Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

This is a strange take not really grounded in the law. Actors have a lot of protections on set linked to filming nude and intimate scenes, and that are memorialized in union guidelines and reinforced by industry standards and commitments by studios. So it would actually be *easier* for an actor to show harassment linked to a nude or intimate scene because the industry has so many standards surrounding these scenes and there's an extensive history of this kind of scene being used as a mechanism for harassment.

The reason I cite the birth scene is because it was clearly not scripted as a nude scene. Industry standards are pretty explicit about the need for actors to have advance warning of nudity and for certain precautions to be taken on a set to protect their privacy and agency in those scenes. So if Lively can show she was pressured to do the scene nude or partially nude the day of the shoot, even though the script says nothing about nudity for this scene, this creates a strong presumption of malfeasance. Right off the bat, Baldoni and Wayfarer are deviating from industry standards on an issue that is known to pose a consent/harassment issue. This is a major problem for Wayfarer and goes to the "severity" of the problem -- springing unscripted nudity on an actress right before filming a scene is likely to be considered a severe problem, not a minor one, due to industry guidelines.

And bookending this issue is the fact that according to Baldoni's own timeline, Heath showed Lively the video of his wife the day AFTER the birth scene was filmed. Note Wayfarer does not contend that they planned to reshoot the birth scene. This choice to re-engage on the issue of nudity even after the scene has been filmed speaks to pervasiveness. Had they proposed nudity in the scene, had it rejected but agreed to simulating semi-nudity, and then moved on. Perhaps this would not be enough. But the fact that the scene was filmed and Lively believed the issue to be settled, and then Heath is approaching her (at Baldoni's insistence) to show her a personal video of a nude birth without her express consent? This is very, very problematic for them. She'd already not only registered her objection to nudity in the scene but also expressed her disagreement over nudity in birth generally. So why are Heath and Baldoni persisting in this debate? There is no justifiable work-related reason for showing her that video at that point. It points strongly to harassment.

And that is just the sequence of events around the birth scene. If she can also show other incidents, this strengthens her claim considerably. If on top of that, she can show that other actresses on set experienced boundary-violating behavior from Baldoni and/or Heath? This looks very bad for them, I'm sorry. This is kind of textbook hostile work environment.

She would have a much stronger case if she made a sexual harassment claim during filming. By not doing that she seemingly was OK about all of those other than saying she wanted things changed on set. Even the document that she had him sign, it appears after January 4 with the meeting where Blake blew up at him about fat shaming, everyone moved on. There’s just not a case for sexual harassment here, but that is why they’re not actually suing for sexual harassment. They are suing for retaliation and trying to backtrack into claims that she made turning those into harassment. I think people are greatly underestimating how difficult that is going to be.

There are protocols here for a reason. And if she had made a formal complaint, or any of the other women had made formal complaints, this would be much much easier. But not doing that really weakens their case. We can debate back-and-forth about Justin, his social awkwardness, unprofessionalism on set, and so on, but there is a standard for sexual harassment, and they really really botched any claims to that by not making any complaints at all.

You can really see in the Sony text with Wayfair, they were clearly just trying to please Blake and do what they could to make her more comfortable. Sony saying OK let’s let her have a producer of her choosing on set. OK, we can agree to this OK, we do agree to that. OK we can let her see the dailies. OK we can let her have a crack at editing. But I’m not seen anyone produce text about safety onset, or stemming, sexual harassment, or again SAG would be getting involved.

There’s no doubt that she wanted things changed on that set. Things were not going like she wanted. But that does not mean you can months later claim sexual harassment and retaliation.

I think it’s going to be very easy for Justin to show that he was just trying to protect his reputation from her spearheading having everyone Unfollow him, her putting forth that really awkward premiere, where he was in the basement and separate from the cast, and her not letting anyone do interviews with him. He has a really strong case that he had every right to hire a PR crisis firm.

I don't understand how any of this has anything to do with what I wrote in the previous post. I'm talking about whether their handling of the birth scene could constitute harassment. My point is that based on industry standards and what Baldoni acknowledge himself happened, I do think it could. Regardless of whether Lively ever used the words "sexual harassment" or contacted her union or whatever, the fact pattern here could definitely constitute harassment. That's all I'm saying.

It could just as easily constitute creative differences. I think some of this comes with making a movie that includes intimate scenes. So a director can’t advocate for their vision without being accused of harassment? If there was a power imbalance in Justin’s favor perhaps this would be a bigger concern, but the power imbalance was in Lively’s favor on that set and at no point was she at any real risk of having to do something she didn’t want. She was the a-lister. The highest paid by far. They accommodated everything she asked for.

+1

[Anonymous]

Wow, talk about backfiring! What an unforced error. Whoever convinced them this was some brilliant cheeky idea should be fired. Professional malpractice.

Ryan Reynolds' Sly 'SNL50' Joke About the 'It Ends With Us' Lawsuit Was All His Idea https://movieweb.com/ryan-reynolds-snl50-blake-lively-lawsuit-joke/

Ryan Reynolds' SNL Joke May Have Just Destroyed Blake Lively's Credibility https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ryan-reynolds-snl-joke-may-040059732.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does it matter (I mean for purposes of Blake's lawsuit, not in general) if Justin SH other women on set? I'm not saying he did, but IF. That would be their claim to pursue or not; Blake can't pursue it on their behalf. She has to prove that SHE was SH, not "well other people felt this way too so I must be right."

If there are real complaints and not just actresses sympathizing with her texts, that's huge for her. It gives credibility to her harassment claims being real. It legitimizes her HR meeting and demands for return to production as necessary and not part of a takeover plot. It would demonstrate that 3 women felt harassed so this is more likely to meet a reasonable person standard for what is harassment than just Blake's subjective perception of being uncomfortable. It would be especially helpful if their claims were similar to hers regarding attempts to add nudity, etc. Hostile work environment SH has to do with a pervasive pattern of behavior on set so it would help a lot.

I don’t think she’ll be able to get there. Both Isabel and Brandon are on record praising baldoni as a great director and specifically mentioned how he created a safe space on set. If they flip now, it’ll 100% come off as coercive on Lively’s part and Freedman will bring that out in cross examination. The jury won’t see them as credible if they flip flop to that degree.

It’s been confirmed that there were no complaints made during production. If formal complaints were made months after production wrapped in fall of 2024, noting production wrapped February 9, that’s going to be a huge red flag.

Also, there’s some speculation that one of the women could be Blake sister. I’m sorry, I would not put it past Blake given how dumb she is, but that would make me laugh.

I find it odd that no other women would publicly come forward at this point. Justin Baldoni is not Harvey Weinstein, he is not that powerful. Blake and Ryan are, and it would seem like they would have some clout and some protection behind them especially given Blake and Ryan have shown they are willing to trade favors and fly people to vacations and get people parts.

I don't think it's accurate to say it's been confirmed there were no complaints. Sony said there were no HR complaints filed, but Lively's complaint says she reached out to Sony to register a complaint and they told her that they were not the production studio so could not receive a complaint about production -- that has to go to Wayfarer. But it sounds like (unlike Sony) Wayfarer didn't have a formal HR process for this kind of complaint. It is obvious from both complaints that Baldoni and Heath and perhaps others at Wayfarer were aware that Lively had issues with certain behavior -- there were multiple texts, emails, and meetings about each incident, well before the January 4 meeting.

There is protocol for this, though, and protocol was not followed. If anyone has a complaint about what is happening on the set, they are to go to SAG. That way there is no conflict of interest. Why would you want to go to complain to HR to Justin‘s company about Justin? The SAG route is there to protect everyone.

There was no formal complaints made to sag by anyone it has been confirmed. If there were do you not think Blakely’s team would’ve pointed that out at this point? They said she tried to go to Sony and Sony said they couldn’t handle it but they did not lay out the protocol which is very well known. You don’t exactly have to be a Hollywood insider to know the protocol. The next step is that production is shut down and an investigation is launched. Again to make it to February 2025 and not hear that there was any kind of investigation conducted, means that there wasn’t one.

So nobody followed protocol here. But then all of a sudden in fall of 2024 or later, when the film wrapped on February 9, women came forward with HR complaints? It just doesn’t add up.

I agree formal protocols weren't followed.

I'm just saying it's not accurate to say that Wayfarer had no idea that there were problems on the set. Both Baldoni's complaint and timeline, as well as Lively's complaint, detail numerous times that Wayfarer was alerted to issues with Baldoni's or Heath's behavior, starting before filming began. They knew.

I don't know about the other actress's complaints -- I don't think we know when those were registered exactly. I'll confess I haven't read through the amended complaint fully so maybe that's answered there.

Yes, I think it would have been better for everyone involved if Lively and others had registered complaints with SAG. I wonder if people genuinely hoped to resolve these issues without a formal process. It does seem Wayfarer was receptive to addressing issues even if they grumbled about it amongst themselves. And it doesn't look like Lively intended to sue until she became aware of the retaliation campaign via the Jonesworks texts. The fact that Lively didn't register formal complaints with SAG or Sony actually indicates that this wasn't some long con for her to take over the movie, but that she genuinely didn't intend to sue until she saw the texts. If she'd been planning this all along, she would have used more formal methods for registering her issues with the behavior on set instead of these ad hoc complaints and meetings.

But sexual harassment was never mentioned. The document that Baldoni sign never mentioned sexual harassment. It was unprofessional behavior. He never agreed to admitting harassment and the meeting on January 4 was not about harassment.

So this was literally brand new and to why retaliation makes no sense. Because there was no sexual harassment claims made. What people do not understand is if someone makes a sexual harassment claim on a Hollywood set, SAG gets involved, protocol is followed, and an investigation is launched. None of that happened. So no the sexual harassment claims are in fact new. Claims that she was uncomfortable, not happy with the production, things weren’t going like she wanted, all that was laid out, but no one agreed that sexual harassment had happened.

This is a major issue, and why she’s not actually suing for sexual harassment. She is suing for retaliation. Now, of course, in order for there to be retaliation she is trying to make a case for harassment. But she’s made it very difficult because sexual harassment was not on the table when production wrapped. Claims of sexual harassment were only made after. She is now trying to take her claim that she made of inappropriate behavior and twist that into sexual harassment. And no, I think it is going to be very difficult to prove that.

Sexual harrassment is inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature - and many of these incidents were raised from the beginning. I don't know what you think sexual harrassment is but yes, she clearly put forward that she was experiencing inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature / related to being a womn that was making her workplace an unsafe and offensive place to be. That is what sexual harrassment is.

I don’t know how to make this anymore clear but I’ll give it one more go. If sexual harassment claims had been made, protocols would have had to been followed. There is no exception to this, and neither party is disputing this. Sag would’ve shut down the film and a formal investigation would have been launched.

Again, I can’t make this anymore clearer. She did not actually claim sexual harassment was going on during the filming. I see what you mean, she was clearly She’d been targeted because she was a woman, because she was breast-feeding, whatever. But she never claimed sexual harassment, and Wayfair never agreed that there had been sexual harassment. All of the things that were agreed to were to be more professional and make her feel more comfortable. This is not a great area, it’s fairly black-and-white.

Sexual harassment was only brought up after.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

This is a strange take not really grounded in the law. Actors have a lot of protections on set linked to filming nude and intimate scenes, and that are memorialized in union guidelines and reinforced by industry standards and commitments by studios. So it would actually be *easier* for an actor to show harassment linked to a nude or intimate scene because the industry has so many standards surrounding these scenes and there's an extensive history of this kind of scene being used as a mechanism for harassment.

The reason I cite the birth scene is because it was clearly not scripted as a nude scene. Industry standards are pretty explicit about the need for actors to have advance warning of nudity and for certain precautions to be taken on a set to protect their privacy and agency in those scenes. So if Lively can show she was pressured to do the scene nude or partially nude the day of the shoot, even though the script says nothing about nudity for this scene, this creates a strong presumption of malfeasance. Right off the bat, Baldoni and Wayfarer are deviating from industry standards on an issue that is known to pose a consent/harassment issue. This is a major problem for Wayfarer and goes to the "severity" of the problem -- springing unscripted nudity on an actress right before filming a scene is likely to be considered a severe problem, not a minor one, due to industry guidelines.

And bookending this issue is the fact that according to Baldoni's own timeline, Heath showed Lively the video of his wife the day AFTER the birth scene was filmed. Note Wayfarer does not contend that they planned to reshoot the birth scene. This choice to re-engage on the issue of nudity even after the scene has been filmed speaks to pervasiveness. Had they proposed nudity in the scene, had it rejected but agreed to simulating semi-nudity, and then moved on. Perhaps this would not be enough. But the fact that the scene was filmed and Lively believed the issue to be settled, and then Heath is approaching her (at Baldoni's insistence) to show her a personal video of a nude birth without her express consent? This is very, very problematic for them. She'd already not only registered her objection to nudity in the scene but also expressed her disagreement over nudity in birth generally. So why are Heath and Baldoni persisting in this debate? There is no justifiable work-related reason for showing her that video at that point. It points strongly to harassment.

And that is just the sequence of events around the birth scene. If she can also show other incidents, this strengthens her claim considerably. If on top of that, she can show that other actresses on set experienced boundary-violating behavior from Baldoni and/or Heath? This looks very bad for them, I'm sorry. This is kind of textbook hostile work environment.

She would have a much stronger case if she made a sexual harassment claim during filming. By not doing that she seemingly was OK about all of those other than saying she wanted things changed on set. Even the document that she had him sign, it appears after January 4 with the meeting where Blake blew up at him about fat shaming, everyone moved on. There’s just not a case for sexual harassment here, but that is why they’re not actually suing for sexual harassment. They are suing for retaliation and trying to backtrack into claims that she made turning those into harassment. I think people are greatly underestimating how difficult that is going to be.

There are protocols here for a reason. And if she had made a formal complaint, or any of the other women had made formal complaints, this would be much much easier. But not doing that really weakens their case. We can debate back-and-forth about Justin, his social awkwardness, unprofessionalism on set, and so on, but there is a standard for sexual harassment, and they really really botched any claims to that by not making any complaints at all.

You can really see in the Sony text with Wayfair, they were clearly just trying to please Blake and do what they could to make her more comfortable. Sony saying OK let’s let her have a producer of her choosing on set. OK, we can agree to this OK, we do agree to that. OK we can let her see the dailies. OK we can let her have a crack at editing. But I’m not seen anyone produce text about safety onset, or stemming, sexual harassment, or again SAG would be getting involved.

There’s no doubt that she wanted things changed on that set. Things were not going like she wanted. But that does not mean you can months later claim sexual harassment and retaliation.

I think it’s going to be very easy for Justin to show that he was just trying to protect his reputation from her spearheading having everyone Unfollow him, her putting forth that really awkward premiere, where he was in the basement and separate from the cast, and her not letting anyone do interviews with him. He has a really strong case that he had every right to hire a PR crisis firm.

I don't understand how any of this has anything to do with what I wrote in the previous post. I'm talking about whether their handling of the birth scene could constitute harassment. My point is that based on industry standards and what Baldoni acknowledge himself happened, I do think it could. Regardless of whether Lively ever used the words "sexual harassment" or contacted her union or whatever, the fact pattern here could definitely constitute harassment. That's all I'm saying.

It could just as easily constitute creative differences. I think some of this comes with making a movie that includes intimate scenes. So a director can’t advocate for their vision without being accused of harassment? If there was a power imbalance in Justin’s favor perhaps this would be a bigger concern, but the power imbalance was in Lively’s favor on that set and at no point was she at any real risk of having to do something she didn’t want. She was the a-lister. The highest paid by far. They accommodated everything she asked for.

Again, your comment doesn't seem related to mine. You can't have "creative differences" over whether or not an actor is nude in a scene. It's a contractual issue. Either the scene is scripted as a nude scene and you follow certain protocols for it (including plenty of notice to the actor and efforts to protect their privacy on set, plus having a valid nudity rider in place in advance of filming) or you don't.

It is unclear to me why they woudn't have just scripted the scene as a nude scene and made it clear to Lively well in advance that this is what they were going for. Even rookie directors generally know that you need actors to be on board with any nude and intimate scenes from the start because they don't have to agree to it on set. So it strikes me as sloppy and lazy at a minimum that they would think they could just spring the nudity on her the day of. That's not creative differences, that's mismanagement.

How do you know they sprung nudity on her that day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

Th whole reason nudity riders, closed sets, intimacy coordinators etc came into being was because when there are vulnerabilities like nudity, simulated sex, and physical intimacy in the workplace environment, there needs to be strict controls and oversight to ensure a safe and professional work environment. There are a multitude of stories online from women (and maybe men) who had very negative and even traumatic experiences on set related to the nudity, sex, and intimate scenes. It isn't a free for all. Just because acting in those scenes is part of your job, it doesn't mean boundaries can be crossed, consent doesn't matter, exploitation is fine, or that the director can do whatever they want. It isnt unreasonable to expect those aspects of your job to happen in a professional and safe manner. It should be a very controlled environment to protect people in the workplace from harm. So the fact that a birth scene was part of her acting role doesn't mean she has to be naked on set in front of everyone or else she is unreasonable. There are many stories you can read about how awful actors have felt after sex and romance scenes over the years. You might feel they are all unreasonable but the industry doesn't and has put more parameters in place to create safer work environments.

Isn't part of the issue that she herself didn't meet with the intimacy person?

DP but no, I don't think that's going to play a role in whether or not the birth scene was handled appropriately. The reason why is that the birth scene was not scripted as a nude scene, at any point. So even of Lively declined to meet with the IC to discuss the scripted intimate scenes (the sex scenes, none of which were filmed until after the hiatus) it would not really have any bearing on how this scene was handled. They should have scripted this as a nude scene if that's what they wanted, and given Lively enough time to either consent to that (before the day of shooting) or to negotiate a different approach if that's what she wanted. At that point Lively could also have insisted on the involvement of an IC. But if nudity is only added to the scene right before it's shot, there is no time to get an IC involved, no time to address issues with the nudity rider, etc.

Springing nudity on an actor right before shooting a scene where the script gives no indication whatsoever that the actor will be nude is very poor form, independent of the involvement of an IC.

All the IC stuff falls flat with me after seeing the Nicepool sketch Ryan created based off of Baldoni where Nicepool asks for an IC and is made to look like a stick-in-the-mud, whiny little beeyotch for doing so. That plus Blake blowing off the initial meeting does not tell me these people adhere or care about the strictest levels of professionalism.

Also, we have on film, Blake improvising an unscripted kissing scene with baldoni. She got caught in an interview with someone saying I love how you directed that scene where you were showing Justin how you wanted to be kissed. And she got really nervous and was like where did you see that? I think a fan captured it and put it on Instagram but it’s all over for all of us to see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does it matter (I mean for purposes of Blake's lawsuit, not in general) if Justin SH other women on set? I'm not saying he did, but IF. That would be their claim to pursue or not; Blake can't pursue it on their behalf. She has to prove that SHE was SH, not "well other people felt this way too so I must be right."

If there are real complaints and not just actresses sympathizing with her texts, that's huge for her. It gives credibility to her harassment claims being real. It legitimizes her HR meeting and demands for return to production as necessary and not part of a takeover plot. It would demonstrate that 3 women felt harassed so this is more likely to meet a reasonable person standard for what is harassment than just Blake's subjective perception of being uncomfortable. It would be especially helpful if their claims were similar to hers regarding attempts to add nudity, etc. Hostile work environment SH has to do with a pervasive pattern of behavior on set so it would help a lot.

I don’t think she’ll be able to get there. Both Isabel and Brandon are on record praising baldoni as a great director and specifically mentioned how he created a safe space on set. If they flip now, it’ll 100% come off as coercive on Lively’s part and Freedman will bring that out in cross examination. The jury won’t see them as credible if they flip flop to that degree.

It’s been confirmed that there were no complaints made during production. If formal complaints were made months after production wrapped in fall of 2024, noting production wrapped February 9, that’s going to be a huge red flag.

Also, there’s some speculation that one of the women could be Blake sister. I’m sorry, I would not put it past Blake given how dumb she is, but that would make me laugh.

I find it odd that no other women would publicly come forward at this point. Justin Baldoni is not Harvey Weinstein, he is not that powerful. Blake and Ryan are, and it would seem like they would have some clout and some protection behind them especially given Blake and Ryan have shown they are willing to trade favors and fly people to vacations and get people parts.

I don't think it's accurate to say it's been confirmed there were no complaints. Sony said there were no HR complaints filed, but Lively's complaint says she reached out to Sony to register a complaint and they told her that they were not the production studio so could not receive a complaint about production -- that has to go to Wayfarer. But it sounds like (unlike Sony) Wayfarer didn't have a formal HR process for this kind of complaint. It is obvious from both complaints that Baldoni and Heath and perhaps others at Wayfarer were aware that Lively had issues with certain behavior -- there were multiple texts, emails, and meetings about each incident, well before the January 4 meeting.

There is protocol for this, though, and protocol was not followed. If anyone has a complaint about what is happening on the set, they are to go to SAG. That way there is no conflict of interest. Why would you want to go to complain to HR to Justin‘s company about Justin? The SAG route is there to protect everyone.

There was no formal complaints made to sag by anyone it has been confirmed. If there were do you not think Blakely’s team would’ve pointed that out at this point? They said she tried to go to Sony and Sony said they couldn’t handle it but they did not lay out the protocol which is very well known. You don’t exactly have to be a Hollywood insider to know the protocol. The next step is that production is shut down and an investigation is launched. Again to make it to February 2025 and not hear that there was any kind of investigation conducted, means that there wasn’t one.

So nobody followed protocol here. But then all of a sudden in fall of 2024 or later, when the film wrapped on February 9, women came forward with HR complaints? It just doesn’t add up.

I agree formal protocols weren't followed.

I'm just saying it's not accurate to say that Wayfarer had no idea that there were problems on the set. Both Baldoni's complaint and timeline, as well as Lively's complaint, detail numerous times that Wayfarer was alerted to issues with Baldoni's or Heath's behavior, starting before filming began. They knew.

I don't know about the other actress's complaints -- I don't think we know when those were registered exactly. I'll confess I haven't read through the amended complaint fully so maybe that's answered there.

Yes, I think it would have been better for everyone involved if Lively and others had registered complaints with SAG. I wonder if people genuinely hoped to resolve these issues without a formal process. It does seem Wayfarer was receptive to addressing issues even if they grumbled about it amongst themselves. And it doesn't look like Lively intended to sue until she became aware of the retaliation campaign via the Jonesworks texts. The fact that Lively didn't register formal complaints with SAG or Sony actually indicates that this wasn't some long con for her to take over the movie, but that she genuinely didn't intend to sue until she saw the texts. If she'd been planning this all along, she would have used more formal methods for registering her issues with the behavior on set instead of these ad hoc complaints and meetings.

But sexual harassment was never mentioned. The document that Baldoni sign never mentioned sexual harassment. It was unprofessional behavior. He never agreed to admitting harassment and the meeting on January 4 was not about harassment.

So this was literally brand new and to why retaliation makes no sense. Because there was no sexual harassment claims made. What people do not understand is if someone makes a sexual harassment claim on a Hollywood set, SAG gets involved, protocol is followed, and an investigation is launched. None of that happened. So no the sexual harassment claims are in fact new. Claims that she was uncomfortable, not happy with the production, things weren’t going like she wanted, all that was laid out, but no one agreed that sexual harassment had happened.

This is a major issue, and why she’s not actually suing for sexual harassment. She is suing for retaliation. Now, of course, in order for there to be retaliation she is trying to make a case for harassment. But she’s made it very difficult because sexual harassment was not on the table when production wrapped. Claims of sexual harassment were only made after. She is now trying to take her claim that she made of inappropriate behavior and twist that into sexual harassment. And no, I think it is going to be very difficult to prove that.

Sexual harrassment is inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature - and many of these incidents were raised from the beginning. I don't know what you think sexual harrassment is but yes, she clearly put forward that she was experiencing inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature / related to being a womn that was making her workplace an unsafe and offensive place to be. That is what sexual harrassment is.

I don’t know how to make this anymore clear but I’ll give it one more go. If sexual harassment claims had been made, protocols would have had to been followed. There is no exception to this, and neither party is disputing this. Sag would’ve shut down the film and a formal investigation would have been launched.

Again, I can’t make this anymore clearer. She did not actually claim sexual harassment was going on during the filming. I see what you mean, she was clearly She’d been targeted because she was a woman, because she was breast-feeding, whatever. But she never claimed sexual harassment, and Wayfair never agreed that there had been sexual harassment. All of the things that were agreed to were to be more professional and make her feel more comfortable. This is not a great area, it’s fairly black-and-white.

Sexual harassment was only brought up after.

You don't know what you are talking about. I posted the SAG process directly from their webpage a couple pages back. They do not shut down the film. If you file an official complaint, they send a copy of the complaint to the producer along with the policy and ask the production company to investigate the claim and report back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

This is a strange take not really grounded in the law. Actors have a lot of protections on set linked to filming nude and intimate scenes, and that are memorialized in union guidelines and reinforced by industry standards and commitments by studios. So it would actually be *easier* for an actor to show harassment linked to a nude or intimate scene because the industry has so many standards surrounding these scenes and there's an extensive history of this kind of scene being used as a mechanism for harassment.

The reason I cite the birth scene is because it was clearly not scripted as a nude scene. Industry standards are pretty explicit about the need for actors to have advance warning of nudity and for certain precautions to be taken on a set to protect their privacy and agency in those scenes. So if Lively can show she was pressured to do the scene nude or partially nude the day of the shoot, even though the script says nothing about nudity for this scene, this creates a strong presumption of malfeasance. Right off the bat, Baldoni and Wayfarer are deviating from industry standards on an issue that is known to pose a consent/harassment issue. This is a major problem for Wayfarer and goes to the "severity" of the problem -- springing unscripted nudity on an actress right before filming a scene is likely to be considered a severe problem, not a minor one, due to industry guidelines.

And bookending this issue is the fact that according to Baldoni's own timeline, Heath showed Lively the video of his wife the day AFTER the birth scene was filmed. Note Wayfarer does not contend that they planned to reshoot the birth scene. This choice to re-engage on the issue of nudity even after the scene has been filmed speaks to pervasiveness. Had they proposed nudity in the scene, had it rejected but agreed to simulating semi-nudity, and then moved on. Perhaps this would not be enough. But the fact that the scene was filmed and Lively believed the issue to be settled, and then Heath is approaching her (at Baldoni's insistence) to show her a personal video of a nude birth without her express consent? This is very, very problematic for them. She'd already not only registered her objection to nudity in the scene but also expressed her disagreement over nudity in birth generally. So why are Heath and Baldoni persisting in this debate? There is no justifiable work-related reason for showing her that video at that point. It points strongly to harassment.

And that is just the sequence of events around the birth scene. If she can also show other incidents, this strengthens her claim considerably. If on top of that, she can show that other actresses on set experienced boundary-violating behavior from Baldoni and/or Heath? This looks very bad for them, I'm sorry. This is kind of textbook hostile work environment.

She would have a much stronger case if she made a sexual harassment claim during filming. By not doing that she seemingly was OK about all of those other than saying she wanted things changed on set. Even the document that she had him sign, it appears after January 4 with the meeting where Blake blew up at him about fat shaming, everyone moved on. There’s just not a case for sexual harassment here, but that is why they’re not actually suing for sexual harassment. They are suing for retaliation and trying to backtrack into claims that she made turning those into harassment. I think people are greatly underestimating how difficult that is going to be.

There are protocols here for a reason. And if she had made a formal complaint, or any of the other women had made formal complaints, this would be much much easier. But not doing that really weakens their case. We can debate back-and-forth about Justin, his social awkwardness, unprofessionalism on set, and so on, but there is a standard for sexual harassment, and they really really botched any claims to that by not making any complaints at all.

You can really see in the Sony text with Wayfair, they were clearly just trying to please Blake and do what they could to make her more comfortable. Sony saying OK let’s let her have a producer of her choosing on set. OK, we can agree to this OK, we do agree to that. OK we can let her see the dailies. OK we can let her have a crack at editing. But I’m not seen anyone produce text about safety onset, or stemming, sexual harassment, or again SAG would be getting involved.

There’s no doubt that she wanted things changed on that set. Things were not going like she wanted. But that does not mean you can months later claim sexual harassment and retaliation.

I think it’s going to be very easy for Justin to show that he was just trying to protect his reputation from her spearheading having everyone Unfollow him, her putting forth that really awkward premiere, where he was in the basement and separate from the cast, and her not letting anyone do interviews with him. He has a really strong case that he had every right to hire a PR crisis firm.

I don't understand how any of this has anything to do with what I wrote in the previous post. I'm talking about whether their handling of the birth scene could constitute harassment. My point is that based on industry standards and what Baldoni acknowledge himself happened, I do think it could. Regardless of whether Lively ever used the words "sexual harassment" or contacted her union or whatever, the fact pattern here could definitely constitute harassment. That's all I'm saying.

It could just as easily constitute creative differences. I think some of this comes with making a movie that includes intimate scenes. So a director can’t advocate for their vision without being accused of harassment? If there was a power imbalance in Justin’s favor perhaps this would be a bigger concern, but the power imbalance was in Lively’s favor on that set and at no point was she at any real risk of having to do something she didn’t want. She was the a-lister. The highest paid by far. They accommodated everything she asked for.

Again, your comment doesn't seem related to mine. You can't have "creative differences" over whether or not an actor is nude in a scene. It's a contractual issue. Either the scene is scripted as a nude scene and you follow certain protocols for it (including plenty of notice to the actor and efforts to protect their privacy on set, plus having a valid nudity rider in place in advance of filming) or you don't.

It is unclear to me why they woudn't have just scripted the scene as a nude scene and made it clear to Lively well in advance that this is what they were going for. Even rookie directors generally know that you need actors to be on board with any nude and intimate scenes from the start because they don't have to agree to it on set. So it strikes me as sloppy and lazy at a minimum that they would think they could just spring the nudity on her the day of. That's not creative differences, that's mismanagement.

DP but agree with this. I have noted this before but this is only the third film Baldini was directing and his other films really didn’t involve nudity — they were mostly teen movies without much intimacy. He may not really have known what was required on a film set (and maybe his personal experience as a man on tv sets had different requirements). It *still* blows my mind that he wanted Lively to be topless for a birth scene in a PG-13 movie. That is crazy town. The fact that she had to fight to NOT be topless, and gave in on not having the hospital gown cover her bottom half even though it was all thrown at her that day, suggests to me that Baldoni was very much winging things, not being professional, and causing a lot of unnecessary stress to Lively at minimum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

Th whole reason nudity riders, closed sets, intimacy coordinators etc came into being was because when there are vulnerabilities like nudity, simulated sex, and physical intimacy in the workplace environment, there needs to be strict controls and oversight to ensure a safe and professional work environment. There are a multitude of stories online from women (and maybe men) who had very negative and even traumatic experiences on set related to the nudity, sex, and intimate scenes. It isn't a free for all. Just because acting in those scenes is part of your job, it doesn't mean boundaries can be crossed, consent doesn't matter, exploitation is fine, or that the director can do whatever they want. It isnt unreasonable to expect those aspects of your job to happen in a professional and safe manner. It should be a very controlled environment to protect people in the workplace from harm. So the fact that a birth scene was part of her acting role doesn't mean she has to be naked on set in front of everyone or else she is unreasonable. There are many stories you can read about how awful actors have felt after sex and romance scenes over the years. You might feel they are all unreasonable but the industry doesn't and has put more parameters in place to create safer work environments.

Isn't part of the issue that she herself didn't meet with the intimacy person?

DP but no, I don't think that's going to play a role in whether or not the birth scene was handled appropriately. The reason why is that the birth scene was not scripted as a nude scene, at any point. So even of Lively declined to meet with the IC to discuss the scripted intimate scenes (the sex scenes, none of which were filmed until after the hiatus) it would not really have any bearing on how this scene was handled. They should have scripted this as a nude scene if that's what they wanted, and given Lively enough time to either consent to that (before the day of shooting) or to negotiate a different approach if that's what she wanted. At that point Lively could also have insisted on the involvement of an IC. But if nudity is only added to the scene right before it's shot, there is no time to get an IC involved, no time to address issues with the nudity rider, etc.

Springing nudity on an actor right before shooting a scene where the script gives no indication whatsoever that the actor will be nude is very poor form, independent of the involvement of an IC.

All the IC stuff falls flat with me after seeing the Nicepool sketch Ryan created based off of Baldoni where Nicepool asks for an IC and is made to look like a stick-in-the-mud, whiny little beeyotch for doing so. That plus Blake blowing off the initial meeting does not tell me these people adhere or care about the strictest levels of professionalism.

Agree, there was a clear double standard here. Blake and Ryan were allowed to use sexually themed language, Blake was openly breastfeeding in front of people, Blake initially declined meeting with the IC, unsure if she ever met with one during this film. While Baldoni was on fact the director here, and seemingly as soon as something didn’t go Blake and Ryan’s way they pounced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

Th whole reason nudity riders, closed sets, intimacy coordinators etc came into being was because when there are vulnerabilities like nudity, simulated sex, and physical intimacy in the workplace environment, there needs to be strict controls and oversight to ensure a safe and professional work environment. There are a multitude of stories online from women (and maybe men) who had very negative and even traumatic experiences on set related to the nudity, sex, and intimate scenes. It isn't a free for all. Just because acting in those scenes is part of your job, it doesn't mean boundaries can be crossed, consent doesn't matter, exploitation is fine, or that the director can do whatever they want. It isnt unreasonable to expect those aspects of your job to happen in a professional and safe manner. It should be a very controlled environment to protect people in the workplace from harm. So the fact that a birth scene was part of her acting role doesn't mean she has to be naked on set in front of everyone or else she is unreasonable. There are many stories you can read about how awful actors have felt after sex and romance scenes over the years. You might feel they are all unreasonable but the industry doesn't and has put more parameters in place to create safer work environments.

Isn't part of the issue that she herself didn't meet with the intimacy person?

DP but no, I don't think that's going to play a role in whether or not the birth scene was handled appropriately. The reason why is that the birth scene was not scripted as a nude scene, at any point. So even of Lively declined to meet with the IC to discuss the scripted intimate scenes (the sex scenes, none of which were filmed until after the hiatus) it would not really have any bearing on how this scene was handled. They should have scripted this as a nude scene if that's what they wanted, and given Lively enough time to either consent to that (before the day of shooting) or to negotiate a different approach if that's what she wanted. At that point Lively could also have insisted on the involvement of an IC. But if nudity is only added to the scene right before it's shot, there is no time to get an IC involved, no time to address issues with the nudity rider, etc.

Springing nudity on an actor right before shooting a scene where the script gives no indication whatsoever that the actor will be nude is very poor form, independent of the involvement of an IC.

All the IC stuff falls flat with me after seeing the Nicepool sketch Ryan created based off of Baldoni where Nicepool asks for an IC and is made to look like a stick-in-the-mud, whiny little beeyotch for doing so. That plus Blake blowing off the initial meeting does not tell me these people adhere or care about the strictest levels of professionalism.

Agree, there was a clear double standard here. Blake and Ryan were allowed to use sexually themed language, Blake was openly breastfeeding in front of people, Blake initially declined meeting with the IC, unsure if she ever met with one during this film. While Baldoni was on fact the director here, and seemingly as soon as something didn’t go Blake and Ryan’s way they pounced.

When and where was Blake openly breastfeeding in front of people? I don't recall that in any of the 4 complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

This is a strange take not really grounded in the law. Actors have a lot of protections on set linked to filming nude and intimate scenes, and that are memorialized in union guidelines and reinforced by industry standards and commitments by studios. So it would actually be *easier* for an actor to show harassment linked to a nude or intimate scene because the industry has so many standards surrounding these scenes and there's an extensive history of this kind of scene being used as a mechanism for harassment.

The reason I cite the birth scene is because it was clearly not scripted as a nude scene. Industry standards are pretty explicit about the need for actors to have advance warning of nudity and for certain precautions to be taken on a set to protect their privacy and agency in those scenes. So if Lively can show she was pressured to do the scene nude or partially nude the day of the shoot, even though the script says nothing about nudity for this scene, this creates a strong presumption of malfeasance. Right off the bat, Baldoni and Wayfarer are deviating from industry standards on an issue that is known to pose a consent/harassment issue. This is a major problem for Wayfarer and goes to the "severity" of the problem -- springing unscripted nudity on an actress right before filming a scene is likely to be considered a severe problem, not a minor one, due to industry guidelines.

And bookending this issue is the fact that according to Baldoni's own timeline, Heath showed Lively the video of his wife the day AFTER the birth scene was filmed. Note Wayfarer does not contend that they planned to reshoot the birth scene. This choice to re-engage on the issue of nudity even after the scene has been filmed speaks to pervasiveness. Had they proposed nudity in the scene, had it rejected but agreed to simulating semi-nudity, and then moved on. Perhaps this would not be enough. But the fact that the scene was filmed and Lively believed the issue to be settled, and then Heath is approaching her (at Baldoni's insistence) to show her a personal video of a nude birth without her express consent? This is very, very problematic for them. She'd already not only registered her objection to nudity in the scene but also expressed her disagreement over nudity in birth generally. So why are Heath and Baldoni persisting in this debate? There is no justifiable work-related reason for showing her that video at that point. It points strongly to harassment.

And that is just the sequence of events around the birth scene. If she can also show other incidents, this strengthens her claim considerably. If on top of that, she can show that other actresses on set experienced boundary-violating behavior from Baldoni and/or Heath? This looks very bad for them, I'm sorry. This is kind of textbook hostile work environment.

She would have a much stronger case if she made a sexual harassment claim during filming. By not doing that she seemingly was OK about all of those other than saying she wanted things changed on set. Even the document that she had him sign, it appears after January 4 with the meeting where Blake blew up at him about fat shaming, everyone moved on. There’s just not a case for sexual harassment here, but that is why they’re not actually suing for sexual harassment. They are suing for retaliation and trying to backtrack into claims that she made turning those into harassment. I think people are greatly underestimating how difficult that is going to be.

There are protocols here for a reason. And if she had made a formal complaint, or any of the other women had made formal complaints, this would be much much easier. But not doing that really weakens their case. We can debate back-and-forth about Justin, his social awkwardness, unprofessionalism on set, and so on, but there is a standard for sexual harassment, and they really really botched any claims to that by not making any complaints at all.

You can really see in the Sony text with Wayfair, they were clearly just trying to please Blake and do what they could to make her more comfortable. Sony saying OK let’s let her have a producer of her choosing on set. OK, we can agree to this OK, we do agree to that. OK we can let her see the dailies. OK we can let her have a crack at editing. But I’m not seen anyone produce text about safety onset, or stemming, sexual harassment, or again SAG would be getting involved.

There’s no doubt that she wanted things changed on that set. Things were not going like she wanted. But that does not mean you can months later claim sexual harassment and retaliation.

I think it’s going to be very easy for Justin to show that he was just trying to protect his reputation from her spearheading having everyone Unfollow him, her putting forth that really awkward premiere, where he was in the basement and separate from the cast, and her not letting anyone do interviews with him. He has a really strong case that he had every right to hire a PR crisis firm.

I don't understand how any of this has anything to do with what I wrote in the previous post. I'm talking about whether their handling of the birth scene could constitute harassment. My point is that based on industry standards and what Baldoni acknowledge himself happened, I do think it could. Regardless of whether Lively ever used the words "sexual harassment" or contacted her union or whatever, the fact pattern here could definitely constitute harassment. That's all I'm saying.

It could just as easily constitute creative differences. I think some of this comes with making a movie that includes intimate scenes. So a director can’t advocate for their vision without being accused of harassment? If there was a power imbalance in Justin’s favor perhaps this would be a bigger concern, but the power imbalance was in Lively’s favor on that set and at no point was she at any real risk of having to do something she didn’t want. She was the a-lister. The highest paid by far. They accommodated everything she asked for.

Again, your comment doesn't seem related to mine. You can't have "creative differences" over whether or not an actor is nude in a scene. It's a contractual issue. Either the scene is scripted as a nude scene and you follow certain protocols for it (including plenty of notice to the actor and efforts to protect their privacy on set, plus having a valid nudity rider in place in advance of filming) or you don't.

It is unclear to me why they woudn't have just scripted the scene as a nude scene and made it clear to Lively well in advance that this is what they were going for. Even rookie directors generally know that you need actors to be on board with any nude and intimate scenes from the start because they don't have to agree to it on set. So it strikes me as sloppy and lazy at a minimum that they would think they could just spring the nudity on her the day of. That's not creative differences, that's mismanagement.

DP but agree with this. I have noted this before but this is only the third film Baldini was directing and his other films really didn’t involve nudity — they were mostly teen movies without much intimacy. He may not really have known what was required on a film set (and maybe his personal experience as a man on tv sets had different requirements). It *still* blows my mind that he wanted Lively to be topless for a birth scene in a PG-13 movie. That is crazy town. The fact that she had to fight to NOT be topless, and gave in on not having the hospital gown cover her bottom half even though it was all thrown at her that day, suggests to me that Baldoni was very much winging things, not being professional, and causing a lot of unnecessary stress to Lively at minimum.

As far as I am aware, full nudity involving crotch, is not allowed in PG13 movies. I could be wrong. I would think that JB would be well aware of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does it matter (I mean for purposes of Blake's lawsuit, not in general) if Justin SH other women on set? I'm not saying he did, but IF. That would be their claim to pursue or not; Blake can't pursue it on their behalf. She has to prove that SHE was SH, not "well other people felt this way too so I must be right."

If there are real complaints and not just actresses sympathizing with her texts, that's huge for her. It gives credibility to her harassment claims being real. It legitimizes her HR meeting and demands for return to production as necessary and not part of a takeover plot. It would demonstrate that 3 women felt harassed so this is more likely to meet a reasonable person standard for what is harassment than just Blake's subjective perception of being uncomfortable. It would be especially helpful if their claims were similar to hers regarding attempts to add nudity, etc. Hostile work environment SH has to do with a pervasive pattern of behavior on set so it would help a lot.

I don’t think she’ll be able to get there. Both Isabel and Brandon are on record praising baldoni as a great director and specifically mentioned how he created a safe space on set. If they flip now, it’ll 100% come off as coercive on Lively’s part and Freedman will bring that out in cross examination. The jury won’t see them as credible if they flip flop to that degree.

It’s been confirmed that there were no complaints made during production. If formal complaints were made months after production wrapped in fall of 2024, noting production wrapped February 9, that’s going to be a huge red flag.

Also, there’s some speculation that one of the women could be Blake sister. I’m sorry, I would not put it past Blake given how dumb she is, but that would make me laugh.

I find it odd that no other women would publicly come forward at this point. Justin Baldoni is not Harvey Weinstein, he is not that powerful. Blake and Ryan are, and it would seem like they would have some clout and some protection behind them especially given Blake and Ryan have shown they are willing to trade favors and fly people to vacations and get people parts.

I don't think it's accurate to say it's been confirmed there were no complaints. Sony said there were no HR complaints filed, but Lively's complaint says she reached out to Sony to register a complaint and they told her that they were not the production studio so could not receive a complaint about production -- that has to go to Wayfarer. But it sounds like (unlike Sony) Wayfarer didn't have a formal HR process for this kind of complaint. It is obvious from both complaints that Baldoni and Heath and perhaps others at Wayfarer were aware that Lively had issues with certain behavior -- there were multiple texts, emails, and meetings about each incident, well before the January 4 meeting.

There is protocol for this, though, and protocol was not followed. If anyone has a complaint about what is happening on the set, they are to go to SAG. That way there is no conflict of interest. Why would you want to go to complain to HR to Justin‘s company about Justin? The SAG route is there to protect everyone.

There was no formal complaints made to sag by anyone it has been confirmed. If there were do you not think Blakely’s team would’ve pointed that out at this point? They said she tried to go to Sony and Sony said they couldn’t handle it but they did not lay out the protocol which is very well known. You don’t exactly have to be a Hollywood insider to know the protocol. The next step is that production is shut down and an investigation is launched. Again to make it to February 2025 and not hear that there was any kind of investigation conducted, means that there wasn’t one.

So nobody followed protocol here. But then all of a sudden in fall of 2024 or later, when the film wrapped on February 9, women came forward with HR complaints? It just doesn’t add up.

I agree formal protocols weren't followed.

I'm just saying it's not accurate to say that Wayfarer had no idea that there were problems on the set. Both Baldoni's complaint and timeline, as well as Lively's complaint, detail numerous times that Wayfarer was alerted to issues with Baldoni's or Heath's behavior, starting before filming began. They knew.

I don't know about the other actress's complaints -- I don't think we know when those were registered exactly. I'll confess I haven't read through the amended complaint fully so maybe that's answered there.

Yes, I think it would have been better for everyone involved if Lively and others had registered complaints with SAG. I wonder if people genuinely hoped to resolve these issues without a formal process. It does seem Wayfarer was receptive to addressing issues even if they grumbled about it amongst themselves. And it doesn't look like Lively intended to sue until she became aware of the retaliation campaign via the Jonesworks texts. The fact that Lively didn't register formal complaints with SAG or Sony actually indicates that this wasn't some long con for her to take over the movie, but that she genuinely didn't intend to sue until she saw the texts. If she'd been planning this all along, she would have used more formal methods for registering her issues with the behavior on set instead of these ad hoc complaints and meetings.

But sexual harassment was never mentioned. The document that Baldoni sign never mentioned sexual harassment. It was unprofessional behavior. He never agreed to admitting harassment and the meeting on January 4 was not about harassment.

So this was literally brand new and to why retaliation makes no sense. Because there was no sexual harassment claims made. What people do not understand is if someone makes a sexual harassment claim on a Hollywood set, SAG gets involved, protocol is followed, and an investigation is launched. None of that happened. So no the sexual harassment claims are in fact new. Claims that she was uncomfortable, not happy with the production, things weren’t going like she wanted, all that was laid out, but no one agreed that sexual harassment had happened.

This is a major issue, and why she’s not actually suing for sexual harassment. She is suing for retaliation. Now, of course, in order for there to be retaliation she is trying to make a case for harassment. But she’s made it very difficult because sexual harassment was not on the table when production wrapped. Claims of sexual harassment were only made after. She is now trying to take her claim that she made of inappropriate behavior and twist that into sexual harassment. And no, I think it is going to be very difficult to prove that.

Sexual harrassment is inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature - and many of these incidents were raised from the beginning. I don't know what you think sexual harrassment is but yes, she clearly put forward that she was experiencing inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature / related to being a womn that was making her workplace an unsafe and offensive place to be. That is what sexual harrassment is.

I don’t know how to make this anymore clear but I’ll give it one more go. If sexual harassment claims had been made, protocols would have had to been followed. There is no exception to this, and neither party is disputing this. Sag would’ve shut down the film and a formal investigation would have been launched.

Again, I can’t make this anymore clearer. She did not actually claim sexual harassment was going on during the filming. I see what you mean, she was clearly She’d been targeted because she was a woman, because she was breast-feeding, whatever. But she never claimed sexual harassment, and Wayfair never agreed that there had been sexual harassment. All of the things that were agreed to were to be more professional and make her feel more comfortable. This is not a great area, it’s fairly black-and-white.

Sexual harassment was only brought up after.

DP. Is there caselaw that says you must use the words "sexual harassment" in order to pursue a retaliation claim? It seems unlikely to me. Most discrimination laws include language like "real or perceived" (for example, if you are not gay, but your boss perceives you to be gay, and discriminates against you on that basis, you can see). I think there's enough in Lively's "return to production" points for Baldoni and Wayfarer to have perceived and understood the nature of the claims included SH. Some of the points are not related to SH (COVID protocols and talking to the dead father), but most are issues reasonably understood to be related to SH, such as showing nude videos, talking about sex and genitalia, and physical touching outside the context of scenes.

Laws are written to apply to everyone. If a waitress had complained her manager was grabbing her butt, showing her nudes, and making sexual comments, and then she complained and got fired, I can't believe a court would throw out her case because she didn't use the words "sexual harassment" or that defendants could credibly argue they couldn't have retaliated because they didn't know those were SH complaints.

I'm not arguing that everything in Lively's complaints is valid or that she followed all appropriate protocols, but would really like to see a source that lack of a formal complaint with the words "sexual harassment" is dispositive here.

[Anonymous]

I don’t want to live in world where successful, powerful women are viewed as this fragile. And where they can use this so-called fragility as a weapon.

My husband, a very kind and well-liked nontoxic man, told me last year that he won’t have meetings in his office with just one woman. Is this really us winning? We can only meet men in groups?

I wonder if this is why many women are on his side. Because it just feels so…ridiculous. Blake could wear whatever she wanted in that scene. All she had to do what tell them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

Th whole reason nudity riders, closed sets, intimacy coordinators etc came into being was because when there are vulnerabilities like nudity, simulated sex, and physical intimacy in the workplace environment, there needs to be strict controls and oversight to ensure a safe and professional work environment. There are a multitude of stories online from women (and maybe men) who had very negative and even traumatic experiences on set related to the nudity, sex, and intimate scenes. It isn't a free for all. Just because acting in those scenes is part of your job, it doesn't mean boundaries can be crossed, consent doesn't matter, exploitation is fine, or that the director can do whatever they want. It isnt unreasonable to expect those aspects of your job to happen in a professional and safe manner. It should be a very controlled environment to protect people in the workplace from harm. So the fact that a birth scene was part of her acting role doesn't mean she has to be naked on set in front of everyone or else she is unreasonable. There are many stories you can read about how awful actors have felt after sex and romance scenes over the years. You might feel they are all unreasonable but the industry doesn't and has put more parameters in place to create safer work environments.

Isn't part of the issue that she herself didn't meet with the intimacy person?

DP but no, I don't think that's going to play a role in whether or not the birth scene was handled appropriately. The reason why is that the birth scene was not scripted as a nude scene, at any point. So even of Lively declined to meet with the IC to discuss the scripted intimate scenes (the sex scenes, none of which were filmed until after the hiatus) it would not really have any bearing on how this scene was handled. They should have scripted this as a nude scene if that's what they wanted, and given Lively enough time to either consent to that (before the day of shooting) or to negotiate a different approach if that's what she wanted. At that point Lively could also have insisted on the involvement of an IC. But if nudity is only added to the scene right before it's shot, there is no time to get an IC involved, no time to address issues with the nudity rider, etc.

Springing nudity on an actor right before shooting a scene where the script gives no indication whatsoever that the actor will be nude is very poor form, independent of the involvement of an IC.

All the IC stuff falls flat with me after seeing the Nicepool sketch Ryan created based off of Baldoni where Nicepool asks for an IC and is made to look like a stick-in-the-mud, whiny little beeyotch for doing so. That plus Blake blowing off the initial meeting does not tell me these people adhere or care about the strictest levels of professionalism.

Also, we have on film, Blake improvising an unscripted kissing scene with baldoni. She got caught in an interview with someone saying I love how you directed that scene where you were showing Justin how you wanted to be kissed. And she got really nervous and was like where did you see that? I think a fan captured it and put it on Instagram but it’s all over for all of us to see.

She addresses this issue in her amended complaint, have you read it? The kissing in the scene you’re referencing was expected as it was specifically written in the script. The kissing on the dance floor was not written in the script. Starting to kiss Lively in the dance floor scene turned it into a scene that normally would have required the IC, whereas it would not have been required based on what was just written in the script.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

Th whole reason nudity riders, closed sets, intimacy coordinators etc came into being was because when there are vulnerabilities like nudity, simulated sex, and physical intimacy in the workplace environment, there needs to be strict controls and oversight to ensure a safe and professional work environment. There are a multitude of stories online from women (and maybe men) who had very negative and even traumatic experiences on set related to the nudity, sex, and intimate scenes. It isn't a free for all. Just because acting in those scenes is part of your job, it doesn't mean boundaries can be crossed, consent doesn't matter, exploitation is fine, or that the director can do whatever they want. It isnt unreasonable to expect those aspects of your job to happen in a professional and safe manner. It should be a very controlled environment to protect people in the workplace from harm. So the fact that a birth scene was part of her acting role doesn't mean she has to be naked on set in front of everyone or else she is unreasonable. There are many stories you can read about how awful actors have felt after sex and romance scenes over the years. You might feel they are all unreasonable but the industry doesn't and has put more parameters in place to create safer work environments.

Isn't part of the issue that she herself didn't meet with the intimacy person?

DP but no, I don't think that's going to play a role in whether or not the birth scene was handled appropriately. The reason why is that the birth scene was not scripted as a nude scene, at any point. So even of Lively declined to meet with the IC to discuss the scripted intimate scenes (the sex scenes, none of which were filmed until after the hiatus) it would not really have any bearing on how this scene was handled. They should have scripted this as a nude scene if that's what they wanted, and given Lively enough time to either consent to that (before the day of shooting) or to negotiate a different approach if that's what she wanted. At that point Lively could also have insisted on the involvement of an IC. But if nudity is only added to the scene right before it's shot, there is no time to get an IC involved, no time to address issues with the nudity rider, etc.

Springing nudity on an actor right before shooting a scene where the script gives no indication whatsoever that the actor will be nude is very poor form, independent of the involvement of an IC.

All the IC stuff falls flat with me after seeing the Nicepool sketch Ryan created based off of Baldoni where Nicepool asks for an IC and is made to look like a stick-in-the-mud, whiny little beeyotch for doing so. That plus Blake blowing off the initial meeting does not tell me these people adhere or care about the strictest levels of professionalism.

Agree, there was a clear double standard here. Blake and Ryan were allowed to use sexually themed language, Blake was openly breastfeeding in front of people, Blake initially declined meeting with the IC, unsure if she ever met with one during this film. While Baldoni was on fact the director here, and seemingly as soon as something didn’t go Blake and Ryan’s way they pounced.

When and where was Blake openly breastfeeding in front of people? I don't recall that in any of the 4 complaints.

She invited Justin to come up while she was breastfeeding, to run through their lines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on a read of the EEOC pages on sexual harrassment, I don't think the bar is as high as many think it is. Sexual harrassment can include offensive comments about women in general and can be when verbal or physical harassment (in person or otherwise) of a sexual nature creates a hostile or offensive work environment for someone.

So yes, it can be multiple incidents that lead to someone feeling they are in an offensive work environment.

I have some experience sexual harassment cases and I agree. I think she could get a harassment finding based just on the way the birth scene was handled, if she can show they pressured her to do nudity not in the script, that her requests for a cover were ignored, that the monitors were turned back on while the scene was being shot, and that Heath showed her that video of his wife AFTER the birth scene had been filmed. That sequence of events is actually a pretty strong showing of sexual harassment under the law because it's persistent and unwanted, over two consecutive days. That would have been enough in a lot of the cases I was involved in.

Generally with sexual harassment cases, the issue is in showing harm. Perhaps you can show harassment occurred but if the company can put a stop to it and the victim's career is unimpeded (not fired, not denied promotions, etc.), the payout can be relatively small. This is why retaliation is so often a feature of sexual harassment cases because that's when you get into real harm that can result in meaningful restitution. Usually the retaliation takes the form of someone losing their job, being demoted or denied a promotion they were expected to get, or being "iced out" in a workplace in an effort to get them to quit. You also see retaliation in the form of refusing to give references or spreading rumors about the victim within the industry.

Without retaliation, it can often not be particularly useful to bring an SH claim, especially if there are internal ways of addressing the problem that are satisfactory to the victim. Often EEOC complaints don't go to the litigation phase because once the company is alerted to the seriousness of the matter via an EEOC complaint, they make efforts to remediate and avoid litigation.

It’s actually fairly hard to show sexual harassment - it has to be “severe or pervasive.” A handful of incidents don’t do it. It also cannot be totally subjective or unreasonable, and I think there’s a very strong case to show she was being unreasonable in finding offense doing what her actual job was (acting out romance and childbirth scenes). The whole IC thing is very muddled but it seems like her decision not to meet with the IC at one point also is a strike against her.

Th whole reason nudity riders, closed sets, intimacy coordinators etc came into being was because when there are vulnerabilities like nudity, simulated sex, and physical intimacy in the workplace environment, there needs to be strict controls and oversight to ensure a safe and professional work environment. There are a multitude of stories online from women (and maybe men) who had very negative and even traumatic experiences on set related to the nudity, sex, and intimate scenes. It isn't a free for all. Just because acting in those scenes is part of your job, it doesn't mean boundaries can be crossed, consent doesn't matter, exploitation is fine, or that the director can do whatever they want. It isnt unreasonable to expect those aspects of your job to happen in a professional and safe manner. It should be a very controlled environment to protect people in the workplace from harm. So the fact that a birth scene was part of her acting role doesn't mean she has to be naked on set in front of everyone or else she is unreasonable. There are many stories you can read about how awful actors have felt after sex and romance scenes over the years. You might feel they are all unreasonable but the industry doesn't and has put more parameters in place to create safer work environments.

Isn't part of the issue that she herself didn't meet with the intimacy person?

DP but no, I don't think that's going to play a role in whether or not the birth scene was handled appropriately. The reason why is that the birth scene was not scripted as a nude scene, at any point. So even of Lively declined to meet with the IC to discuss the scripted intimate scenes (the sex scenes, none of which were filmed until after the hiatus) it would not really have any bearing on how this scene was handled. They should have scripted this as a nude scene if that's what they wanted, and given Lively enough time to either consent to that (before the day of shooting) or to negotiate a different approach if that's what she wanted. At that point Lively could also have insisted on the involvement of an IC. But if nudity is only added to the scene right before it's shot, there is no time to get an IC involved, no time to address issues with the nudity rider, etc.

Springing nudity on an actor right before shooting a scene where the script gives no indication whatsoever that the actor will be nude is very poor form, independent of the involvement of an IC.

All the IC stuff falls flat with me after seeing the Nicepool sketch Ryan created based off of Baldoni where Nicepool asks for an IC and is made to look like a stick-in-the-mud, whiny little beeyotch for doing so. That plus Blake blowing off the initial meeting does not tell me these people adhere or care about the strictest levels of professionalism.

Also, we have on film, Blake improvising an unscripted kissing scene with baldoni. She got caught in an interview with someone saying I love how you directed that scene where you were showing Justin how you wanted to be kissed. And she got really nervous and was like where did you see that? I think a fan captured it and put it on Instagram but it’s all over for all of us to see.

The whole thing is beyond fake. Seems like a shakedown extortion scheme from jump street. Almost like it was an M.O. she or they have done before. And they seemed to have had shyster lawyers coaching them on how to do it, how to bait him, and to keep a diary of trumped up crap. And then using celeb friends to intimidate reveals them to be moochers and users. These are not genius masterminds, they’re dimwitted egomaniacs who thought they’d steamroll this man. They weren’t prepared for him to fight back and for millions of random fans on social media to perform deep dive autopsies on their long-term behavior, careers and the legal proceedings. Now they are way, way over their skis and don’t know how to exit. They are so rattled. The SNL stunt was so desperate and eliminated any spec of benefit of the doubt they had left.