems like either Wallace was actually doing nothing (as Baldoni's team now says) but taking credit for the shift in public opinion, or was actually posting negative stuff on Lively that would seem to amount to retaliation. Guess we'll see.

Yep, the retaliation has always been Blake’s strongest claim. But still not a slam dunk since there wasn’t temporal proximity to her original complaint. On the contrary, he has a lot of evidence that he bent over backwards after the complaint to make her happy. Also his decision to hire PR and Wallace can be seen as reacting her her decisions to undermine him because she wanted to take control of the movie, not harassment. Finally to the extent that her harassment claims seem unfounded, that could also weaken the retaliation claim. You don’t have to prove the underlying harassment to show retaliation for the complaint, but all of her complaints really are seeming off-the-wall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a tale as old as time. A he said she said, the he is a prominent hollywood player who hires a vicious PR firm, the internet rips the woman apart. Zero attempts to look at the situation from both sides. Please provide a single example where in a contentious dispute between a man and a woman in hollywood the woman is believed and the man is injured.

It only happens when someone is SUCH a predator that they assault SO many women that it can't be explained away (weinstein/cosby). And even then they end up getting out of jail!

Prediction: this turns into a 150 page thread talking about what a see you next tuesday you all think she is. Just like all the other multi hundred long page threads in this forum. There isn't one about a man though! It's ALWAYS about the woman. Examine your ingrained misogyny people.

Second prediction: I get a bunch of people replying to me yelling about Blake being awful and Baldoni being her victim and I just blindly take the woman's side.

I'll just get in front of all of those and tell you what I would say in response. These situations are almost always complex with different levels of power at play (in this case, while Lively and Reynolds have significantly higher household name recognition, Baldoni has extremely powerful industry connections, so is not the david to their goliath). And I believe that almost every celebrity is somewhat egotistical/narcissistic almost by the nature of the gig. Therefore it is my belief that there is almost NEVER a party completely innocent here. There is always blame to be found on both sides because it is almost always giant egos fighting with each other. But here, there is never nuance, it is always the woman sucks and the poor man we had a crush on 10 years ago because he was hot in that movie that one time is innocent.

I tend to agree with a lot of this but she fired first…

Only someone who was not on tiktok or social media in September or October would be able to say this with a straight face.

You don't even know the basic facts, lol. The drama started in August. The first major public shot, not counting the unfollowings on Instagram, was a piece in the Daily mail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP but hard, hard agree from me with these last two posts. Thank you for voicing my concerns better than I have.

What does DP mean? I’m sort of new here

Different Poster. Why would you come here just for this? (And are you on someone's payroll, and if not, prove it. lol)

Not new today but newish to DCUM. I’m an urban baby/YBM refugee. We never used DP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like hiring that PR firm, after he had promised not to retaliate against Lively, and then egging the PR firm on to protect him, would be retaliation. Especially if it was successful. The PR form reported that Jed Wallace's team, in particular, had been successful. Wallace's team engages in astroturfing and social media manipulation. The PR firm reported that "we've started to see a shift on social, due largely to Jed and his team's efforts to shift the narrative toward shining a spotlight on Blake and Ryan."

That sounds like retaliation. Someone else in the thread noted that Lively noticed a deposition for Wallace, maybe for tomorrow?

Seems like either Wallace was actually doing nothing (as Baldoni's team now says) but taking credit for the shift in public opinion, or was actually posting negative stuff on Lively that would seem to amount to retaliation. Guess we'll see.

Finally to the extent that her harassment claims seem unfounded, that could also weaken the retaliation claim.

Genuine question: How so, legally speaking?

[Anonymous]

Does this strengthen Justin's defense against the retaliation claim?

"..the same Daily Mail reporter informed Nathan that Sloane had lied to portray Baldoni as the foe.
Yet still, Sloane escalated the false narrative by telling the reporter that Blake was “sexually
assaulted”—an unsubstantiated accusation that not even Lively had gone so far as to claim,
designed to destroy Baldoni and his reputation.

Sloane ruthlessly took advantage of Nathan’s good faith. As a result, Nathan was
forced to combat the negative press that was both planted and propagated by Sloane. Ultimately,
the actual smear campaign was orchestrated by Sloane, at Lively’s direction."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like hiring that PR firm, after he had promised not to retaliate against Lively, and then egging the PR firm on to protect him, would be retaliation. Especially if it was successful. The PR form reported that Jed Wallace's team, in particular, had been successful. Wallace's team engages in astroturfing and social media manipulation. The PR firm reported that "we've started to see a shift on social, due largely to Jed and his team's efforts to shift the narrative toward shining a spotlight on Blake and Ryan."

That sounds like retaliation. Someone else in the thread noted that Lively noticed a deposition for Wallace, maybe for tomorrow?

Seems like either Wallace was actually doing nothing (as Baldoni's team now says) but taking credit for the shift in public opinion, or was actually posting negative stuff on Lively that would seem to amount to retaliation. Guess we'll see.

Yep, the retaliation has always been Blake’s strongest claim. But still not a slam dunk since there wasn’t temporal proximity to her original complaint. On the contrary, he has a lot of evidence that he bent over backwards after the complaint to make her happy. Also his decision to hire PR and Wallace can be seen as reacting her her decisions to undermine him because she wanted to take control of the movie, not harassment. Finally to the extent that her harassment claims seem unfounded, that could also weaken the retaliation claim. You don’t have to prove the underlying harassment to show retaliation for the complaint, but all of her complaints really are seeming off-the-wall.

Thank you for this! I’ve tried asking the question a few different ways on this and the other thread, and this helps me (nonlawyer) understand better.

[Anonymous]

The NYT podcast is very telling.

However, I don’t think he ever thought he’d win it, but wanted discovery.

The billionaire is also Bahai and his wife is involved with Wayfair, so $ spigot is not going to be turned off soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like hiring that PR firm, after he had promised not to retaliate against Lively, and then egging the PR firm on to protect him, would be retaliation. Especially if it was successful. The PR form reported that Jed Wallace's team, in particular, had been successful. Wallace's team engages in astroturfing and social media manipulation. The PR firm reported that "we've started to see a shift on social, due largely to Jed and his team's efforts to shift the narrative toward shining a spotlight on Blake and Ryan."

That sounds like retaliation. Someone else in the thread noted that Lively noticed a deposition for Wallace, maybe for tomorrow?

Seems like either Wallace was actually doing nothing (as Baldoni's team now says) but taking credit for the shift in public opinion, or was actually posting negative stuff on Lively that would seem to amount to retaliation. Guess we'll see.

Hiring PR after not-a-baller moves like having everyone unfollow Baldoni (Lively leaving “crumbs” for people to follow like her buddy Taylor Swift) does not seem retaliatory at all. It’s why that profession such as it is exists, to protect a project he developed, alone, for years.

It would be different if he hired PR simply to get him good press. In fact his PR people did do that. That's their job.

But he signed a document saying he would not retaliate against Lively. And then he hired a PR firm to take her down *in retaliation.*

The fact that her unfollowing him on socials was damaging to him is what it is. She's not required to follow him.

Making a (largely spurious) sexual harassment complaint does not give you eternal license to do whatever you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a tale as old as time. A he said she said, the he is a prominent hollywood player who hires a vicious PR firm, the internet rips the woman apart. Zero attempts to look at the situation from both sides. Please provide a single example where in a contentious dispute between a man and a woman in hollywood the woman is believed and the man is injured.

It only happens when someone is SUCH a predator that they assault SO many women that it can't be explained away (weinstein/cosby). And even then they end up getting out of jail!

Prediction: this turns into a 150 page thread talking about what a see you next tuesday you all think she is. Just like all the other multi hundred long page threads in this forum. There isn't one about a man though! It's ALWAYS about the woman. Examine your ingrained misogyny people.

Second prediction: I get a bunch of people replying to me yelling about Blake being awful and Baldoni being her victim and I just blindly take the woman's side.

I'll just get in front of all of those and tell you what I would say in response. These situations are almost always complex with different levels of power at play (in this case, while Lively and Reynolds have significantly higher household name recognition, Baldoni has extremely powerful industry connections, so is not the david to their goliath). And I believe that almost every celebrity is somewhat egotistical/narcissistic almost by the nature of the gig. Therefore it is my belief that there is almost NEVER a party completely innocent here. There is always blame to be found on both sides because it is almost always giant egos fighting with each other. But here, there is never nuance, it is always the woman sucks and the poor man we had a crush on 10 years ago because he was hot in that movie that one time is innocent.

I tend to agree with a lot of this but she fired first…

Only someone who was not on tiktok or social media in September or October would be able to say this with a straight face.

You don't even know the basic facts, lol. The drama started in August. The first major public shot, not counting the unfollowings on Instagram, was a piece in the Daily mail.

Was that a baldoni piece? Also did she unfollow him and get everyone else to unfollow him before or after that DM piece?