Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn't Abel's personal phone. Jonesworks provided the phone. Abel (stupidly, IMO) had her personal phone number added to the phone after Jonesworks gave it to her. And she believed that texting using her personal number could keep those communications from Jonesworks. If the texts were if a personal nature, she could maybe make an argument for this. But she was conducting company business in those texts. Thus they are Jonesworks property, regardless of the number used. And if you are wondering, yes this would apply to you if you used your Gmail account on a work provided device to conduct work for the company.

As for notice, the law requires you to notify employees or customers off their *records* are subpoenaed. I don't think work product would be considered a record. That's referring to HR files, employee evaluations, customer sales records and contracts, etc. But work product is not an employee record.

I’m guessing it’s not that cut and dry. We’ll see what case law BF cites when he makes his arguments. He insists the text messages were obtained illegally, and I’m sure he’ll make some arguments to back up those assertions. I think the case against Jones will be a slam dunk. She acted really inappropriately and recklessly with regard to both her employees and her clients.

Yeah, I’m not sure how that shakes up for Justin Baldoni but I’m sure clients of hers don’t exactly appreciate their personal information being used in this way.

Frankly, it sounds like she was melting down and had some sort of a breakdown. I doubt her business is doing that well anyway.

I am certain Jones has lost clients over this and this could torpedo her company. Though you can be resurrected in Hollywood. I'll note her husband is a pretty big deal agent at WME -- yes, the same WME that represents Lively and Reynolds and used to represent Baldoni and Wayfarer. Granted, it's a huge agency with a ton of heavy hitting clients. But the point is that Jones is well connected and has resources.

I don't think any of it is going to matter for the texts though. She might get slapped with breach of contract for disclosing the texts but I do think it will be offset by Wayfarer likely breaching when it committed to following Abel to her own company. So with offsetting damages, it just might not wind up being a big deal for Jones.

Bryan Freedman calling the texts "illegally" obtained is CLASSIC Freedman just straight up lying in order to gain a PR advantage, and this is precisely why I can't stand Bryan Freedman, but whatever. There is not a single allegation regarding the texts that would make them "illegal" for Lively to use. He's just trying to get the JB-hive activated over this. He lies all the time.

Meh, Jone lied about the subpoena so… They’re all lying are all shady.

Freedman‘s done a good job with the PR battle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn't Abel's personal phone. Jonesworks provided the phone. Abel (stupidly, IMO) had her personal phone number added to the phone after Jonesworks gave it to her. And she believed that texting using her personal number could keep those communications from Jonesworks. If the texts were if a personal nature, she could maybe make an argument for this. But she was conducting company business in those texts. Thus they are Jonesworks property, regardless of the number used. And if you are wondering, yes this would apply to you if you used your Gmail account on a work provided device to conduct work for the company.

As for notice, the law requires you to notify employees or customers off their *records* are subpoenaed. I don't think work product would be considered a record. That's referring to HR files, employee evaluations, customer sales records and contracts, etc. But work product is not an employee record.

I’m guessing it’s not that cut and dry. We’ll see what case law BF cites when he makes his arguments. He insists the text messages were obtained illegally, and I’m sure he’ll make some arguments to back up those assertions. I think the case against Jones will be a slam dunk. She acted really inappropriately and recklessly with regard to both her employees and her clients.

Yeah, I’m not sure how that shakes up for Justin Baldoni but I’m sure clients of hers don’t exactly appreciate their personal information being used in this way.

Frankly, it sounds like she was melting down and had some sort of a breakdown. I doubt her business is doing that well anyway.

I am certain Jones has lost clients over this and this could torpedo her company. Though you can be resurrected in Hollywood. I'll note her husband is a pretty big deal agent at WME -- yes, the same WME that represents Lively and Reynolds and used to represent Baldoni and Wayfarer. Granted, it's a huge agency with a ton of heavy hitting clients. But the point is that Jones is well connected and has resources.

I don't think any of it is going to matter for the texts though. She might get slapped with breach of contract for disclosing the texts but I do think it will be offset by Wayfarer likely breaching when it committed to following Abel to her own company. So with offsetting damages, it just might not wind up being a big deal for Jones.

Bryan Freedman calling the texts "illegally" obtained is CLASSIC Freedman just straight up lying in order to gain a PR advantage, and this is precisely why I can't stand Bryan Freedman, but whatever. There is not a single allegation regarding the texts that would make them "illegal" for Lively to use. He's just trying to get the JB-hive activated over this. He lies all the time.

You’re way understating. It won’t be offset. At most, Wayfarer would just be liable to pay for the year of service they were contracted for (maybe with interest). Jones will be slapped with punitive damages of an unlimited amount for breaching privacy and causing reputation harm that led to real world damages for her client. By saying it’ll be offset, like one cancels out the other is disingenuous. That’s like saying I didn’t pay my Verizon bill so they leaked my personal business to one of my competitors who smeared me in the press and sued me. Do you see how disproportionate that is. It won’t be offset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question: Is anyone left on the thread that isn’t a lawyer?

Yup. I find the legal implications of this case the most boring, though some elements are certainly interesting. Watching the many lawyers coming in to bicker is not fun, but luckily there’s enough other posters that I’m still coming back to the thread.

Agreed. I am a lawyer, pro-Baldoni and probably guilty of a little snark, here and there. I appreciate the legal arguments and analysis, as long as it’s not paragraphs and all pro-Lively all the time. I refuse to go into serious work over all of this, all of the time.

Like another poster or two have said, let’s analyze but put this stuff into context. This is a Hollywood drama playing out. Nice to analyze but don’t get too wrapped up into it. Breathe. Walk the dog. Eat. I swear a few of the Lively posters literally don’t seem like they move from their screens all day long.

Bigger issues are happening out here in America and this case is great escapism for many, and a good legal thrill for some.

Just keep that in mind. This is an entertainment and pop culture site. I will try to minimize some snark, but really, that’s the whole purpose of this blog.

Thank you! Can you remind Jeff of that when one of the pro Lively posters runs to try to get this thread shut down yet again?

[Anonymous]

I'm not the pro-Lively PP (though, I guess some posters won't believe me), but why can't we just try to be nice and not insult each other? A poster a couple of pages ago said "boards on boards" is boring (ok I'm technically doing it now, so I'll stop). But I agree with saving the snark for the celebrities and am going to try to hold to that, especially after it was all cordial a couple of pages ago with posters sharing a bit about themselves.

[Anonymous]

Pro-Baldoni supporter here (with a little less snark).

Here is why I still support the Baldoni side. Us Magazine dropped an issue recently. Cover=something to the effect of ‘how are Ryan and Blake coping.” It’s a pic of them from the SNL event, and in reading the article, it’s all ‘boo hop’ Blake and Ryan and how it’s been so hard for them to watch the drop in support and brand following. It stated that the whole thing has challenged her mentally, and she’s been reading all of the negative comments online.

My take is this: YOU PUBLISHED the NYT article and called him a sexual predator. Then got him fired from WME and the whole nine yards about trying to take control over the movie.

Please Lively supporters, explain to us Pro-Baldoni supporters why anyone should care about Blake and her hurt feelings. What about Justin? Where is his sympathy piece? Despite all that went down, he never filed a lawsuit until he was attacked publicly by those two. They sort of brought this on themselves, and that’s putting it nicely.

But do share your opinions. Probably the one time that I will not snark at a few paragraphs of explanation. But tired of Blake the victim when she initiated all of this for malicious purposes.

[Anonymous]

“ boo hoo”

[Anonymous]

One more time, please sell me and others on how Blake is the victim here.

I could rail on and on about real victims that I know. Blake’s situation just does not met that standard. Not even close. And that’s not to say that Justin was perfect.

She decided to come forward with this narrative, which has shown to have many falsities. But she knew that and still moved forward on this action. Why are we to feel sympathy for her?

[Anonymous]

I consider myself neutral, so maybe I shouldn't answer on Lively's behalf. I don't feel sympathy for her, but don't really feel sympathy for him either. I can understand why one would if they felt she is completely lying and manufacturing everything. I'm not quite convinced of that and willing to see where the evidence goes, especially when it comes to other people who were present on set being deposed.

I agree she dropped a nuclear bomb by going to NYT and filing the suit. I think everything from the summer and the baby bump interview would have blown over if she hadn't fanned the flames and it has backfired on her. But I think the same about the smear campaign to whatever extent it existed. I know Wallace now swears he didn't do anything on Baldoni's behalf, but there are definitely texts from Baldoni and his PR cronies discussing wanting to do that stuff. I don't think they wrote "we can't tell him that we're going to bury her" out of nowhere. I think he made it clear that's what he wanted to do, so let's hear the evidence to see if they actually did (through Wallace or some other means). I think that was equally a mistake; the drama over him being unfollowed and not walking the red carpet alongside the cast would have blown over, and Lively probably wouldn't have brought up the sexual harassment allegations, if it hadn't been for those texts.

But then Baldoni wouldn't have sent those texts if Lively hadn't iced him out and refused to walk the carpet with him, which seems unnecessarily petty too. But then if he did some of those creepy things she said he did, she might have not have done that. As of right now I don't think it's all manufactured by her, maybe overblown, but I think most of them were real incidents with different interpretations. Then I look at the dance scene and the proof that he posted was so overwhelmingly different than what she described and I'm like "oh maybe she is lying about everything," but then maybe he only posted that because that's his strongest one and he doesn't have strong proof against her other claims. The funniest thing to me is their supportive and friendly texts since we now know they hate each other.

So it's kind of like, who started it? I really don't know. I guess I give her a little credit that when she experienced an uncomfortable situation or sexual harassment or whatever it was, she came up with a list of solutions which they accepted and it seems to have worked for the second half of filming. I get that he felt extorted by that because it was hanging over his head that she might bring it up at any time. But I also think if she were making up these allegations just for leverage, why did she not make anything up during the second half of filming? That makes me feel like her feelings on it were subjectively true for her.

So I guess it's not sympathy but that I do give her a smidgen of the benefit of the doubt.

[Anonymous]

I can understand Lively’s POV on this where she is not the monster you believe she is:

1. The bad behavior started with Baldoni - unwanted kissing where she wanted talking, unnecessary nudity for birth scene where he wouldn’t let it go. And double ick because isn’t he supposed to be a progressive feminist? Other women feel similarly. Wut is going on?

2. But also, some of Baldoni’s weird baggage made her maybe start to question his choices on the film. Eg, he said he wanted to show simultaneously climaxing because that’s what he and his wife did and did Lively and Reynolds do that … but this film is about the an abusive spouse and his battered wife … she started not to trust him to tell Lily’s story instead of Ryle’s. He wanted to show everyone can be redeemed. (Cue her speech from the showing about how the movie is about Lily the whole woman.)

3. Lively believed Baldoni was sexually inappropriate, and finally told him so, and got the list with his agreement that he wouldn’t retaliate for her saying so.

4. She also started trying to make sure the movie was going to be about Lily and not overly sympathetic to Ryle.

5. I don’t know the circs behind the defriending but that happened. Maybe that was her being mean.

6. Wasn’t it after that that mean articles and gossip started appearing about her online? Is he retaliating tho he said he would not?

7. And then she finds out from Jones/Sloane that he planned a whole PR campaign to destroy her? Those text messages are damning. It sure *seemed* like Wallace was doing more than just monitoring — he has a very special set of skills ha.

Remember Baldoni’s PR reps said she really believed she was right, and he had done wrong. Then to find out on top of that that he planted stories when he is supposed to love women and said he would not punish her for raising concerns — I’m suspect with the text messages she felt like she was exposing an extremely harmful and untraceable part of me too that was hurting women who complained about men (like Amber Heard) and turned public opinion against them in a way that was impossible to trace. I think she felt there was risk to her but that getting the story out was more important.

And now a very large number of people hate her when she did just try to get the movie made the way she thought it should be made and then help people by telling them about his smear campaign.

[Anonymous]

Pro Baldoni supporter here. Good shares. I guess we will just have to wait out the MTDs and go from there.

[Anonymous]

PP with numbered list. I can also imagine another side where she is a diva mean girl that he doesn’t quite know how to deal with. Like, I can see this through that lens also. If that’s the truth then you called this better than me. But I also hate Freedman and right now I see theough her lens.

Thanks for asking and also explaining your pov!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP with numbered list. I can also imagine another side where she is a diva mean girl that he doesn’t quite know how to deal with. Like, I can see this through that lens also. If that’s the truth then you called this better than me. But I also hate Freedman and right now I see theough her lens.

Thanks for asking and also explaining your pov!

This list goes wrong for me at #4. Telling Baldoni she felt uncomfortable and asking for changes going forward—no problem. Using those claims (regardless of their veracity) to make the movie she wanted to make is where it goes off the rails for me. SH should not be used as leverage, full stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP with numbered list. I can also imagine another side where she is a diva mean girl that he doesn’t quite know how to deal with. Like, I can see this through that lens also. If that’s the truth then you called this better than me. But I also hate Freedman and right now I see theough her lens.

Thanks for asking and also explaining your pov!

This list goes wrong for me at #4. Telling Baldoni she felt uncomfortable and asking for changes going forward—no problem. Using those claims (regardless of their veracity) to make the movie she wanted to make is where it goes off the rails for me. SH should not be used as leverage, full stop.

I'm not the numbered list poster, but the other poster claiming to be neutral and giving Lively benefit of the doubt. To me, that part is an open question. I agree with your statement that it would be wrong to use SH as leverage, but for me that hasn't been proven yet. I don't remember anything in his timeline where it was implied that she said she would go public with her allegations if he didn't do XYZ. That's part of why I don't think the extortion claims will stick. She had other avenues as leverage, including not having a signed contract and the money it would cost if she walked off, more star power and a connected husband, closer ties to Sony, and the ability to get the Taylor Swift song. I can understand that he personally may have been worried about her going forward with her claims (whether they were true or false) but for me right now that is still in the realm of his subjective perceptions. I guess the closest it comes unless I'm not remembering something is "any goodwill between us would be lost" but that could mean so many things. On the other hand, she's hardly going to come out and say "I'm going to claim SH if you don't let me edit the movie" so I acknowledge that it's really hard for him to prove. I do recall that prescient reddit post from the alleged insider who said Blake was going to weaponize feminism and go the the NYT with a MeToo story because he called her sexy (open question to me whether that's a real insider or a plant to get ahead of it, but it suggests Baldoni heard rumblings back to last summer). What I need for him in discovery is to connect the dots on how that threat materialized, like when they make vague allegations about Sloane working in concert with Lively on a conspiracy and say that additional information has come to light which they want to incorporate into another amended complaint. That needs to be fleshed out.

I mean I totally think a lot of the things Lively asked for were really outrageous (like editing time for an actress with a vanity producer credit during the supposedly sacred DGA director time, or the PGA mark), so yeah, I'm curious how she got all that, because I'm always like "how did they not say no?" but it seems like that could have been Sony pushing that more than Wayfarer agreeing (one could argue Wayfarer agreed to this ridiculous stuff because Sony had the deep pockets and not because Lively was threatening SH). That to me is not extortion, just being a pain in the ass and leveraging star power. When it comes to the stuff that's more personal against Justin (refusing to appear with him) is maybe more when I can see her pulling the SH card and saying she doesn't want to work with someone who she claims harassed her.

I don't follow her career, so I would be curious to know if she has played those games on other films (like offering for Reynolds to promote it for free but then getting him paid, such grift, lol) and maybe it just worked better this time due to a combination of Wayfarer being less savvy and/or the SH and/or not signing the contract.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP with numbered list. I can also imagine another side where she is a diva mean girl that he doesn’t quite know how to deal with. Like, I can see this through that lens also. If that’s the truth then you called this better than me. But I also hate Freedman and right now I see theough her lens.

Thanks for asking and also explaining your pov!

This list goes wrong for me at #4. Telling Baldoni she felt uncomfortable and asking for changes going forward—no problem. Using those claims (regardless of their veracity) to make the movie she wanted to make is where it goes off the rails for me. SH should not be used as leverage, full stop.

PP again - and want to see I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm writing paragraphs arguing with you. It's not the intent at all. It's just the question opened up some thoughts I've been pondering. I do understand your points and am fine with them!

[Anonymous]

*say
ugh that we can't edit here.