Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

I think Blake may have suffered from postpartum depression/psychosis especially so soon after giving birth. Delusions are a symptom of this and can last for years after giving birth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess the reason I don't have the same opinion as others is that I do not think Lively is lying. I think there may be multiple perspectives on what happened, but I don't think she made it up. I think her complaint is an honest accounting if her experience.

I can see how, if you think she's lying, it all seems very unfair -- the Deadpool parody, the cast freezing him out, the lawsuit.

But since I don't think she's lying, none of that seems unfair to me.

That’s basically my view, as well.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is solely hearsay from an anonymous online source who says they know about the set but according to them the Intimacy Coordinators were not hired to be on set until the hiatus (about July). That prior to the hiatus there was an IC who was hired as a consultant, but it was only after all the May / June complaints that they hired 2 ICs to work on the set and I believe they were present going forward once filming resumed.

I'm someone who tends to give Lively the benefit of the doubt more than others, but this could simply be due to the intimate scenes not having been scheduled until the back end of shooting. I'm definitely curious to hear more from the IC(s) though. It will be an important part of the case - did Lively really refuse meetings other than the initial one, did the IC really suggest added intimacy that Baldoni went along with, are Baldoni's handwritten notes accurate, what really happened with Ferrer, etc.

Well, we know she refused the initial meeting because we have those texts. And at this point she has not refuted them so I see no reason why we wouldn’t believe them.

Right, but I want to know if she refused other meetings. The first meeting came off as a casual meet and greet, like do you want to stop in and say hi? And she said nah. That's fine. If she refused to participate in other substantive meetings to coordinate the intimacy, and then complains about lack of an intimacy coordinator, then that hurts her case.

I have no idea about subsequent meetings but with regards to the IC I don't think it's a great look that Ryan skewered Baldoni in his depiction of Nicepool. He depicts Nicepool as a guy insisting on a whole bunch of things on set including demanding an IC (very Hollywood insider talk for a mainstream film) with the obvious implication that wanting an IC or other demands of a professional set makes you a whiny, beta loser.

Then he posted the quote below to Sandra Bullock. He was so obsessed with dragging Justin “covertly” on social media. Say what you want about Blake and Ryan, but they are def hypocrites. At no point did they act like professionals. But they expected it.

“For your birthday this year, I got us both intimacy coordinators. And an HR department. And clothing?'”

RR is the absolute worst.

I also joke with friends about terrible stuff that is going down while it is happening. Many people do but I understand your need to turn this into a major character flaw. If he is abusing or controlling that’s another issue, and maybe the yelling at Baldoni was Not Great. I don’t think his dark sense of humor (which made him millions on Deadpool and while millions of Americans find funny) should be on trial here, but if it is I don’t find that comment objectionable.

It’s pretty bad that he mocked baldoni in Deadpool and killed the satirical character in front of a flower shop less than two weeks before the iewu premiere. It was highly suggestive, especially since BL and RR were promoting the movie together. They knew what they were doing. I guess that’s not defamation, that’s “art”.

I watched a youtube video of all the Nicepool scenes strung together. It’s just really really mean and violent, and I cant find any humor in it, knowing it’s mocking a real person. Nobody would be okay if this was done to Blake.

I think a ton of people would be okay with it if it was done to Blake. People were pretty thrilled at the idea that SNL was making jokes at her expense. I don't even like Blake Lively but a lot of the commentary about her online is and has been extremely mean spirited (just look at the conversations in this thread about her appearance, for instance), so I imagine there would be a very enthusiastic audience for that exact kind of satire about her. She's certainly very far from untouchable or off limits in terms of criticism.

Like just as an example, I googled "Blake Lively parody" and immediately found this TikTok video of a man making fun of Lively's costumes and acting in IEWU. It's not flattering! And there is much, much more of this online.

https://www.tiktok.com/@michaelpavano/video/7462163111517179166?lang=en

Justin didnt make those videos?? Lady Pool (blake) violently blew nicepool’s head off in a hugely popular movie created by her husband. For a better comparison (but not really), you’re going to have to look at the treatment Parker and Stone gave to Saddam Hussein in south park the movie.

I know it’s protected. But it is still really cruel, even if 100% of her allegations were true. And we already know they aren’t.

+1 I also think what people are missing is that this is one of many actions that BL and RR took that actually brought bad press on themselves, so it's hard to turn around and blame Justin for their bad press. Between deadpool, everyone unfollowing him and icing him out at the premiere, it led to lots of rumors. There's a really good YouTube video that talks about Colleen and how she had for 5 years made her audience fall in love with Justin through her Facebook group since they announced their collab way back in 2019. When Blake was cast (long before filming and any SA claims) Colleen's own fans had a mixed view of Blake but a very strong positive view of Justin. They felt Blake was too old, was a one dimensional actor and a mean girl (again nothing to do with Justin). So fast forward to 2024 and Colleen and others unfollow him, he's mocked on deadpool and separated at the premiere and Colleen's own fans started asking what happened and saying they felt really sad for Justin. These are real people, not bots. This was Blake's own doing. If she ultimately can't prove astroturfing, she's going to look crazy.

I only half agree. I think it's perfectly valid to criticize stuff like Lively's own behavior in interviews. But I get tired of hearing about how it's her fault that people were mad about how she looked in the movie. They chose to cast her! If fans were upset that she was older than the character in the book, their issue is with Baldoni and Wayfarer for choosing to age the characters up for the movie, something Hoover approved of. I mean Baldoni is like 13-14 years older than the book character he plays and no one seems mad about that?

There are enough reasons to criticize Lively without trying to argue that it's her fault she's the age that she is or criticizing her body or saying she doesn't look the way fans of the book thought the character should look. I'm sorry but that's not Lively's fault. Honestly, even her acting isn't really her fault -- she is what she is. Again, she didn't cast herself in the movie, that choice was made by other people.

But whether Baldoni's PR people astroturfed against her or not is a separate question. I actually think it's possible to dislike Lively, think she has done herself no favors in terms of her public image, and still think that Baldoni/Wayfarer retaliated against her when they hired TAG and Jed Wallace to go after her. That's currently mostly where I land, despite never having been a fan of Lively's and even participating in the online pile on against her last summer.

Do you think they retaliated because she filed a sexual harassment claim, though? At what point does a person start taking accountability for their own role in a crappy situation of their own making. At some point it was like they were purposely provoking him. When does the statute of limitations (using this term in a nonlegal manner) of a highly dubious SH claim end.

The thing is that their texts and marketing plans had statements discussing destroying her credibility and making her unlikable if her concerns came to life. Like that's pretty horrible, just in general, if you think of someone saying that about an actual harassment victim. That would be retaliation. And Nathan and Abel don't know what happened on set (in fact they seem to dislike him too!) yet they are participating. It's so gross. Baldoni himself probably doesn't think he committed SH because he thinks he's a feminist and everything he did was great.

So it's just an interesting legal case. If someone makes SH-type complaints to the distributor (maybe not formal ones, but the conditions for return to production clearly put them on notice of the nature of the complaint), but you think they are lying or exaggerating the claims (and I am open to the idea Lively is doing so), and you can hire crisis PR in case she decides to come forward... is that retaliation? To the extent he focuses on DV "survivor content" (even debating posting private DMs from fans, which Nathan and Abel talked him out of) and boosting his own image, that's not unlawful, but it's the part where they are trying to destroy Lively's credibility preemptively because she may raise SH concerns about the set. Is that relaliation? It certainly seems like a decent argument that it is, just based on the texts we've seen, and enough to get to a jury. And then whatever they are able to get in discovery, especially from Wallace... it's going to be interesting.

It’s not retaliation because BL lied. She was not SH. Therefore he wasn’t retaliating. He was protecting himself and his family from her lies. It’s a simple case.

But her lying (and I do think, basically, she lied about the dancing scene) is more like different interpretations... I agree his interpretation and not hers, but OTOH of course he thinks she lied, many men accused of SH will say that or downplay that they were just joking or their comments were misinterpreted. It's not a great defense on the retaliation claim. I guess that's why he works to build the extortion narrative, giving him a different reason for attacking her.

I hate the idea that women would have this huge burden to prove sexual harassment. At the same time, I hate the idea that someone could lie so much and get away with it. From what I can gather, Blake is a person who easily lies. There’s one video where she gives on interview and says she’s embarrassed to admit she had no idea who Colleen Hoover was when she signed onto the project. Cut to an interview of Blake telling Colleen that what drew her to the project was Colleen’s name and her books. There’s one where she’s laughing about how she tells everyone she’s a great cook when she’s not because nobody can prove her wrong. She also laughs about how she messed up a batch of cookies and then posted on Instagram that Ryan made them. She said women don’t have pregnancy cravings—they just lie to get what they want. She lied about who wrote the rooftop scene, and she lied about how much it was rewritten. She lied about the dancing scene (and had the gall in her list of 30 complaints to say “no more talking to Blake out of character during scenes” when she had demanded it of him). She clearly lied about the fat shaming. In her amended complaint, she removed the contention that she had to beg for coverage between takes during the birthing scene—why? Was it BS too?

There’s just a point where you have to question her motives here. She benefitted a great deal from making those claims.

Many, if not most, film actors are simply BS artists. Some are more believable than others. If you watch them closely enough, they all lie. Everything they do is based on the image they want to project, but it’s almost all false. They contradict themselves. Many seem to lack a strong sense of self and a strong moral compass and values. I find this to be true with even the most famous celebrities. Many seem so developmentally stunted.

Wouldn't that also be true of Baldoni then, too? Wouldn't everything he says about what happened then also be suspect? In fact even in his own filings he provides texts and emails that show how dishonest he was, telling Lively one thing and his production partners something else over and over again. And he never goes to his partners and says "look, I'm in a bind, I can't tell her this stuff because I have to maintain chemistry with her in order to play these roles together" which was the truth. And Lively *does* call out this dynamic in her texts with others, explaining that she did not like Baldoni but that she had to maintain a positive relationship with him for the role.

I see more self-awareness and honesty in her texts and communications than I see in his. He's clearly a people pleaser who likes to tell people what he thinks they want to hear even if it's a total lie. This is a very concerning quality, especially in someone in a leadership role. It also indicates to me that he may lack the ability to recognize his own flaws or mitigate them. And here, too, I see more self-awareness in Lively's texts and emails, where she is admitting she can be pushy and calling it out and asking him to let her know if she's overstepping, or make jokes at her own expense. Baldoni rarely if ever does this. He is often apologizing but all his apologies come with a laundry list of excuses for why actually whatever it is he did was actually well meaning and defensible.

I've read all the pleadings and I can't say I really like any of these people but the impression I get is that Lively is much more honest and straightforward and Baldoni is not. And actually I think it's her honesty that gets her in trouble -- I think part of her job is to put up a front and lie about stuff in the press, and she's not that good at it and often just says what she actually thinks, and because she has a strong personality and is kind of judgmental and sarcastic, this comes off very poorly -- people want their celebs humble and kind at all times. But I think she struggles to hide her true self.

Whereas I don't even know if Baldoni has a true self. He is so fake and can't seem to admit it, even to himself.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is solely hearsay from an anonymous online source who says they know about the set but according to them the Intimacy Coordinators were not hired to be on set until the hiatus (about July). That prior to the hiatus there was an IC who was hired as a consultant, but it was only after all the May / June complaints that they hired 2 ICs to work on the set and I believe they were present going forward once filming resumed.

I'm someone who tends to give Lively the benefit of the doubt more than others, but this could simply be due to the intimate scenes not having been scheduled until the back end of shooting. I'm definitely curious to hear more from the IC(s) though. It will be an important part of the case - did Lively really refuse meetings other than the initial one, did the IC really suggest added intimacy that Baldoni went along with, are Baldoni's handwritten notes accurate, what really happened with Ferrer, etc.

Well, we know she refused the initial meeting because we have those texts. And at this point she has not refuted them so I see no reason why we wouldn’t believe them.

Right, but I want to know if she refused other meetings. The first meeting came off as a casual meet and greet, like do you want to stop in and say hi? And she said nah. That's fine. If she refused to participate in other substantive meetings to coordinate the intimacy, and then complains about lack of an intimacy coordinator, then that hurts her case.

I have no idea about subsequent meetings but with regards to the IC I don't think it's a great look that Ryan skewered Baldoni in his depiction of Nicepool. He depicts Nicepool as a guy insisting on a whole bunch of things on set including demanding an IC (very Hollywood insider talk for a mainstream film) with the obvious implication that wanting an IC or other demands of a professional set makes you a whiny, beta loser.

Then he posted the quote below to Sandra Bullock. He was so obsessed with dragging Justin “covertly” on social media. Say what you want about Blake and Ryan, but they are def hypocrites. At no point did they act like professionals. But they expected it.

“For your birthday this year, I got us both intimacy coordinators. And an HR department. And clothing?'”

RR is the absolute worst.

I also joke with friends about terrible stuff that is going down while it is happening. Many people do but I understand your need to turn this into a major character flaw. If he is abusing or controlling that’s another issue, and maybe the yelling at Baldoni was Not Great. I don’t think his dark sense of humor (which made him millions on Deadpool and while millions of Americans find funny) should be on trial here, but if it is I don’t find that comment objectionable.

It’s pretty bad that he mocked baldoni in Deadpool and killed the satirical character in front of a flower shop less than two weeks before the iewu premiere. It was highly suggestive, especially since BL and RR were promoting the movie together. They knew what they were doing. I guess that’s not defamation, that’s “art”.

I watched a youtube video of all the Nicepool scenes strung together. It’s just really really mean and violent, and I cant find any humor in it, knowing it’s mocking a real person. Nobody would be okay if this was done to Blake.

I think a ton of people would be okay with it if it was done to Blake. People were pretty thrilled at the idea that SNL was making jokes at her expense. I don't even like Blake Lively but a lot of the commentary about her online is and has been extremely mean spirited (just look at the conversations in this thread about her appearance, for instance), so I imagine there would be a very enthusiastic audience for that exact kind of satire about her. She's certainly very far from untouchable or off limits in terms of criticism.

Like just as an example, I googled "Blake Lively parody" and immediately found this TikTok video of a man making fun of Lively's costumes and acting in IEWU. It's not flattering! And there is much, much more of this online.

https://www.tiktok.com/@michaelpavano/video/7462163111517179166?lang=en

Justin didnt make those videos?? Lady Pool (blake) violently blew nicepool’s head off in a hugely popular movie created by her husband. For a better comparison (but not really), you’re going to have to look at the treatment Parker and Stone gave to Saddam Hussein in south park the movie.

I know it’s protected. But it is still really cruel, even if 100% of her allegations were true. And we already know they aren’t.

+1 I also think what people are missing is that this is one of many actions that BL and RR took that actually brought bad press on themselves, so it's hard to turn around and blame Justin for their bad press. Between deadpool, everyone unfollowing him and icing him out at the premiere, it led to lots of rumors. There's a really good YouTube video that talks about Colleen and how she had for 5 years made her audience fall in love with Justin through her Facebook group since they announced their collab way back in 2019. When Blake was cast (long before filming and any SA claims) Colleen's own fans had a mixed view of Blake but a very strong positive view of Justin. They felt Blake was too old, was a one dimensional actor and a mean girl (again nothing to do with Justin). So fast forward to 2024 and Colleen and others unfollow him, he's mocked on deadpool and separated at the premiere and Colleen's own fans started asking what happened and saying they felt really sad for Justin. These are real people, not bots. This was Blake's own doing. If she ultimately can't prove astroturfing, she's going to look crazy.

I only half agree. I think it's perfectly valid to criticize stuff like Lively's own behavior in interviews. But I get tired of hearing about how it's her fault that people were mad about how she looked in the movie. They chose to cast her! If fans were upset that she was older than the character in the book, their issue is with Baldoni and Wayfarer for choosing to age the characters up for the movie, something Hoover approved of. I mean Baldoni is like 13-14 years older than the book character he plays and no one seems mad about that?

There are enough reasons to criticize Lively without trying to argue that it's her fault she's the age that she is or criticizing her body or saying she doesn't look the way fans of the book thought the character should look. I'm sorry but that's not Lively's fault. Honestly, even her acting isn't really her fault -- she is what she is. Again, she didn't cast herself in the movie, that choice was made by other people.

But whether Baldoni's PR people astroturfed against her or not is a separate question. I actually think it's possible to dislike Lively, think she has done herself no favors in terms of her public image, and still think that Baldoni/Wayfarer retaliated against her when they hired TAG and Jed Wallace to go after her. That's currently mostly where I land, despite never having been a fan of Lively's and even participating in the online pile on against her last summer.

Do you think they retaliated because she filed a sexual harassment claim, though? At what point does a person start taking accountability for their own role in a crappy situation of their own making. At some point it was like they were purposely provoking him. When does the statute of limitations (using this term in a nonlegal manner) of a highly dubious SH claim end.

The thing is that their texts and marketing plans had statements discussing destroying her credibility and making her unlikable if her concerns came to life. Like that's pretty horrible, just in general, if you think of someone saying that about an actual harassment victim. That would be retaliation. And Nathan and Abel don't know what happened on set (in fact they seem to dislike him too!) yet they are participating. It's so gross. Baldoni himself probably doesn't think he committed SH because he thinks he's a feminist and everything he did was great.

So it's just an interesting legal case. If someone makes SH-type complaints to the distributor (maybe not formal ones, but the conditions for return to production clearly put them on notice of the nature of the complaint), but you think they are lying or exaggerating the claims (and I am open to the idea Lively is doing so), and you can hire crisis PR in case she decides to come forward... is that retaliation? To the extent he focuses on DV "survivor content" (even debating posting private DMs from fans, which Nathan and Abel talked him out of) and boosting his own image, that's not unlawful, but it's the part where they are trying to destroy Lively's credibility preemptively because she may raise SH concerns about the set. Is that relaliation? It certainly seems like a decent argument that it is, just based on the texts we've seen, and enough to get to a jury. And then whatever they are able to get in discovery, especially from Wallace... it's going to be interesting.

It’s not retaliation because BL lied. She was not SH. Therefore he wasn’t retaliating. He was protecting himself and his family from her lies. It’s a simple case.

But her lying (and I do think, basically, she lied about the dancing scene) is more like different interpretations... I agree his interpretation and not hers, but OTOH of course he thinks she lied, many men accused of SH will say that or downplay that they were just joking or their comments were misinterpreted. It's not a great defense on the retaliation claim. I guess that's why he works to build the extortion narrative, giving him a different reason for attacking her.

I hate the idea that women would have this huge burden to prove sexual harassment. At the same time, I hate the idea that someone could lie so much and get away with it. From what I can gather, Blake is a person who easily lies. There’s one video where she gives on interview and says she’s embarrassed to admit she had no idea who Colleen Hoover was when she signed onto the project. Cut to an interview of Blake telling Colleen that what drew her to the project was Colleen’s name and her books. There’s one where she’s laughing about how she tells everyone she’s a great cook when she’s not because nobody can prove her wrong. She also laughs about how she messed up a batch of cookies and then posted on Instagram that Ryan made them. She said women don’t have pregnancy cravings—they just lie to get what they want. She lied about who wrote the rooftop scene, and she lied about how much it was rewritten. She lied about the dancing scene (and had the gall in her list of 30 complaints to say “no more talking to Blake out of character during scenes” when she had demanded it of him). She clearly lied about the fat shaming. In her amended complaint, she removed the contention that she had to beg for coverage between takes during the birthing scene—why? Was it BS too?

There’s just a point where you have to question her motives here. She benefitted a great deal from making those claims.

Many, if not most, film actors are simply BS artists. Some are more believable than others. If you watch them closely enough, they all lie. Everything they do is based on the image they want to project, but it’s almost all false. They contradict themselves. Many seem to lack a strong sense of self and a strong moral compass and values. I find this to be true with even the most famous celebrities. Many seem so developmentally stunted.

Wouldn't that also be true of Baldoni then, too? Wouldn't everything he says about what happened then also be suspect? In fact even in his own filings he provides texts and emails that show how dishonest he was, telling Lively one thing and his production partners something else over and over again. And he never goes to his partners and says "look, I'm in a bind, I can't tell her this stuff because I have to maintain chemistry with her in order to play these roles together" which was the truth. And Lively *does* call out this dynamic in her texts with others, explaining that she did not like Baldoni but that she had to maintain a positive relationship with him for the role.

I see more self-awareness and honesty in her texts and communications than I see in his. He's clearly a people pleaser who likes to tell people what he thinks they want to hear even if it's a total lie. This is a very concerning quality, especially in someone in a leadership role. It also indicates to me that he may lack the ability to recognize his own flaws or mitigate them. And here, too, I see more self-awareness in Lively's texts and emails, where she is admitting she can be pushy and calling it out and asking him to let her know if she's overstepping, or make jokes at her own expense. Baldoni rarely if ever does this. He is often apologizing but all his apologies come with a laundry list of excuses for why actually whatever it is he did was actually well meaning and defensible.

I've read all the pleadings and I can't say I really like any of these people but the impression I get is that Lively is much more honest and straightforward and Baldoni is not. And actually I think it's her honesty that gets her in trouble -- I think part of her job is to put up a front and lie about stuff in the press, and she's not that good at it and often just says what she actually thinks, and because she has a strong personality and is kind of judgmental and sarcastic, this comes off very poorly -- people want their celebs humble and kind at all times. But I think she struggles to hide her true self.

Whereas I don't even know if Baldoni has a true self. He is so fake and can't seem to admit it, even to himself.

Agree with what you’re saying that at least Lively offered others a way out if she was overstepping, whereas Baldoni said one thing but meant another. I have known fake guys like this and they seem nice but sometimes underneath there hides a real creep.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is solely hearsay from an anonymous online source who says they know about the set but according to them the Intimacy Coordinators were not hired to be on set until the hiatus (about July). That prior to the hiatus there was an IC who was hired as a consultant, but it was only after all the May / June complaints that they hired 2 ICs to work on the set and I believe they were present going forward once filming resumed.

I'm someone who tends to give Lively the benefit of the doubt more than others, but this could simply be due to the intimate scenes not having been scheduled until the back end of shooting. I'm definitely curious to hear more from the IC(s) though. It will be an important part of the case - did Lively really refuse meetings other than the initial one, did the IC really suggest added intimacy that Baldoni went along with, are Baldoni's handwritten notes accurate, what really happened with Ferrer, etc.

Well, we know she refused the initial meeting because we have those texts. And at this point she has not refuted them so I see no reason why we wouldn’t believe them.

Right, but I want to know if she refused other meetings. The first meeting came off as a casual meet and greet, like do you want to stop in and say hi? And she said nah. That's fine. If she refused to participate in other substantive meetings to coordinate the intimacy, and then complains about lack of an intimacy coordinator, then that hurts her case.

I have no idea about subsequent meetings but with regards to the IC I don't think it's a great look that Ryan skewered Baldoni in his depiction of Nicepool. He depicts Nicepool as a guy insisting on a whole bunch of things on set including demanding an IC (very Hollywood insider talk for a mainstream film) with the obvious implication that wanting an IC or other demands of a professional set makes you a whiny, beta loser.

Then he posted the quote below to Sandra Bullock. He was so obsessed with dragging Justin “covertly” on social media. Say what you want about Blake and Ryan, but they are def hypocrites. At no point did they act like professionals. But they expected it.

“For your birthday this year, I got us both intimacy coordinators. And an HR department. And clothing?'”

RR is the absolute worst.

I also joke with friends about terrible stuff that is going down while it is happening. Many people do but I understand your need to turn this into a major character flaw. If he is abusing or controlling that’s another issue, and maybe the yelling at Baldoni was Not Great. I don’t think his dark sense of humor (which made him millions on Deadpool and while millions of Americans find funny) should be on trial here, but if it is I don’t find that comment objectionable.

It’s pretty bad that he mocked baldoni in Deadpool and killed the satirical character in front of a flower shop less than two weeks before the iewu premiere. It was highly suggestive, especially since BL and RR were promoting the movie together. They knew what they were doing. I guess that’s not defamation, that’s “art”.

I watched a youtube video of all the Nicepool scenes strung together. It’s just really really mean and violent, and I cant find any humor in it, knowing it’s mocking a real person. Nobody would be okay if this was done to Blake.

I think a ton of people would be okay with it if it was done to Blake. People were pretty thrilled at the idea that SNL was making jokes at her expense. I don't even like Blake Lively but a lot of the commentary about her online is and has been extremely mean spirited (just look at the conversations in this thread about her appearance, for instance), so I imagine there would be a very enthusiastic audience for that exact kind of satire about her. She's certainly very far from untouchable or off limits in terms of criticism.

Like just as an example, I googled "Blake Lively parody" and immediately found this TikTok video of a man making fun of Lively's costumes and acting in IEWU. It's not flattering! And there is much, much more of this online.

https://www.tiktok.com/@michaelpavano/video/7462163111517179166?lang=en

Justin didnt make those videos?? Lady Pool (blake) violently blew nicepool’s head off in a hugely popular movie created by her husband. For a better comparison (but not really), you’re going to have to look at the treatment Parker and Stone gave to Saddam Hussein in south park the movie.

I know it’s protected. But it is still really cruel, even if 100% of her allegations were true. And we already know they aren’t.

+1 I also think what people are missing is that this is one of many actions that BL and RR took that actually brought bad press on themselves, so it's hard to turn around and blame Justin for their bad press. Between deadpool, everyone unfollowing him and icing him out at the premiere, it led to lots of rumors. There's a really good YouTube video that talks about Colleen and how she had for 5 years made her audience fall in love with Justin through her Facebook group since they announced their collab way back in 2019. When Blake was cast (long before filming and any SA claims) Colleen's own fans had a mixed view of Blake but a very strong positive view of Justin. They felt Blake was too old, was a one dimensional actor and a mean girl (again nothing to do with Justin). So fast forward to 2024 and Colleen and others unfollow him, he's mocked on deadpool and separated at the premiere and Colleen's own fans started asking what happened and saying they felt really sad for Justin. These are real people, not bots. This was Blake's own doing. If she ultimately can't prove astroturfing, she's going to look crazy.

I only half agree. I think it's perfectly valid to criticize stuff like Lively's own behavior in interviews. But I get tired of hearing about how it's her fault that people were mad about how she looked in the movie. They chose to cast her! If fans were upset that she was older than the character in the book, their issue is with Baldoni and Wayfarer for choosing to age the characters up for the movie, something Hoover approved of. I mean Baldoni is like 13-14 years older than the book character he plays and no one seems mad about that?

There are enough reasons to criticize Lively without trying to argue that it's her fault she's the age that she is or criticizing her body or saying she doesn't look the way fans of the book thought the character should look. I'm sorry but that's not Lively's fault. Honestly, even her acting isn't really her fault -- she is what she is. Again, she didn't cast herself in the movie, that choice was made by other people.

But whether Baldoni's PR people astroturfed against her or not is a separate question. I actually think it's possible to dislike Lively, think she has done herself no favors in terms of her public image, and still think that Baldoni/Wayfarer retaliated against her when they hired TAG and Jed Wallace to go after her. That's currently mostly where I land, despite never having been a fan of Lively's and even participating in the online pile on against her last summer.

Do you think they retaliated because she filed a sexual harassment claim, though? At what point does a person start taking accountability for their own role in a crappy situation of their own making. At some point it was like they were purposely provoking him. When does the statute of limitations (using this term in a nonlegal manner) of a highly dubious SH claim end.

The thing is that their texts and marketing plans had statements discussing destroying her credibility and making her unlikable if her concerns came to life. Like that's pretty horrible, just in general, if you think of someone saying that about an actual harassment victim. That would be retaliation. And Nathan and Abel don't know what happened on set (in fact they seem to dislike him too!) yet they are participating. It's so gross. Baldoni himself probably doesn't think he committed SH because he thinks he's a feminist and everything he did was great.

So it's just an interesting legal case. If someone makes SH-type complaints to the distributor (maybe not formal ones, but the conditions for return to production clearly put them on notice of the nature of the complaint), but you think they are lying or exaggerating the claims (and I am open to the idea Lively is doing so), and you can hire crisis PR in case she decides to come forward... is that retaliation? To the extent he focuses on DV "survivor content" (even debating posting private DMs from fans, which Nathan and Abel talked him out of) and boosting his own image, that's not unlawful, but it's the part where they are trying to destroy Lively's credibility preemptively because she may raise SH concerns about the set. Is that relaliation? It certainly seems like a decent argument that it is, just based on the texts we've seen, and enough to get to a jury. And then whatever they are able to get in discovery, especially from Wallace... it's going to be interesting.

It’s not retaliation because BL lied. She was not SH. Therefore he wasn’t retaliating. He was protecting himself and his family from her lies. It’s a simple case.

But her lying (and I do think, basically, she lied about the dancing scene) is more like different interpretations... I agree his interpretation and not hers, but OTOH of course he thinks she lied, many men accused of SH will say that or downplay that they were just joking or their comments were misinterpreted. It's not a great defense on the retaliation claim. I guess that's why he works to build the extortion narrative, giving him a different reason for attacking her.

I hate the idea that women would have this huge burden to prove sexual harassment. At the same time, I hate the idea that someone could lie so much and get away with it. From what I can gather, Blake is a person who easily lies. There’s one video where she gives on interview and says she’s embarrassed to admit she had no idea who Colleen Hoover was when she signed onto the project. Cut to an interview of Blake telling Colleen that what drew her to the project was Colleen’s name and her books. There’s one where she’s laughing about how she tells everyone she’s a great cook when she’s not because nobody can prove her wrong. She also laughs about how she messed up a batch of cookies and then posted on Instagram that Ryan made them. She said women don’t have pregnancy cravings—they just lie to get what they want. She lied about who wrote the rooftop scene, and she lied about how much it was rewritten. She lied about the dancing scene (and had the gall in her list of 30 complaints to say “no more talking to Blake out of character during scenes” when she had demanded it of him). She clearly lied about the fat shaming. In her amended complaint, she removed the contention that she had to beg for coverage between takes during the birthing scene—why? Was it BS too?

There’s just a point where you have to question her motives here. She benefitted a great deal from making those claims.

Many, if not most, film actors are simply BS artists. Some are more believable than others. If you watch them closely enough, they all lie. Everything they do is based on the image they want to project, but it’s almost all false. They contradict themselves. Many seem to lack a strong sense of self and a strong moral compass and values. I find this to be true with even the most famous celebrities. Many seem so developmentally stunted.

Wouldn't that also be true of Baldoni then, too? Wouldn't everything he says about what happened then also be suspect? In fact even in his own filings he provides texts and emails that show how dishonest he was, telling Lively one thing and his production partners something else over and over again. And he never goes to his partners and says "look, I'm in a bind, I can't tell her this stuff because I have to maintain chemistry with her in order to play these roles together" which was the truth. And Lively *does* call out this dynamic in her texts with others, explaining that she did not like Baldoni but that she had to maintain a positive relationship with him for the role.

I see more self-awareness and honesty in her texts and communications than I see in his. He's clearly a people pleaser who likes to tell people what he thinks they want to hear even if it's a total lie. This is a very concerning quality, especially in someone in a leadership role. It also indicates to me that he may lack the ability to recognize his own flaws or mitigate them. And here, too, I see more self-awareness in Lively's texts and emails, where she is admitting she can be pushy and calling it out and asking him to let her know if she's overstepping, or make jokes at her own expense. Baldoni rarely if ever does this. He is often apologizing but all his apologies come with a laundry list of excuses for why actually whatever it is he did was actually well meaning and defensible.

I've read all the pleadings and I can't say I really like any of these people but the impression I get is that Lively is much more honest and straightforward and Baldoni is not. And actually I think it's her honesty that gets her in trouble -- I think part of her job is to put up a front and lie about stuff in the press, and she's not that good at it and often just says what she actually thinks, and because she has a strong personality and is kind of judgmental and sarcastic, this comes off very poorly -- people want their celebs humble and kind at all times. But I think she struggles to hide her true self.

Whereas I don't even know if Baldoni has a true self. He is so fake and can't seem to admit it, even to himself.

Agree with what you’re saying that at least Lively offered others a way out if she was overstepping, whereas Baldoni said one thing but meant another. I have known fake guys like this and they seem nice but sometimes underneath there hides a real creep.

Meh, this seems very Hollywood to me. Seems like these guys are a dime a dozen. I don’t think having someone be fake, or not saying what they mean, being a little weird and annoying, is grounds for a lawsuit.

[Anonymous]

I think if Blake was uncomfortable, it really does not seem like she didn’t speak up in a way that was rational. For example, the birthing video. It seemed like she and her assistant were having lunch and she and Jamey were having a casual conversation about maybe the scene that they shot yesterday, etc. And he whipped out the birthing video And talks about his wife’s experience. And Blake said yeah I would like to see that later.

Now we as women do that all the time. We do it to be polite, to not rock the boat, whatever. But then, if you are storing these kinds of claims to then unleash months later at an all hands meeting to blindside someone, I just don’t think that’s the right way of approaching this. Same the same you were uncomfortable about breast-feeding at times, and then inviting someone in your trailer to watch you pop. I’m not saying that she did anything wrong, and I know I know pumping is different than breastfeeding- I did plenty of both when my kids were babies, butI just don’t think that’s a great way to approach things if you’re trying to set boundaries.

It’s also my understanding that Blake came forward with complaints and either Sony or HR or whoever confirmed to Justin that they were NOT sexual in nature, so they were all operating as if these were maybe just inappropriate things or thinks she wanted changed. It seems like Justin was really blindsided by the sexual harassment claims, and he even says the list that was presented to the New York Times was very different than the list they went over and signed off on at the all hands meeting.

Finally, it’s my understanding that once they went over the list, once things were bought forward to them, they agreed to address them and they did and everyone moved on. I’m very confused as to how then you have grounds to sue. I thought the whole point of addressing them in a formal way was to avoid a lawsuit. So I’m confused as they can then turn around a year after most of these claims were made and sue. But maybe the answer is anyone can sue about anything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Blake may have suffered from postpartum depression/psychosis especially so soon after giving birth. Delusions are a symptom of this and can last for years after giving birth.

I wonder if this is how they’re going to eventually get out of this. There’s no way they can have this going to trial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also the fact that the title of this thread gets Baldoni's first name is just perfection. No notes.

I meant to say:

Also the fact that the title of this thread gets Baldoni's first name wrong is just perfection. No notes.

Forgive me, unlike the title of this thread, I am flawed.

Yes I love that OP's incorrectly named chain has turned into 330pgs and weeks of posts!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Blake may have suffered from postpartum depression/psychosis especially so soon after giving birth. Delusions are a symptom of this and can last for years after giving birth.

I wonder if this is how they’re going to eventually get out of this. There’s no way they can have this going to trial.

It seems like no one here even wants to consider any type of mental illness. She was what? Two months postpartum… with three other kids at home? This could definitely be postpartum related mental illness, imo. Why are so many resistant to considering this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Blake may have suffered from postpartum depression/psychosis especially so soon after giving birth. Delusions are a symptom of this and can last for years after giving birth.

I wonder if this is how they’re going to eventually get out of this. There’s no way they can have this going to trial.

It seems like no one here even wants to consider any type of mental illness. She was what? Two months postpartum… with three other kids at home? This could definitely be postpartum related mental illness, imo. Why are so many resistant to considering this?

I don’t know if people are resistant to it so much is not really wanting to diagnose her over the Internet. But yes, clearly she is unwell and hopefully her lawyers can prove some things so that she can get out of this. Unfortunately, I think that means her career is probably going to be tanked, but that seems to be happening anyway.

I do think there is a large settlement in the future that’s going to put a dent in their immense wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Blake may have suffered from postpartum depression/psychosis especially so soon after giving birth. Delusions are a symptom of this and can last for years after giving birth.

I wonder if this is how they’re going to eventually get out of this. There’s no way they can have this going to trial.

It seems like no one here even wants to consider any type of mental illness. She was what? Two months postpartum… with three other kids at home? This could definitely be postpartum related mental illness, imo. Why are so many resistant to considering this?

For me it's that I think it's a bad idea to speculate about mental illness, full stop. People reach for mental illness as an explanation/accusation way too often, and as in this case, it's based on nothing but a biased perception of the person's behavior. It's not something to speculate about. You are not in a position to have enough info to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Blake may have suffered from postpartum depression/psychosis especially so soon after giving birth. Delusions are a symptom of this and can last for years after giving birth.

I wonder if this is how they’re going to eventually get out of this. There’s no way they can have this going to trial.

It seems like no one here even wants to consider any type of mental illness. She was what? Two months postpartum… with three other kids at home? This could definitely be postpartum related mental illness, imo. Why are so many resistant to considering this?

For me it's that I think it's a bad idea to speculate about mental illness, full stop. People reach for mental illness as an explanation/accusation way too often, and as in this case, it's based on nothing but a biased perception of the person's behavior. It's not something to speculate about. You are not in a position to have enough info to know.

If Blake had polyphagia, polydipsia and polyuria one may hazard a guess that she may have diabetes. If she’s showing signs of delusional behavior not grounded in reality she may be suffering from some mental illness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess the reason I don't have the same opinion as others is that I do not think Lively is lying. I think there may be multiple perspectives on what happened, but I don't think she made it up. I think her complaint is an honest accounting if her experience.

I can see how, if you think she's lying, it all seems very unfair -- the Deadpool parody, the cast freezing him out, the lawsuit.

But since I don't think she's lying, none of that seems unfair to me.

This is probably the best summary of everything. It’s why we can argue until we’re blue in the face, and gain no ground.

I think she twisted things to get him in trouble because she doesn’t like him. I think that’s why she gets so many people fired from things. She gets offended and she goes for blood. Here, it wasn’t as easy to get him fired—so she took a bunch of things that happened and added little flourishes to make it sound as sinister as possible. (I won’t rehash those.)

And it wasn’t enough when she got her way and he agreed to the list. For those who defend her, why wasn’t it enough?

I had a bad work situation (not SH but bullying) and reported my boss to HR. She was spoken to and almost fired. But she wasn’t—she claimed she acted badly because she was grappling with a mental health issue. I still have trust issues there, but it’s been a year and she has not bothered me since. And I have not continued some sort of campaign against her. I have treated her with respect. But Blake and Ryan couldn’t let it go. Why? What is going on there? There is something different about these two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess the reason I don't have the same opinion as others is that I do not think Lively is lying. I think there may be multiple perspectives on what happened, but I don't think she made it up. I think her complaint is an honest accounting if her experience.

I can see how, if you think she's lying, it all seems very unfair -- the Deadpool parody, the cast freezing him out, the lawsuit.

But since I don't think she's lying, none of that seems unfair to me.

This is probably the best summary of everything. It’s why we can argue until we’re blue in the face, and gain no ground.

I think she twisted things to get him in trouble because she doesn’t like him. I think that’s why she gets so many people fired from things. She gets offended and she goes for blood. Here, it wasn’t as easy to get him fired—so she took a bunch of things that happened and added little flourishes to make it sound as sinister as possible. (I won’t rehash those.)

And it wasn’t enough when she got her way and he agreed to the list. For those who defend her, why wasn’t it enough?

I had a bad work situation (not SH but bullying) and reported my boss to HR. She was spoken to and almost fired. But she wasn’t—she claimed she acted badly because she was grappling with a mental health issue. I still have trust issues there, but it’s been a year and she has not bothered me since. And I have not continued some sort of campaign against her. I have treated her with respect. But Blake and Ryan couldn’t let it go. Why? What is going on there? There is something different about these two.

What about Baldoni's campaign against her? Your boss seems to have left you alone. If she had waged a campaign to ruin your reputation after that, you might have been inclined to sue her for the original harassment and retaliation. Lively originally tried to go HR and Sony with her claims then had her famous meeting. It seems she tried to keep the alleged harassment private until he hired crisis PR against her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Blake may have suffered from postpartum depression/psychosis especially so soon after giving birth. Delusions are a symptom of this and can last for years after giving birth.

I wonder if this is how they’re going to eventually get out of this. There’s no way they can have this going to trial.

It seems like no one here even wants to consider any type of mental illness. She was what? Two months postpartum… with three other kids at home? This could definitely be postpartum related mental illness, imo. Why are so many resistant to considering this?

For me it's that I think it's a bad idea to speculate about mental illness, full stop. People reach for mental illness as an explanation/accusation way too often, and as in this case, it's based on nothing but a biased perception of the person's behavior. It's not something to speculate about. You are not in a position to have enough info to know.

Sure, let’s all pretend the emperor is wearing clothes. I don’t know when someone decided we aren’t allowed to notice that someone is obviously mentally ill. This is cancel culture in a nutshell. Everything we do or say is good/bad—everything is a morality test. It’s losing us elections, and I’m unsubscribing.

There’s a lot of mental illness out there, and I’m going to point out if I think someone’s actions might be attributed to it. I’m not going to walk over and force them to take medications or anything.