Why is Blake Lively so overrated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baldoni’s lawyer is now saying there is video footage disproving some of Blake’s complaints. And that the countersuit will include Ryan Reynolds as a defendant. I would hold off on getting too attached to Blake’s claims.

You have Baldoni's claims in a death grip. Any minute now he's going to sue and refute all. Any time now. Still waiting.

It’’s been about a week since he filed against The NY Times, and her complaint against him was filed. If you are really a lawyer, you know things don’t move that quickly, and he still has a week or two to respond under the federal rules.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

Worth noting that during the writer’s strike, Blake made a list of demands and Baldoni agreed to all of them “happily.” I think all of her allegations in the complaint were before that date.

That's all disputed now though. Baldoni now claims he never saw a list of demands and never agreed to it. This is the whole issue regarding the January 4th meeting -- did it happen, what was said, what was agreed. The parties are presenting very different stories.

Also fully half of Lively's complaint is about Baldoni's retaliatory efforts to smear her via a PR campaign in summer of 2024. It's a two-part argument: (1) Baldoni harassed Lively on set until Lively had to refuse to rejoin the production unless the harassment stopped, and (2) Baldoni was so scared that word of the harassment would come out that he launched a PR blitz to try and destroy her credibility so that if/when it came out, people wouldn't believe her. Note I'm just summarizing Lively's argument here, not saying that's exactly what happened.

I am actually more skeptical about the retaliation claims and I think they've been overblown in the press because of the NYT's slanted (and somewhat dishonest) coverage of them. It's also a big part of what got Lively a lot of industry support initially because a lot of women in Hollywood read about the reports of the PR smear campaign and it hit very close to home (being a woman in Hollywood sucks in many ways and the way you are treated online and by PR people is among the worst and most universal).

But I actually think her harassment claim is very strong and likely to succeed while the retaliation claim (which is the part that would result in a much bigger damages amount due to impact on her reputation and business ventures) feels thin and hard to prove to me.

I feel like an outlier on that though. I do think a lot of people are weighing without reading or understanding the complaints or understanding the underlying legal issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

I disagree on how you view Baldoni. I don’t think he gives off this vibe at all. He seems pretty down to earth, sensitive and overall a good human which is why people are shocked at the allegations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She is just looking worse and worse and he is looking better. Now Ryan Reynolds has entered the scene and he is looking maybe the wrist like a controlling and paranoid spouse. He always had such a nice way about him. He should try to get away from this. This whole thing should not be lawsuits though. Just don’t like each other and move on. All these celebrities need to understand that the public gets tired of the complaining.

We had intelligent discussion for awhile, but back to this.

Wishful thinking by that PP. People think if they repeat the same mantra other people will start to believe it.

It works though. This is how Trump got re-elected. If you repeat a simple, appealing message over and over without nuance or a willingness to compromise or debate the premise, some people will eventually just acquiesce. People do not want nuance. They want to be spoonfed the same story over and over again. And "beautiful woman is hysterical, lies about a man hurting her" is an old story that people love going back to. It scratches a lot of different itches.

It's not working here, lol.

Because some of you keep treating her complaint as the gospel and refuse to hear any contradictory evidence, of which there is already a good bit, particularly with respect to the retaliation claim. The rest of the world is looking at all the information that has been released.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

I disagree on how you view Baldoni. I don’t think he gives off this vibe at all. He seems pretty down to earth, sensitive and overall a good human which is why people are shocked at the allegations.

I guess he seems that way if you discount everything in Lively's complaint and the fact that the entire cast of the movie has come out in support of Lively. They were there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

I disagree on how you view Baldoni. I don’t think he gives off this vibe at all. He seems pretty down to earth, sensitive and overall a good human which is why people are shocked at the allegations.

He's a feminist fraud stripped of his recent award.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

I disagree on how you view Baldoni. I don’t think he gives off this vibe at all. He seems pretty down to earth, sensitive and overall a good human which is why people are shocked at the allegations.

I guess he seems that way if you discount everything in Lively's complaint and the fact that the entire cast of the movie has come out in support of Lively. They were there.

Brandon Sklenar implored everyone to "For the love of God" read her complaint. He was there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

Worth noting that during the writer’s strike, Blake made a list of demands and Baldoni agreed to all of them “happily.” I think all of her allegations in the complaint were before that date.

That's all disputed now though. Baldoni now claims he never saw a list of demands and never agreed to it. This is the whole issue regarding the January 4th meeting -- did it happen, what was said, what was agreed. The parties are presenting very different stories.

Also fully half of Lively's complaint is about Baldoni's retaliatory efforts to smear her via a PR campaign in summer of 2024. It's a two-part argument: (1) Baldoni harassed Lively on set until Lively had to refuse to rejoin the production unless the harassment stopped, and (2) Baldoni was so scared that word of the harassment would come out that he launched a PR blitz to try and destroy her credibility so that if/when it came out, people wouldn't believe her. Note I'm just summarizing Lively's argument here, not saying that's exactly what happened.

I am actually more skeptical about the retaliation claims and I think they've been overblown in the press because of the NYT's slanted (and somewhat dishonest) coverage of them. It's also a big part of what got Lively a lot of industry support initially because a lot of women in Hollywood read about the reports of the PR smear campaign and it hit very close to home (being a woman in Hollywood sucks in many ways and the way you are treated online and by PR people is among the worst and most universal).

But I actually think her harassment claim is very strong and likely to succeed while the retaliation claim (which is the part that would result in a much bigger damages amount due to impact on her reputation and business ventures) feels thin and hard to prove to me.

I feel like an outlier on that though. I do think a lot of people are weighing

without reading or understanding the complaints or understanding the underlying legal issues.

Here’s the thing, she was plain out deceptive with respect to the retaliation claim, that’s very clear. Given that, it’s very hard for people to credit her remaining allegations because her credibility is shot. No one here likes to discuss the allegations that Blake made herself unavailable to the production crew to discuss creative issues and is literally alleged to have come in each day with a different part of the her script that she had rewritten herself without consulting either the director or the actual screenwriters. Baldoni’s attorney seems very confident he had proof to disprove all her allegations, we shall see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

I disagree on how you view Baldoni. I don’t think he gives off this vibe at all. He seems pretty down to earth, sensitive and overall a good human which is why people are shocked at the allegations.

He's a feminist fraud stripped of his recent award.

Because Blake flat out manipulated texts she gave to The NY Times. There is a reason Hollywood is now turning against her and Ryan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

I disagree on how you view Baldoni. I don’t think he gives off this vibe at all. He seems pretty down to earth, sensitive and overall a good human which is why people are shocked at the allegations.

I guess he seems that way if you discount everything in Lively's complaint and the fact that the entire cast of the movie has come out in support of Lively. They were there.

And the crew supports him. Further, there are allegations that Ryan and Blake have threatened people to get them on their side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baldoni’s lawyer is now saying there is video footage disproving some of Blake’s complaints. And that the countersuit will include Ryan Reynolds as a defendant. I would hold off on getting too attached to Blake’s claims.

You have Baldoni's claims in a death grip. Any minute now he's going to sue and refute all. Any time now. Still waiting.

I thought the NYT suit was supposed to yield some discovery for them that could be used in a suit against Blake etc. So timing could have to do with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

I disagree on how you view Baldoni. I don’t think he gives off this vibe at all. He seems pretty down to earth, sensitive and overall a good human which is why people are shocked at the allegations.

I guess he seems that way if you discount everything in Lively's complaint and the fact that the entire cast of the movie has come out in support of Lively. They were there.

I think I may not have written my response clear. What I was trying to articulate is that in the public overall Justin doesn’t have this reputation. I do think that most people would put those traits on Blake as she seems to have had the reputation of being self important and vain long before the allegations. I think people are genuinely shocked to hear these allegations simply due to the fact that Justin appeared to be one of the good guys. Now whether or not he is a good guy, I cannot answer. I was just shocked at how you saw him is all, but now I understand that you are viewing him through the lens of the lawsuit and not on anything outside of 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:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

I disagree on how you view Baldoni. I don’t think he gives off this vibe at all. He seems pretty down to earth, sensitive and overall a good human which is why people are shocked at the allegations.

I guess he seems that way if you discount everything in Lively's complaint and the fact that the entire cast of the movie has come out in support of Lively. They were there.

And the crew supports him. Further, there are allegations that Ryan and Blake have threatened people to get them on their side.

Source that isn't some gossip rag?

[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:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

I disagree on how you view Baldoni. I don’t think he gives off this vibe at all. He seems pretty down to earth, sensitive and overall a good human which is why people are shocked at the allegations.

I guess he seems that way if you discount everything in Lively's complaint and the fact that the entire cast of the movie has come out in support of Lively. They were there.

I think I may not have written my response clear. What I was trying to articulate is that in the public overall Justin doesn’t have this reputation. I do think that most people would put those traits on Blake as she seems to have had the reputation of being self important and vain long before the allegations. I think people are genuinely shocked to hear these allegations simply due to the fact that Justin appeared to be one of the good guys. Now whether or not he is a good guy, I cannot answer. I was just shocked at how you saw him is all, but now I understand that you are viewing him through the lens of the lawsuit and not on anything outside of it.

Well, she is seeing him through the lens of the Blake’s lawsuit, but is willfully blind to his complaint against The NY Times, which raises serious issues about Blake’s credibility and motivation.

[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:You can see some clips from the birth scene in this compilation starting at about the 3:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEW5ddIhhg

Lively is naked below her boobs. There are multiple closeups of her belly and upper legs. Her legs are up in stirrups in a way that if she tried to pull that hospital gown over her lower half, it would ride up because her legs are up in the air.

It was a nude scene. If the actress filming that scene asked for a sheet between takes to cover up her lower body (even just for warmth, not modesty) it should have been provided. I'm sure there were points when she was able to take her legs out of the stirrups and cover up with the gown, but there were also definitely points where she had to lie there in the stirrups between takes because her legs are up for the full scene so I'm sure they were up for much of the shoot.

Those of you quibbling over "oh she could have pulled her hospital gown down" or "she wasn't really nude, she was wearing clothes" just sound dumb. She's obviously nude and the position of her body would have made it impossible to fully cover up with her gown unless she was lying there holding the gown in place the entire time with her hands (and she probably had to do other things with her hands between takes, like review notes about the scene, drink from a water bottle, etc.).

Why didn't they just give her a sheet? Like this is not explained. What possible reason would the production have for not giving her something to cover up during the scene? She shouldn't have to prove that she needs one, it should just be provided.

Do you understand Blake's not actually giving birth? Its called movie making. That's not her nude belly. It's a thick, warm prosthetic torso. Do while she looks like she's naked, she's actually not.

Still legs spread with a tiny piece of fabric covering her labia while mimicking pushing on an open set, visible camera screens posting the uncut scenesz and regardless of whether she could move to close her legs or move the gown during the shot, nobody could be bothered to give her a coverup when she asked for one.

I am one hundred percent sure that the camera was not focused on her labia — for one thing the friend of the director actor would be blocking it, for the other, she wasn’t actually pushing a baby out and aiming a camera there would make it obvious, and lastly, this was a PG 13 movie. Again, your fiction reads well though.

Of course it wasn't -- she was wearing a strip of fabric over her genitals anyway. No one has suggested they tried to film her genitals.

That does not mean it wasn't uncomfortable to film a scene with no pants on and an actor you just met sitting inches from your vag. It would also be weird to constantly be moving your legs between takes and pulling down the gown and she shouldn't have to do that.

There's also no excuse for springing the nudity on her the day of the shoot and failing to have the intimacy coordinator on set, and also for not closing the set when one of your actors is not only partially nude but has let you know she's not totally comfortable with it.

Baldoni hasn't explained any of this. Why wasn't she given a sheet? Why didn't he raise the issue of nudity earlier? If he planned for Lively to be nude, why didn't he enlist the intimacy coordinator to be there and why didn't he make it a closed set?

I think if this is true, it could be a result of him being green (inexperienced) and less about him being a predator.

I do think a lot of the bad behavior Lively alleges was due to Baldoni being an inexperienced director and the production company just not having a lot of experience and being unprofessional. But that doesn't absolve him of liability if his behavior or the productions actions led to a hostile work environment. Like he doesn't have to be a predator to engage in sexual harassment if his ineptitude led to consistently inappropriate, invasive, sexualized behavior on set.

I worked for a time in the fitness industry, and one of the companies I worked for had this issue -- just incredibly poorly run by people who didn't have leadership/management experience. They mostly had good (or at least okay) intentions but their employment practices were awful. The fitness industry, like acting, is an industry where people might interact in a way that would be considered totally inappropriate in other setting but is normal in that industry -- people touching each other to adjust form, people wearing very little clothing and changing/showering at work, etc. The result of having a green and unprofessional management in an industry like that is that it gets bad very quickly. It also makes it very easy for someone who *is* a predator to do bad things without getting in trouble. I was groped by a colleague at that job and there was just no recourse and it was written off by higher ups because they had no formal HR, no workplace policy governing that kind of behavior (and certainly no training on what is and is not permitted). It was an unequivocal groping, not something that could be misinterpreted on my end (his hands were literally on my boobs and crotch) but because it was a workplace where people did sometimes touch each other in a way that elsewhere might be considered sexual (putting hands on someone's waist or midsection to address form), management believed it had been an accident and that he "didn't mean anything." I don't think all of those people were "predators" but the guy who groped me was and they made it extremely easy for him to get away with it.

That's what I think happened here. When you have a workplace where people might be nude or semi-nude, where part of their job might be to portray childbirth or sex, then you need to maintaining very high standards of professionalism and following protocols for maintaining consent and respect for everyone in the workplace. They did not do that and I think it resulted in a hostile work environment like the one I wound up working in. The fact that it was caused as much by ineptitude as bad intentions doesn't really make it any better. I think they are still liable for creating an unsafe, hostile work environment.

And it seems like we wouldn't have heard about any of this but for Baldoni's misguided smear attempt to "bury her" after the fact. Seems like she was going to look the other way and let it go until and keep it private until that happened, and then she came out guns blazing. Who wouldn't in her case?

Hard to say -- I really don't know what her intentions were prior to the summer PR campaign. It certainly didn't make it *less* likely that she would sue him. It's probably possible that if that had not happened and the film had been a success without all the online chatter about Lively, it might have been resolved more quietly.

This will sound Pollyanna-ish, but I think situations like this could be resolved without litigation if people weren't so egotistical. Like there's a parallel universe where Baldoni was more responsive to Lively's concerns on set and sought to address them, and that results in Lively being more amenable to not only working with Baldoni but his vision for the movie, and Ryan Reynolds is never brought in to write scenes or do the final cut, and they promote the movie together without Baldoni trying to smear Lively online or Lively freezing him out and getting the rest of the cast to do so as well, and then there's no litigation.

But it all starts with people being willing to be self-critical, admit mistakes, apologize, and forgive. And I don't think the people involved in this situation have the ability. Baldoni strikes me as vain, oblivious, self-important, and obnoxious. Lively strikes me as the kind of person who, once she's decided she doesnt' like you, will just go nuclear until you are nothing. It's a terrible combination. I think Baldoni's more in the wrong here -- it really looks like he did some very skeevy, harassing stuff on set and he was the director and needed to take responsibility for the lack of professionalism -- but also Lively probably handled this in a way that maximized the conflict and now it's a death match. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for herself. On the other hand, I question whether anything good will come of this in the end because they are going scorched earth.

Worth noting that during the writer’s strike, Blake made a list of demands and Baldoni agreed to all of them “happily.” I think all of her allegations in the complaint were before that date.

That's all disputed now though. Baldoni now claims he never saw a list of demands and never agreed to it. This is the whole issue regarding the January 4th meeting -- did it happen, what was said, what was agreed. The parties are presenting very different stories.

Also fully half of Lively's complaint is about Baldoni's retaliatory efforts to smear her via a PR campaign in summer of 2024. It's a two-part argument: (1) Baldoni harassed Lively on set until Lively had to refuse to rejoin the production unless the harassment stopped, and (2) Baldoni was so scared that word of the harassment would come out that he launched a PR blitz to try and destroy her credibility so that if/when it came out, people wouldn't believe her. Note I'm just summarizing Lively's argument here, not saying that's exactly what happened.

I am actually more skeptical about the retaliation claims and I think they've been overblown in the press because of the NYT's slanted (and somewhat dishonest) coverage of them. It's also a big part of what got Lively a lot of industry support initially because a lot of women in Hollywood read about the reports of the PR smear campaign and it hit very close to home (being a woman in Hollywood sucks in many ways and the way you are treated online and by PR people is among the worst and most universal).

But I actually think her harassment claim is very strong and likely to succeed while the retaliation claim (which is the part that would result in a much bigger damages amount due to impact on her reputation and business ventures) feels thin and hard to prove to me.

I feel like an outlier on that though. I do think a lot of people are weighing

without reading or understanding the complaints or understanding the underlying legal issues.

Here’s the thing, she was plain out deceptive with respect to the retaliation claim, that’s very clear. Given that, it’s very hard for people to credit her remaining allegations because her credibility is shot. No one here likes to discuss the allegations that Blake made herself unavailable to the production crew to discuss creative issues and is literally alleged to have come in each day with a different part of the her script that she had rewritten herself without consulting either the director or the actual screenwriters. Baldoni’s attorney seems very confident he had proof to disprove all her allegations, we shall see.

PP here and I really disagree with what you're saying here.

Like I don't think Lively's retaliation claim is strong at all but I don't think she was deceptive about it. Her team conducted discovery, obtained the emails/texts from Baldoni's PR team legally, everything seems on the up and up in her complaint.

I do think the NYT was shady in their reporting. I think the way they present the info about the retaliation claims lacks context and is slanted. It's journalistic malpractice. But that's not on Lively, even if her team I'm sure lobbied hard for a favorable read from the NYT. That's their job. The newspaper's job is to not give in. That's on the NYT but is not a deception by Lively herself.

The whole "no one here likes to discuss" part of your comment makes no sense. Lively's behavior on set, the involvement of her husband in the production, the rewriting of scenes, etc., have been discussed ad nauseam on this thread and elsewhere. But none of that stuff is illegal and it also isn't an excuse for the kind of harassment Lively is alleging here. Like it's a separate issue that is minimally relevant to the question of whether Baldoni or his production team harassed Lively.

Also if Lively can prove the harassment claims, it may justify some of these other behaviors. I understand much better now why Lively would have wanted her husband to do a cut of the film, for instance. When I first read about that it seemed like an arrogant power grab. Now that I've seen her allegations about how certain scenes were filmed and potential mishandling of nudity and intimacy, I can see an argument that Lively wanted to ensure that the final cut didn't take advantage of scenes where she was pressured into doing things she didn't consent to or that could be personally compromising.