Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well the court granted the NYT's stay of discovery pending the decision on the MTD.

Oh damn -- more than that. Liman basically said the NYT's MTD is very strong and that it is "likely to succeed on the merits" (meaning not just on the group pleading issue). Which is probably why he agreed to the stay of discovery, because he already thinks it's unlikely the NYTs will remain a party.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-signals-he-may-dismiss-ny-times-400-million-baldoni-lively-defamation-case-2025-03-04/

That's a major blow for Wayfarer. If NYT case is dismissed on it's merits, it's very likely the defamation case against Lively will also be dismissed since it's primarily based on the article (at least as to Wayfarer, Jed Wallace is claiming defamation in Texas based on the CRD complaint but that action has not been moved to or consolidated with the SDNY cases yet).

DP — one who was happy about this news — but I read the Order and I don’t see this necessarily as saying that NYT is likely to succeed on more than their general pleading grounds, necessarily. The judge says “The NY Times’s motion presents ‘substantial grounds for dismissal’ and The NY Times has made a strong showing that its motion to dismiss is likely to succeed in the merits. [cite]. Indeed, the Wayfarer Parties note that their complaint may need to be amended to address the issues raised by the motion to dismiss.” Liman then goes on to note that if Wayfarer is concerned with delay, “they have it within their power to accelerate their contemplated further amended complaint or their opposition to the motion to dismiss.” In other words, it sounds to me like the judge certainly expects NYT’s MTD to succeed at least on the general pleading grounds — which is the only one Wayfarer’s letter specifically addressed as requiring an amended complaint — and is not necessarily providing his opinion on the rest. But the general pleading deficiency on its own would be enough reason to grant the motion to dismiss — on the merits — alone, and would require an amended complaint for Wayfarer to proceed against NYT.

So I’m not sure if I’m reading this wrong or if you are, but I see this as less of a big win for NYT on the bigger issues of the MTD. Though I hope they will be successful there as well.

I also wondered if the article was a little over the top but I don't know the judge's style. He did say they had strong grounds. If it were only about the group pleading, he could have said something more dry like the NYT has identified grounds for dismissal on the basis of group pleading which Freedman has signaled he'll correct and not get any further into merits til then. It seems the judge was signaling more than that but he did leave it open to interpretation. Overall good news for NYT.

I agree, it’s more than the group pleading issue. I think they would have to refile a more conventional complaint to get past MTD. 200+ pages is almost per se going to get bounced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will have to reread the complaint again but as I recall here isn’t much direct evidence in it of BL or her team saying she would walk if…
Most of it is wayfarer or baldoni saying BL says she will do x of if we don’t do y she will walk. They didn’t include most of the original texts / emails where she says what they allege she says about wanting power / taking over or she will walk

This was also my impression. That doesn't mean she didn't threaten to walk, but the way a lot of these people talk, I don't necessarily trust them to accurately represent what someone else said, or especially what they were told someone said.

Also, this is just fundamentally something I am struggling to reconcile between their two accounts: if Wayfarer was genuinely worried that Lively would leave the production, some of the behavior that they have even admitted to on the set is crazy to me. Like if you genuinely think an actress might just up and quit and leave you in the lurch, why would you drag out an argument over whether or not her birth scene should be done nude over multiple days even after you'd shot the birth scene? According the WAyfarer's own timeline, Baldoni asked Heath to show Lively the birthing video the day after they filmed the birth scene. Let's set aside for a moment the whole issue of the video containing nudity and whether it was sexual harassment or inappropriate. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Lively was not bothered by the content of the video itself. It's still weird behavior to me if this is an actress threatening to quit all the time. You already filmed the scene, a compromise was reached on her wardrobe for it, why not drop it? Why bring it up again knowing it's almost certainly going to make her mad?

I'm having a hard time with Wayfarer's allegations because they just don't really seem reflected in the evidence. Lively is always enthusiastic in her texts and emails -- she doesn't come off as demanding. She even says things like "I don't want to step on toes" or "please tell me if this isn't my place." But then the messages among Wayfarer execs will be like "omg someone needs to tell her to butt out" or complaining that she's trying to run things.

Perhaps I'm missing something. Maybe her agent was on the phone with people at Wayfarer all the time telling them Lively had one foot out the door. But if that's what happened, why not just say it?

I don't get it.

You have to understand that Blake is a master manipulator and interprets everything as an attack against her. I won’t list the DSM dx because that triggers people, but it is very characteristic behavior. So even very innocent conduct (like continuing the convo about the birth scene - because it still needed to be edited and as artists they may just be interested in discussing it) could be distorted by her. Conversely of course she knows that her texts need to appear cheery and nice when she wants to get her way.

I hear what you’re saying, but just to be clear, her threatening to walk is factual evidence. Baldoni’s team included several emails from her lawyers saying exactly that. She just threatened to walk a whole bunch of times, and I haven’t seen her team deny that. It would be hard given her legal teams emails.

But I agree with the other poster, they were still having creative discussions. I understand they wanted to keep her happy, but they still needed to make a movie.

I know we have rehashed this 100 times and I don’t want to re-up the birth scene, but it seems like there are definitely discrepancies between what they each say happen. The truth is probably someone in the middle, but her initial allegation made it seem like she was accosted by Heath, showing her p—n.

That was obviously exaggerated. Baldoni’s description was that they were having lunch, chatting about the birth scene and about their experiences and he pulled that video up, she said she didn’t want to see it now but that she’d see it later and it sounded very cordial.

Again, I’m sure the truth is somewhere in the middle. She made it sound terrible, he made it sound cordial, I’m sure it was neither. But I don’t necessarily know that was a situation where they were egging her on or trying to be difficult. It sounded like a creative difference discussion, even if it could’ve have been handled better, it seems impossible to walk on eggshells around her all the time when they actually do have to do the hard work of making a movie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will have to reread the complaint again but as I recall here isn’t much direct evidence in it of BL or her team saying she would walk if…
Most of it is wayfarer or baldoni saying BL says she will do x of if we don’t do y she will walk. They didn’t include most of the original texts / emails where she says what they allege she says about wanting power / taking over or she will walk

This was also my impression. That doesn't mean she didn't threaten to walk, but the way a lot of these people talk, I don't necessarily trust them to accurately represent what someone else said, or especially what they were told someone said.

Also, this is just fundamentally something I am struggling to reconcile between their two accounts: if Wayfarer was genuinely worried that Lively would leave the production, some of the behavior that they have even admitted to on the set is crazy to me. Like if you genuinely think an actress might just up and quit and leave you in the lurch, why would you drag out an argument over whether or not her birth scene should be done nude over multiple days even after you'd shot the birth scene? According the WAyfarer's own timeline, Baldoni asked Heath to show Lively the birthing video the day after they filmed the birth scene. Let's set aside for a moment the whole issue of the video containing nudity and whether it was sexual harassment or inappropriate. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Lively was not bothered by the content of the video itself. It's still weird behavior to me if this is an actress threatening to quit all the time. You already filmed the scene, a compromise was reached on her wardrobe for it, why not drop it? Why bring it up again knowing it's almost certainly going to make her mad?

I'm having a hard time with Wayfarer's allegations because they just don't really seem reflected in the evidence. Lively is always enthusiastic in her texts and emails -- she doesn't come off as demanding. She even says things like "I don't want to step on toes" or "please tell me if this isn't my place." But then the messages among Wayfarer execs will be like "omg someone needs to tell her to butt out" or complaining that she's trying to run things.

Perhaps I'm missing something. Maybe her agent was on the phone with people at Wayfarer all the time telling them Lively had one foot out the door. But if that's what happened, why not just say it?

I don't get it.

You have to understand that Blake is a master manipulator and interprets everything as an attack against her. I won’t list the DSM dx because that triggers people, but it is very characteristic behavior. So even very innocent conduct (like continuing the convo about the birth scene - because it still needed to be edited and as artists they may just be interested in discussing it) could be distorted by her. Conversely of course she knows that her texts need to appear cheery and nice when she wants to get her way.

I hear what you’re saying, but just to be clear, her threatening to walk is factual evidence. Baldoni’s team included several emails from her lawyers saying exactly that. She just threatened to walk a whole bunch of times, and I haven’t seen her team deny that. It would be hard given her legal teams emails.

But I agree with the other poster, they were still having creative discussions. I understand they wanted to keep her happy, but they still needed to make a movie.

I know we have rehashed this 100 times and I don’t want to re-up the birth scene, but it seems like there are definitely discrepancies between what they each say happen. The truth is probably someone in the middle, but her initial allegation made it seem like she was accosted by Heath, showing her p—n.

That was obviously exaggerated. Baldoni’s description was that they were having lunch, chatting about the birth scene and about their experiences and he pulled that video up, she said she didn’t want to see it now but that she’d see it later and it sounded very cordial.

Again, I’m sure the truth is somewhere in the middle. She made it sound terrible, he made it sound cordial, I’m sure it was neither. But I don’t necessarily know that was a situation where they were egging her on or trying to be difficult. It sounded like a creative difference discussion, even if it could’ve have been handled better, it seems impossible to walk on eggshells around her all the time when they actually do have to do the hard work of making a movie.

I'm the PP who brought up the birthing video again. I know there are people on here who don't want to talk about this, that's fine -- skip this post. I think it's one of the bigger factual debates that would, if the case goes to trial, become pivotal for Lively's case. So I think it's worth talking about.

Which is why, in my post, I made a point of looking at it explicitly from how Baldoni describes it. Like let's just assume the video was tasteful, that Heath didn't "accost" her, that her argument she thought he was showing her porn was a lie.

But if you look at Baldoni's timeline, it says that they filmed the birth scene, and then the next day Baldoni and Heath were discussing the debate with Lively over her wardrobe in the birth scene and that Baldoni suggested to Heath that he go show Lively the video because she'd never seen a birth like that before. Again, this is NOT how Lively describes this incident. This is how Baldoni's own complaint/timeline describes it.

And this is why I find myself thinking there is something to Lively's complaint. That is weird behavior. Again, take all the sexual implications out of it. It's not porn. It's a birthing video. Fine. But according to Baldoni's own complaint, they'd already had *multiple* conflicts with Lively (over the weight stuff, over her wardrobe on the set, and over her rewrites of the rooftop scene). Plus she'd objected to the proposed nudity in the birth scene and they had to negotiate a compromise. And according to them, Lively had threatened to walk multiple times and they were quaking in fear of her screwing them over and quitting. Ok. So why on earth are they doing stuff like this? I have worked with volatile, difficult, demanding people. This does not compute for me. This sounds to me like the behavior of people totally lacking in self-awareness, at a minimum, or worst case -- people who were instigating conflict on purpose. I don't get it.

I am also really thrown by the now confirmed report that Jenny Slate also lodged a complaint about Heath saying something weird to her on set that she found inappropriate enough to go Sony, and Lively is at least alleging that one other actress on set had issues. For me, that is enough to push this to a toss-up. This isn't adding up, and the arguments that Lively is just a master manipulator, or she poisoned everyone again Baldoni, just don't make logical sense to me. I think there is something to the idea that this was a weird set and that Baldoni and Heath might have done things that were inappropriate, creepy, or maybe (this is a question for a jury, ftr, I don't think it can be resolved here) harassing. And if they really did commit sexual harassment, then you can't pain them as innocents who were being abused and manipulated by Lively. That makes them bad actors. And that means you have to look at the PR campaign from last summer and really ask whether this was truly just playing defense, or if they were going after Lively because they didn't want her to reveal what they'd done on set.

Am I positive that's what happened? No. But when I have these questions just from looking at Baldoni's own pleadings or the reports of this Slate complaint, that's enough for me not to be ready to buy the narrative that Baldoni is offering up. It doesn't quite make sense yet.

[Anonymous]

There’s an LA Times article out today on Baldoni. There’s a paywall so some may not be able to read it. What’s fascinating is it’s pretty clear a lot of Lively’s allegations seem to be from his book. To me this makes her look particularly hysterical, which we already knew. I’m guessing a lot of these “uncomfortable conversations” was JB telling BL stories from his book (e.g. being bullied in high school and turning to porn and that his first girlfriend initiated sex without consent—his Bahai faith preaches abstinence). Obviously these were not uncomfortable conversations for JB as he published them for millions of readers and probably also raised them on his podcast. I don’t think he’d see these things as harassment. Blake sounds really delicate. In her complaint she takes these conversations out of context and makes them sound like harassment. She obviously never read his book or iewu for that matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s an LA Times article out today on Baldoni. There’s a paywall so some may not be able to read it. What’s fascinating is it’s pretty clear a lot of Lively’s allegations seem to be from his book. To me this makes her look particularly hysterical, which we already knew. I’m guessing a lot of these “uncomfortable conversations” was JB telling BL stories from his book (e.g. being bullied in high school and turning to porn and that his first girlfriend initiated sex without consent—his Bahai faith preaches abstinence). Obviously these were not uncomfortable conversations for JB as he published them for millions of readers and probably also raised them on his podcast. I don’t think he’d see these things as harassment. Blake sounds really delicate. In her complaint she takes these conversations out of context and makes them sound like harassment. She obviously never read his book or iewu for that matter.

I don't get your analysis here. Harassers never think the stuff they are doing is harassment. They aren't like "ok, I'm going to do a harassment now!" They just do things they want to do without thinking how they will be received by the other person, and disregarding the other person's agency in not participating in that interaction.

I was sexually harassed at work and my harasser 100% thought the stuff they were doing was normal. This included grabbing my hand and putting it on their body, initiating conversations with me about what underwear they were wearing, asking extremely personal questions about my sex life, and discussing their own sex life and sexual history extensively at work. They thought this was not only normal but helpful. I think they viewed me as uptight and thought that doing this stuff around me would help me "loosen up" so that I, too, would become interested in discussing my sex llife at work or being very physical with coworkers. They had absolutely no idea.

That's still harassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s an LA Times article out today on Baldoni. There’s a paywall so some may not be able to read it. What’s fascinating is it’s pretty clear a lot of Lively’s allegations seem to be from his book. To me this makes her look particularly hysterical, which we already knew. I’m guessing a lot of these “uncomfortable conversations” was JB telling BL stories from his book (e.g. being bullied in high school and turning to porn and that his first girlfriend initiated sex without consent—his Bahai faith preaches abstinence). Obviously these were not uncomfortable conversations for JB as he published them for millions of readers and probably also raised them on his podcast. I don’t think he’d see these things as harassment. Blake sounds really delicate. In her complaint she takes these conversations out of context and makes them sound like harassment. She obviously never read his book or iewu for that matter.

I don't get your analysis here. Harassers never think the stuff they are doing is harassment. They aren't like "ok, I'm going to do a harassment now!" They just do things they want to do without thinking how they will be received by the other person, and disregarding the other person's agency in not participating in that interaction.

I was sexually harassed at work and my harasser 100% thought the stuff they were doing was normal. This included grabbing my hand and putting it on their body, initiating conversations with me about what underwear they were wearing, asking extremely personal questions about my sex life, and discussing their own sex life and sexual history extensively at work. They thought this was not only normal but helpful. I think they viewed me as uptight and thought that doing this stuff around me would help me "loosen up" so that I, too, would become interested in discussing my sex llife at work or being very physical with coworkers. They had absolutely no idea.

That's still harassment.

My point is that Baldoni was probably just having casual conversation with Blake about his book and she spun it as harassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s an LA Times article out today on Baldoni. There’s a paywall so some may not be able to read it. What’s fascinating is it’s pretty clear a lot of Lively’s allegations seem to be from his book. To me this makes her look particularly hysterical, which we already knew. I’m guessing a lot of these “uncomfortable conversations” was JB telling BL stories from his book (e.g. being bullied in high school and turning to porn and that his first girlfriend initiated sex without consent—his Bahai faith preaches abstinence). Obviously these were not uncomfortable conversations for JB as he published them for millions of readers and probably also raised them on his podcast. I don’t think he’d see these things as harassment. Blake sounds really delicate. In her complaint she takes these conversations out of context and makes them sound like harassment. She obviously never read his book or iewu for that matter.

Uh, I'm reading the article now and you literally buried the lede. The piece opens by detailing a legal battle with a screenwriter named Travis Flores who wrote a script titled "Three Feet Distance" about his own experiences with cystic fibrosis. Baldoni's directorial debut was a featured called "Five Feet Apart" about cystic fibrosis patients, which Baldoni claims was based on the experiences of a different person.

Also, painting a VERY different portrait of Baldoni than what he puts forth in his complaint:

Yet some former colleagues, in more than a dozen interviews with The Times and a previously unreported 2020 lawsuit against Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, paint a more complicated picture. Several described a pattern of performative virtue and power plays that, in their view, conflicted with the ideals Baldoni professes to uphold. “They keep talking about [the Baldoni-Lively battle] as David and Goliath but that’s just not my experience,” said one former collaborator, who like numerous others interviewed by the Times declined to be named out of fear of being drawn into litigation. “Justin has a lot of power and a lot of money, and he is not afraid to use them to get his way. We need allies, but we need allies whose personal and business dealings align with who they say they are.” Through a spokesperson, Baldoni declined to be interviewed for this story, as did Wayfarer Studios’ senior leadership. The spokesperson said the company “has always proudly publicized [its] founding mission of harnessing storytelling to champion inspirational stories that act as true agents for social change, and actively strives to maintain a positive workplace environment that is rooted in this mission.”

Also, in talking about his porn addition, this jumped out at me as potentially very creepy and problematic:

Years later, in Hollywood, he found himself working alongside actresses he had once fantasized about. “Some of the weirdest moments of my life have happened in the past few years as my teenage fantasies have merged with my midthirties professional life, and some of these women have become friends,” he wrote in “Man Enough.”

This is disturbing, frankly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s an LA Times article out today on Baldoni. There’s a paywall so some may not be able to read it. What’s fascinating is it’s pretty clear a lot of Lively’s allegations seem to be from his book. To me this makes her look particularly hysterical, which we already knew. I’m guessing a lot of these “uncomfortable conversations” was JB telling BL stories from his book (e.g. being bullied in high school and turning to porn and that his first girlfriend initiated sex without consent—his Bahai faith preaches abstinence). Obviously these were not uncomfortable conversations for JB as he published them for millions of readers and probably also raised them on his podcast. I don’t think he’d see these things as harassment. Blake sounds really delicate. In her complaint she takes these conversations out of context and makes them sound like harassment. She obviously never read his book or iewu for that matter.

I don't get your analysis here. Harassers never think the stuff they are doing is harassment. They aren't like "ok, I'm going to do a harassment now!" They just do things they want to do without thinking how they will be received by the other person, and disregarding the other person's agency in not participating in that interaction.

I was sexually harassed at work and my harasser 100% thought the stuff they were doing was normal. This included grabbing my hand and putting it on their body, initiating conversations with me about what underwear they were wearing, asking extremely personal questions about my sex life, and discussing their own sex life and sexual history extensively at work. They thought this was not only normal but helpful. I think they viewed me as uptight and thought that doing this stuff around me would help me "loosen up" so that I, too, would become interested in discussing my sex llife at work or being very physical with coworkers. They had absolutely no idea.

That's still harassment.

My point is that Baldoni was probably just having casual conversation with Blake about his book and she spun it as harassment.

That doesn't make any sense. Who walks around striking up conversations like "you know, in Chapter 3 of my book, I talk about the porn addiction that started when I was a tween -- let's discuss."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s an LA Times article out today on Baldoni. There’s a paywall so some may not be able to read it. What’s fascinating is it’s pretty clear a lot of Lively’s allegations seem to be from his book. To me this makes her look particularly hysterical, which we already knew. I’m guessing a lot of these “uncomfortable conversations” was JB telling BL stories from his book (e.g. being bullied in high school and turning to porn and that his first girlfriend initiated sex without consent—his Bahai faith preaches abstinence). Obviously these were not uncomfortable conversations for JB as he published them for millions of readers and probably also raised them on his podcast. I don’t think he’d see these things as harassment. Blake sounds really delicate. In her complaint she takes these conversations out of context and makes them sound like harassment. She obviously never read his book or iewu for that matter.

Wow, so that's your takeaway from this LA Times article? We really are living in two different realities. This article discussed:

(1) the lawsuit that terminally ill and now dead Travis Flores filed against Baldoni for stealing the the ideas from the screenplay Flores shared with Baldoni and adapting it into his first film, Five Feet Apart -- Flores was ultimately persuaded by his lawyer to dismiss the case because Baldoni had the financial resources for a long fight and such a fight could negatively affect Flores' health. (Flores' Lawyer -- Bryan Freedman -- went on begin representing Baldoni few months after Flores' death at the age of 33 -- that doesn't seem like a conflict of interest at all to anyone, right?);

(2) how Baldoni's Bahai faith is culturally conservative compared to Hollywood (women can't serve at top, same-sex marriage not recognized, alcohol, recreational drugs, pre-marital sex, and gossip are all forbidden) and multiple employees were uncomfortable with the increasing, inappropriate importance that the Bahai faith took in Wayfarer office culture;

(3) the racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuit brought against Wayfarer and Baldoni after the company hired a black man in 2019, telling him, "We need somebody here who looks like you" but then labeling him as an "angry Black man" after he spoke out about some of Wayfarer's practices. The lawsuit alleged that Wayfarer created "a pattern of sidelining and tokenizing people of color" which was "antithetical to everything Wayfarer claimed to stand for." After voicing his concerns, the man was demoted, had his pay cut, and was ultimately terminated even while similarly situated former non-Black employees received severance package that was denied to him. He later settled the case for $150K, undoubtedly paid for by billionaire protector Sarowitz.

(4) how Baldoni's branding of himself seemingly becoming more important to him than the good work itself - people who know Baldoni say his gestures feel more performative than sincere (e.g., filming himself giving clothing to a homeless man or asking employees to sign off their emails with "so much love") and complained about toxic positivity - "I'm always a little dubious of people who advertise themselves as disruptors of the stats qo or quote-unqote 'good people.' It felt phony."

(5) In that vein, how Baldoni's self-branding often turned good works into exploitation and a way to make money. Discussing a 2015 documentary Baldoni made about Sam Simon, a dying Simpsons writer with a terminal illness, a former employee said "The message was always, 'These people are dying and they still have a positive outlook, so everyone has a reason to be positive. But, you know, you're also making money off these people, so it feels at least slightly exploitative."

(6) Also, choccoli and Balboner, ew.

But your takeaway from the article was a positive one for Baldoni. Okay. Maybe the toxic positivity is spreading!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s an LA Times article out today on Baldoni. There’s a paywall so some may not be able to read it. What’s fascinating is it’s pretty clear a lot of Lively’s allegations seem to be from his book. To me this makes her look particularly hysterical, which we already knew. I’m guessing a lot of these “uncomfortable conversations” was JB telling BL stories from his book (e.g. being bullied in high school and turning to porn and that his first girlfriend initiated sex without consent—his Bahai faith preaches abstinence). Obviously these were not uncomfortable conversations for JB as he published them for millions of readers and probably also raised them on his podcast. I don’t think he’d see these things as harassment. Blake sounds really delicate. In her complaint she takes these conversations out of context and makes them sound like harassment. She obviously never read his book or iewu for that matter.

I don't get your analysis here. Harassers never think the stuff they are doing is harassment. They aren't like "ok, I'm going to do a harassment now!" They just do things they want to do without thinking how they will be received by the other person, and disregarding the other person's agency in not participating in that interaction.

I was sexually harassed at work and my harasser 100% thought the stuff they were doing was normal. This included grabbing my hand and putting it on their body, initiating conversations with me about what underwear they were wearing, asking extremely personal questions about my sex life, and discussing their own sex life and sexual history extensively at work. They thought this was not only normal but helpful. I think they viewed me as uptight and thought that doing this stuff around me would help me "loosen up" so that I, too, would become interested in discussing my sex llife at work or being very physical with coworkers. They had absolutely no idea.

That's still harassment.

DP and I agree with this. Baldoni didn't think he was doing anything wrong at the time. Later on he did acknowledge the inappropriateness of what he was saying to people and blamed it on his neurodiversity, though. That doesn't make Lively look "delicate," that makes him look like a harasser who didn't grok he was harassing at the time.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, the thing I find most disturbing about this LA Times article is that fact that Bryan Freedman started out representing Travis Flores against Baldoni, settled the case convincing Flores that Baldoni had too much money and could draw things out a long time, and then months after Flores died started representing Baldoni and Wayfarer. The same party he advised his client to settle against because of their billions of dollars. I know the article is filled with bad stories about Baldoni, but this appears to raise serious ethical questions about Baldoni lawyer Bryan Freedman. If he gets out of this lawsuit without having his own deposition taken, he'll be lucky imho.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the thing I find most disturbing about this LA Times article is that fact that Bryan Freedman started out representing Travis Flores against Baldoni, settled the case convincing Flores that Baldoni had too much money and could draw things out a long time, and then months after Flores died started representing Baldoni and Wayfarer. The same party he advised his client to settle against because of their billions of dollars. I know the article is filled with bad stories about Baldoni, but this appears to raise serious ethical questions about Baldoni lawyer Bryan Freedman. If he gets out of this lawsuit without having his own deposition taken, he'll be lucky imho.

Bryan Freedman is a shady mofo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will have to reread the complaint again but as I recall here isn’t much direct evidence in it of BL or her team saying she would walk if…
Most of it is wayfarer or baldoni saying BL says she will do x of if we don’t do y she will walk. They didn’t include most of the original texts / emails where she says what they allege she says about wanting power / taking over or she will walk

This was also my impression. That doesn't mean she didn't threaten to walk, but the way a lot of these people talk, I don't necessarily trust them to accurately represent what someone else said, or especially what they were told someone said.

Also, this is just fundamentally something I am struggling to reconcile between their two accounts: if Wayfarer was genuinely worried that Lively would leave the production, some of the behavior that they have even admitted to on the set is crazy to me. Like if you genuinely think an actress might just up and quit and leave you in the lurch, why would you drag out an argument over whether or not her birth scene should be done nude over multiple days even after you'd shot the birth scene? According the WAyfarer's own timeline, Baldoni asked Heath to show Lively the birthing video the day after they filmed the birth scene. Let's set aside for a moment the whole issue of the video containing nudity and whether it was sexual harassment or inappropriate. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Lively was not bothered by the content of the video itself. It's still weird behavior to me if this is an actress threatening to quit all the time. You already filmed the scene, a compromise was reached on her wardrobe for it, why not drop it? Why bring it up again knowing it's almost certainly going to make her mad?

I'm having a hard time with Wayfarer's allegations because they just don't really seem reflected in the evidence. Lively is always enthusiastic in her texts and emails -- she doesn't come off as demanding. She even says things like "I don't want to step on toes" or "please tell me if this isn't my place." But then the messages among Wayfarer execs will be like "omg someone needs to tell her to butt out" or complaining that she's trying to run things.

Perhaps I'm missing something. Maybe her agent was on the phone with people at Wayfarer all the time telling them Lively had one foot out the door. But if that's what happened, why not just say it?

I don't get it.

You have to understand that Blake is a master manipulator and interprets everything as an attack against her. I won’t list the DSM dx because that triggers people, but it is very characteristic behavior. So even very innocent conduct (like continuing the convo about the birth scene - because it still needed to be edited and as artists they may just be interested in discussing it) could be distorted by her. Conversely of course she knows that her texts need to appear cheery and nice when she wants to get her way.

I hear what you’re saying, but just to be clear, her threatening to walk is factual evidence. Baldoni’s team included several emails from her lawyers saying exactly that. She just threatened to walk a whole bunch of times, and I haven’t seen her team deny that. It would be hard given her legal teams emails.

But I agree with the other poster, they were still having creative discussions. I understand they wanted to keep her happy, but they still needed to make a movie.

I know we have rehashed this 100 times and I don’t want to re-up the birth scene, but it seems like there are definitely discrepancies between what they each say happen. The truth is probably someone in the middle, but her initial allegation made it seem like she was accosted by Heath, showing her p—n.

That was obviously exaggerated. Baldoni’s description was that they were having lunch, chatting about the birth scene and about their experiences and he pulled that video up, she said she didn’t want to see it now but that she’d see it later and it sounded very cordial.

Again, I’m sure the truth is somewhere in the middle. She made it sound terrible, he made it sound cordial, I’m sure it was neither. But I don’t necessarily know that was a situation where they were egging her on or trying to be difficult. It sounded like a creative difference discussion, even if it could’ve have been handled better, it seems impossible to walk on eggshells around her all the time when they actually do have to do the hard work of making a movie.

I'm the PP who brought up the birthing video again. I know there are people on here who don't want to talk about this, that's fine -- skip this post. I think it's one of the bigger factual debates that would, if the case goes to trial, become pivotal for Lively's case. So I think it's worth talking about.

Which is why, in my post, I made a point of looking at it explicitly from how Baldoni describes it. Like let's just assume the video was tasteful, that Heath didn't "accost" her, that her argument she thought he was showing her porn was a lie.

But if you look at Baldoni's timeline, it says that they filmed the birth scene, and then the next day Baldoni and Heath were discussing the debate with Lively over her wardrobe in the birth scene and that Baldoni suggested to Heath that he go show Lively the video because she'd never seen a birth like that before. Again, this is NOT how Lively describes this incident. This is how Baldoni's own complaint/timeline describes it.

And this is why I find myself thinking there is something to Lively's complaint. That is weird behavior. Again, take all the sexual implications out of it. It's not porn. It's a birthing video. Fine. But according to Baldoni's own complaint, they'd already had *multiple* conflicts with Lively (over the weight stuff, over her wardrobe on the set, and over her rewrites of the rooftop scene). Plus she'd objected to the proposed nudity in the birth scene and they had to negotiate a compromise. And according to them, Lively had threatened to walk multiple times and they were quaking in fear of her screwing them over and quitting. Ok. So why on earth are they doing stuff like this? I have worked with volatile, difficult, demanding people. This does not compute for me. This sounds to me like the behavior of people totally lacking in self-awareness, at a minimum, or worst case -- people who were instigating conflict on purpose. I don't get it.

I am also really thrown by the now confirmed report that Jenny Slate also lodged a complaint about Heath saying something weird to her on set that she found inappropriate enough to go Sony, and Lively is at least alleging that one other actress on set had issues. For me, that is enough to push this to a toss-up. This isn't adding up, and the arguments that Lively is just a master manipulator, or she poisoned everyone again Baldoni, just don't make logical sense to me. I think there is something to the idea that this was a weird set and that Baldoni and Heath might have done things that were inappropriate, creepy, or maybe (this is a question for a jury, ftr, I don't think it can be resolved here) harassing. And if they really did commit sexual harassment, then you can't pain them as innocents who were being abused and manipulated by Lively. That makes them bad actors. And that means you have to look at the PR campaign from last summer and really ask whether this was truly just playing defense, or if they were going after Lively because they didn't want her to reveal what they'd done on set.

Am I positive that's what happened? No. But when I have these questions just from looking at Baldoni's own pleadings or the reports of this Slate complaint, that's enough for me not to be ready to buy the narrative that Baldoni is offering up. It doesn't quite make sense yet.

Poster you are responding to who has been vehemently anti-Blake this entire thread, and I, the more I think about this, I’m willing to admit there probably was inappropriate behavior, maybe even bordering on sexual harassment on this set, on the part of Baldoni and team.

Do I think it’s anywhere near the level of most Hollywood sets? No I think it’s very tame but I still think there should be zero tolerance so I’m not saying Blake shouldn’t have a case here. I do think the problem she is going to have is this is not the typical black-and-white sexual harassment of men ogling her or even using it to leverage their power. I think these men are socially awkward and maybe not aware of how some of these conversations come off to people. I think it’s a little woo woo Hollywood. And I’m not saying that as a defense, necessarily, they need to learn a lesson and get on board. But I do think it’s harder for the public to understand because a lot of what we hear on Hollywood sets is men just ass-grabbing because they can and I don’t think that’s what happened here.

I also think Blake should have been clear with boundaries in light if this behavior. Especially if there was any chance she was going to make a case of this. Inviting him to fly cross country on her private jet with her kids, inviting him to pump in her trailer and run lines, all the invitations to the apartment, and even allowing him to mingle with Taylor Swift, some of the sexually charged or really weird texts, I really just feel like that hurts her case and makes it seem like she has trouble with boundaries.

That said, it is clear to me that Baldoni experienced harassment on behalf of lively. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how some of the episodes described are not harassment by her. I cannot imagine how stressful it was to have her constantly be threatening to walk off because of things that she just didn’t get her way on. And not just her huffing and puffing, but actual lawyer is reaching out. Yes it is partly Wayfair’s fault for not enforcing the contract, but it’s still insane behavior that most of us would not tolerate or be okay with it if it were happening to us or a loved one.

I think Ryan berating him in the apartment is also harassing behavior that none of us would tolerate in our workplace. I’ve seen people say he was defending his wife, but it was extremely unprofessional, I think they overreacted anyway, and hearing the Sony executive say he had never seen anything like it in his 40 year career, I just don’t see how that is not harassing behavior.

I also think there was some harassment near the promotion of the movie. First of all, I don’t understand why she said her husband‘s company would cover the marketing for free and then charge it back. And not only that, she offered to do some marketing and then cut him out of that marketing. Not harassment, but certainly not being a good steward of the budget and I imagine causing a lot of stress. And then for her to be stripping his name off the poster and his image off the poster and the whole debacle with the premier, I just feel like if the sides were flipped, we would be outraged if this happened to a woman.

And I don’t think you can say well she was really uncomfortable on set to justify it. I mean, it’s just really troubling behavior.

So yes, they both exhibited extremely troubling behavior. But at the end of the day, Baldoni was willing to suck it up and plat nice for the good of the movie and then they could go their separate ways forever. I am still really puzzled why Blake decided to publicly escalate back in August. It’s hard for anyone to argue that it was the right move for her to make.

Even at that point, though, it was possible to just stand down. They had both been through hell and she got a lot of bad press, probably caused by his PR team, no doubt also caused by her own actions. But it would have blown over.

But she doubled down again. And now we know the extent of his troubling behavior, but we’ve also seen a lot from Blake and Ryan that they no doubt and never wanted us to see.

I don’t know if she will face repercussions, I do know she’s been really silent on social media, which is not helpful if you’re trying to build a hair care brand. I do know she has not been seen with Taylor Swift and Taylor has not said word one, which has not been great for her image or getting all the great publicity from last year that she got being on the town with Taylor.

Finally, I do think Hollywood insiders are really troubled by the whole PGA issue and how she treated the screenwriter and some of those compliance violations she actively caused. It will be interesting to see what kind of projects she does next, and I doubt she will be able to pull this stunt of not signing contracts again.

[Anonymous]

Looks like Blake’s new pr firm has a story in the LA Times. She does love the media.

[Anonymous]

I just want to note that threatening to walk away from the film or refusing to sign her contract may be difficult, demanding behavior, but it's not "abuse." It's an aggressive negotiating tactic. That's legal. And the solution if you don't want to deal with it is (1) make sure people sign contracts before you get into a project with them that will suffer if they leave, or (2) be willing to take a loss and move on.

The answer is not to engage in inappropriate and harassing behavior on set and then plot to destroy her reputation online. I get why you might want to do that but it's illegal. Whereas just being really challenging during contract negotiations is not illegal. It's business.