Whoa, what part of my single line post was not calm? I was just wondering if you had read those parts of Heath's depo. Did you? |
| Baldoni Bros, any info on how his lawsuit #2 is going? Apparently that was today's meeting. |
Yes. I understand that it was Wayfares role to handle HR concerns. That woefully misses the point of what happened. When there is a crisis like this in corporate America, it does Sony little good to say well that was WF’s job. Were Sony executives deposed and may some of them have to come testify in court if this goes to trial? Yes. Did a lot of Sony’s texts and emails that they would not want the public to see get blasted out in People magazine and other media outlets? Yes. Were Sony executives humiliated by being insulted by Ryan Reynolds for all the world to see? Yes. You can say it was Wayfares responsibility to contain the situation and that their HR people failed at their job, but the damage to Sony is still done. Typically when a crisis like this happens in a company, it’s not good enough for people to say well, that was someone else’s job. Sony has had to spend money and resources cleaning up this mess, it’s been a huge distraction for their executives, and they’ve suffered reputational damage. It’s little comfort that it was wayfarers fault. And in the future, you can bet they’re putting safeguards in place so that they’re not letting some independent studio or any other business partner trash their reputation, cost them money, and create such a headache. |
Okay. So the reason I asked if you'd read Heath's deposition is because I was really surprised and frustrated by Heath's responses to questions about how HR worked on the film and how he thought HR issues should be addressed. When asked who he thought cast and crew should go to with HR concerns, he said he felt Alex Sachs, or maybe the first AD, would be appropriate, but he honestly didn't know. When told that Alex Sachs had testified that Heath is who she would have gone to with HR issues, he was surprised to hear that. He also stated that he believed there was a hotline people could contact with HR concerns, but when asked if Wayfarer or the film LLC had paid for and set up a hotline, he said he was not aware of one. From an employment law perspective, this is negligence at a minimum. It also undercuts the argument that Blake failed to report issues as they arose -- she absolutely made Sachs and Heath (and Baldoni and Ange Giannetti) aware of her concerns. But none of them felt they were in charge. Again, this is negligence. And IME, when employers are *this* negligent about basic HR, it makes it much easier for other employment law issues, including harassment, to arise. Because there are no adults in the room who will step in and address problems, so they metastasize. And I think that's what happened here. When companies are this negligent in operations, they get sued. Well... |
Well according to Blake’s PGA letter she was tasked with handling all HR issues so there is that…. Also the protocol is to go SAG and her team knows that. They are an objective 3rd party. |
Right. Wayfarer’s actions left them exposed to legal risk, which we are seeing play out. Sony’s risk is not legal, but financial and reputational. If I was running a company, I would want to minimize legal, financial, and reputational risks. I suppose you could say one out of three is better than nothing? But I am sure Sony wishes they had not buried their head in the sand quite so much. |
Blake is not suing because of neglected HR issues. She watched herself get canceled and become “bizarrely unhirable” as confirmed by Hollywood insiders and she needed someone to blame. This case is more about retaliation. Unfortunately, for her, it’s going be hard to stick the genie back into the bottle. Even if she wins everything in court, which seems like a long shot given some of the technical issues she faces as well as that damn smear campaign is “untraceable”, it’s hard to imagine studios wanting to hire her, or Blake Brown Beauty recovering. |
She is literally suing over HR issues. Like as in it is the basis of her complaint. Baldoni & Co. ran a disorganized, casual set, and engaged in a bunch of inappropriate behavior that made women on set (multiple women) uncomfortable. They had no HR on set and even after multiple actresses came to them AND Alex Sachs AND Sony with complaints, they did not initiate HR proceedings to address the issues and ensure they were not repeated. So yes, Blake did wind up forcing HR compliance on the production, paying her own lawyers to draft safe set requirements and getting Wayfarer to agree to them. All parties agree that after Blake did this, the set ran smoothly and there were no more issues. Were it up to Wayfarer, they would have just kept winging it and ignoring problems. And then when Justin and Jamey realized they had pissed off half a dozen of the most important people involved in the film (most of the main cast, Alex Sachs, Colleen Hoover), they panicked and hired Epstein/Depp/"bad man"-defender Melissa Nathan to do crisis management for them, over the strong advice of Stephanie Jones. Nathan did what she does best -- enlist Jed Wallace and Bryan Freedman to help destroy someone's reputation online. Unfortunately for them, they were in cahoots with Jen Abel, who chose to conduct part of this conspiracy using a work phone that belonged to Stephanie Jones. Oops. Did Blake make things harder for herself with some of her marketing choices? You bet! Does she have some problematic past interviews that are cringeworthy to watch now? Yes. Is it normal for a director and producers to hire someone to help highlight their LEAD ACTRESS's worst qualities and past behavior online as the movie they just spent millions to make and staked their reputations on is coming out? No, it's insane. It also, unfortunately may have broken the law. The idea that this whole thing is about Blake Brown Beauty is some fantasy a bunch of red pilled weirdos on Reddit came up with. This is actually about Justin Baldoni, Jamey Heath, and their behavior. You can try to distract from that all you want, but the actual court case will remain focused on that. |
DP. Really hate to break it to you but Sony does not care that much about this. No one was fired over this. They’re a huge company that gets sued all the time. They just beat earnings by a mile. That’s what they care about. Blake is the only person losing money over this as she’s unemployable. |
The bolded part was always impressive to me as far back as the NYT. So many times women come out years later and everyone is like "why didn't she say something" and here we have her actually using the pause in production to get something put in place that actually worked (which is maybe, the one thing the parties agree on?), and she didn't breathe a word about it or make any waves in public at the time. And we have her texts and conversations from during filming, and the accounts of others, like the real time texts from the IC getting creeped out, that demonstrates these were all genuine good faith beliefs, not something manufactured later. It's not something she made up to steal a movie (she stole that movie fair and square, hah). It may not end up being actionable sexual harassment, but this was a genuine problem, this stuff happened, she didn't make this up. But then she unfollowed him and he decided to destroy her (and then claims he didn't have to because it organically happened, and again we'll see if that pans out in court). Baldoni threw just as big of a tantrum. I'm not saying she's perfect, just that she deserves her day in court. |
I don’t believe for a minute sony doesn’t care that all these texts and emails were all over the media. This was far from a nothing burger. Sony and other studios are taking note and see the Blake creates a lot of drama and opens them up for litigation. That’s why she’s not hireable. I don’t see how you can say this didn’t cost them money. Has your company ever been in a situation like this? Even if they are not going to trial, executives were deposed and maybe testifying - they had to turn over records. This definitely takes company time and resources to deal with. Sony also was panicking over the Ryan Reynolds taking credit for the rooftop scene. Their lawyers sent a letter to Wayfarer urging them to give them more information because if Ryan had written a scene and he was not properly credited, that’s a violation of WGA. Blake caused all kinds of headaches for them. Finally, it was noted early on that Sony got Blake the role in the hopes of getting in Ryan’s good graces. So they spent all this capital only to find that they likely won’t be working with Ryan Reynolds ever again. not that they would want to. But what a waste. |
Seems like she’s getting her day in court. Unfortunately, for her, she destroyed her career in the process. I firmly believe if she had just let things lie after the August backlash the public would’ve eventually moved on. She had a double date with Travis and Taylor in October 2024 that got her good buzz (that’s the last time she and Taylor were seen together). In early February, she would have no doubt gone to the 2025 Super Bowl with Taylor as well and gotten more huge exposure. She was absent because they had a falling out because of this situation that she couldn’t let go of. Taylor saying I miss my friend and I feel like you’ve become obsessed with this situation, Blake apologizing, but then the day after more texts about Justin and the situation. She was obsessed. Then Justin’s countersuit that further pulls Taylor in which was likely the last straw. Back to the alternative universe where she didn’t bring the suit: after the Super Bowl, in March, she was at SBSW to promote another simple favor. She would’ve had all these opportunities to move past the narrative and get pressed and attention for other things. The public would’ve absolutely moved on. Yet here we are in 2026 still talking about this and she’ll likely not get an invite to Taylor’s wedding. |
Uh, Sony Pictures is not doing that well. Sony the company might be doing well, but the studio has seen a dip in revenue in recent quarters. Probably not due to this, they are the only major studio not to have a streaming platform. This might not have helped though. |
It would be really sad, though not at all surprising, if all Sony took away from this is "that Blake is such a pain in the ass." |
PP. I can't dispute anything you're saying there. I also feel that Baldoni escalated where he didn't have to. They both could have walked away earlier. It's unfortunate. Probably hurting her more than it is him. I think she just got so enraged when she heard about those texts that she was all in, and misjudged how it would be perceived when Baldoni's side came out, and now she can't walk away even if she wanted to because everyone would say it proves that she was making it up all along, etc. So I think she'll see it through it to the bitter end now. |