Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people comparing Justin to Harvey Weinstein appear to be Justin supporters. Harvey Weinstein is a rapist. He assaulted many women over a lot of years, and threatened to assault or ruin others.

But now, every time any man gets accused of any wrongdoing, defenders say "Look, he's not Harvey Weinstein, this is so much more minor." As thought that's the bar. Louis CK exposed himself and pleasured himself in front of young female comics on his tours, and when this came out, a bunch of people said, "oh is that all? Well at least he's not Harvey Weinstein."

I think Baldoni and Heath created a hostile work environment on the set of IEWU, and I think they smeared Lively in the press to discredit her so no one would find out about their weird, inappropriate behavior on the set. I don't think they are rapists and I don't think they've ever assaulted anyone. I don't think they belong in jail. I do think they should be held accountable for the on set behavior and the PR retaliation. It has nothing to do with Weinstein, IMO.

Nobody is leading with, “he’s not Harvey Weinstein.” That comes after people make the comparison, and people are forced to say, nope, not even a little bit.

Please point to anyone, on this thread or elsewhere, claiming that Baldoni is like Harvey Weinstein. I haven't seen it. I have seen many JB-supporters bring it up as a straw man, as in "Blake's acting like Justin is like Harvey Weinstein, and that's not fair." But I've never seen Blake, her lawyers, or anyone who supports her make the comparison.

Weinstein, Epstein, Cosby, these are the people who come to mind when you label someone a predator. You don’t think of someone who asked about someone’s weight. RR has repeatedly called JB a predator. They have used minor infractions to take control of his movie and get him fired. Predator is a very strong word, as Ryan’s own lawyer has argued in representing his other client Drake, who claims he was defamed by Kendrick Lamar. The word predator carries a lot of weight and is extremely damaging. It does not fit Justin Baldoni.

I truly have no problem differentiating between someone who has done what Baldoni is accused of, and Weinstein, Cosby, Epstein.

At no point in this process have I thought, wow Baldoni is the next rapist/child rapist/serial rapist. I have always viewed it as a workplace SH situation, which is a totally different category, and to me much more about fairness than exploitation.

The only person who labeled him a "predator" was, allegedly, Reynolds. I agree it's unhelpful hyperbole. But I also think people tend towards hyperbole when they are very upset and feeling protective of a family member. Reynold's use if the word dies not appear to have been taken seriously (perhaps specifically because it was obviously hyperbole) -- Baldoni didn't lose his agent or agency after Reynolds called him that. In fact, that language probably made people take the accusations of ess seriously because nothing Baldoni was accused if was predatory, except maaaaaybe in the sense that his "male feminist" schtick is misleading.

But that doesn't mean he's not guilty if SH and retaliation. If other people have trouble differentiating between SH and the serious crimes of SA, child exploitation, drugging/kidnapping women, then I suggest those people spend some time reading up on these issues and getting it straight in their head.

But, to analogize, you can engage in workplace racial discrimination without belonging to the Klan or ever committing an act of violence against a POC. Well, you can also SH without being a predator.

Agree they are different but that’s what Reynolds has called him, both privately and publicly. BL has repeatedly called herself a victim and invoked me too laws, which again Weinstein was really the face of that. They’ve implied these comparisons. Not everyone is going to bother to read the details, especially in 20 years when no one even remembers the details. They’ll just remember he was a “predator” accused of me too. BF will challenge all of that in court of course. He’ll point out how frivolous the SH claims were and that some were outright lies. He’ll point out how defamatory the accusations have been. But truly a lot of damage has been done and can never be undone even if JB prevails. BL now says she wishes people would just wait for all the facts to come out, but she didn’t feel that way in December when she was pushing her narrative in the NYT and everyone was coming to her defense. She only feels that way now b/c JB is fighting back.

Reynolds didn't call Baldoni a predator publicly. He allegedly used the term in two private conversations. And that may be actionable for Baldoni! I don't criticize Baldoni for arguing that was defamatory. But Reynolds didn't come out and call Baldoni a predator in the press or in large groups of people. Whereas Baldoni's legal team has repeatedly called Lively a liar in the press.

And I disagree that people get written off forever for this stuff or that people are too dumb to tell the difference between what Baldoni is accused of and what Epstein did. Aziz Ansari was accused of a fairly mild incident of maybe applying more pressure in a sexual date situation than was appropriate, and no one thinks he's akin to Weinstein. He's working and has toured and people seem to generally think he is an okay dude who either did nothing wrong or just made a minor mistake. The aforementioned Louis CK continues to tour and has a lot of internal industry support -- I personally won't watch his stuff anymore because I think what he did *was* predatory and he hasn't shown any real remorse or even understanding of why what he did was wrong. But others have forgiven him or never really cared. James Franco has multiple credible allegations against him and he still works and a lot of people don't even care. And so on. The worse and more credibly the allegation, the more it sticks. But Baldoni is being accused of something much more mild, plus even among those of us who think he's probably guilty, I am open to the idea that this was a cultural misunderstanding, that Wayfarer has a somewhat insular culture with shared religious belief systems and that when you tried to shift that do a mainstream movie with lots of non-Bah'aí participants, it caused problems. I don't necessarily think Baldoni is a terrible human being. I do think he lacks self-awareness and has some personality issues that resulted in him abusing his role as director/producer on this movie in inappropriate ways.

I personally think the most damaging things that have happened for Baldoni and Wayfarer were (1) the decision to go hard negative against Lively, and Reynolds and her friends like Taylor, to try and protect themselves, (2) the people they've chosen to surround themselves with in order to protect themselves, specifically Melissa Nathan, Bryan Freedman, and media proxies like Perez Hilton and Megyn Kelly -- these people have all trafficked heavily in misogynist stereotypes to discredit Lively, which I think is gross even if her allegations dont' wind up amounting to SH, (3) their decision before this all happened to brand themselves as male feminists and "allies" which in retrospect really looks like a cynical branding ploy and not particularly genuine. I think a lot of us are much more annoyed by the hypocrisy of some the stuff they've been accused of. Making money off of being an ally to women and then telling an actress who has given birth four times that she should be nude in a birth scene because it's not "normal" for her to wear a hospital gown? Sorry, but yuck. Whereas if they had not branded themselves as allies, I might look at that incident and see him as tone-deaf and incorrect, but not necessarily bad intentioned. Sometimes men have dumb ideas about how childbirth works.

The TL;DR (sorry for the lengthy response): most people don't struggle to put these allegations in perspective and there's really no history of people accused of similar things of being written off forever or never being given a chance to rehabilitate. Plus I think Baldoni/Wayfarer have done some stuff to make it worse for themselves when some humility and self-awareness might have made this all blow over a lot faster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people comparing Justin to Harvey Weinstein appear to be Justin supporters. Harvey Weinstein is a rapist. He assaulted many women over a lot of years, and threatened to assault or ruin others.

But now, every time any man gets accused of any wrongdoing, defenders say "Look, he's not Harvey Weinstein, this is so much more minor." As thought that's the bar. Louis CK exposed himself and pleasured himself in front of young female comics on his tours, and when this came out, a bunch of people said, "oh is that all? Well at least he's not Harvey Weinstein."

I think Baldoni and Heath created a hostile work environment on the set of IEWU, and I think they smeared Lively in the press to discredit her so no one would find out about their weird, inappropriate behavior on the set. I don't think they are rapists and I don't think they've ever assaulted anyone. I don't think they belong in jail. I do think they should be held accountable for the on set behavior and the PR retaliation. It has nothing to do with Weinstein, IMO.

The accusations against Heath are absolutely ridiculous. She’s just lumping Heath and Sorowitz in so she can have more examples to support her allegation that SH was pervasive on the set. So she accuses Heath of looking her in the eye and showing her porn (but we know it was really a birthing video). She accuses Sorowitz of being on set during the birthing video (but we know he wasn’t there and it was a closed set).

No, I don't think so. If you read her complaint, she has many allegations against Heath. And the supposed allegations from Jenny Slate (unconfirmed) involved Heath, not JB. The birthing video, the discussions of porn and past sexual relationships on set, the discussion of whether or not she would be nude in the birth scene -- Heath is alleged to have been involved in all of these. Plus, yes, he is accused of entering her trailer when she was unclothed and not either leaving or looking away.

You can disagree with these allegations, but the idea that Heath is somehow tangentially related and she shoehorned him in is false. In her first complaint, Heath was centrally involved in many of the allegations and it's clear he was on set pretty much daily. So *if* there was SH going on, Heath either witnessed it, condoned it, or participated in it. It makes sense he's a central figure.

Sarowitz's alleged involvement is much more tangential.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people comparing Justin to Harvey Weinstein appear to be Justin supporters. Harvey Weinstein is a rapist. He assaulted many women over a lot of years, and threatened to assault or ruin others.

But now, every time any man gets accused of any wrongdoing, defenders say "Look, he's not Harvey Weinstein, this is so much more minor." As thought that's the bar. Louis CK exposed himself and pleasured himself in front of young female comics on his tours, and when this came out, a bunch of people said, "oh is that all? Well at least he's not Harvey Weinstein."

I think Baldoni and Heath created a hostile work environment on the set of IEWU, and I think they smeared Lively in the press to discredit her so no one would find out about their weird, inappropriate behavior on the set. I don't think they are rapists and I don't think they've ever assaulted anyone. I don't think they belong in jail. I do think they should be held accountable for the on set behavior and the PR retaliation. It has nothing to do with Weinstein, IMO.

The accusations against Heath are absolutely ridiculous. She’s just lumping Heath and Sorowitz in so she can have more examples to support her allegation that SH was pervasive on the set. So she accuses Heath of looking her in the eye and showing her porn (but we know it was really a birthing video). She accuses Sorowitz of being on set during the birthing video (but we know he wasn’t there and it was a closed set).

No, I don't think so. If you read her complaint, she has many allegations against Heath. And the supposed allegations from Jenny Slate (unconfirmed) involved Heath, not JB. The birthing video, the discussions of porn and past sexual relationships on set, the discussion of whether or not she would be nude in the birth scene -- Heath is alleged to have been involved in all of these. Plus, yes, he is accused of entering her trailer when she was unclothed and not either leaving or looking away.

You can disagree with these allegations, but the idea that Heath is somehow tangentially related and she shoehorned him in is false. In her first complaint, Heath was centrally involved in many of the allegations and it's clear he was on set pretty much daily. So *if* there was SH going on, Heath either witnessed it, condoned it, or participated in it. It makes sense he's a central figure.

Sarowitz's alleged involvement is much more tangential.

As someone who thinks that Baldoni and Heath, at a minimum, were inappropriate on the set (even if it doesn't rise to the level of SH -- I have no idea), I think Heath is a really important character to what happened. Because it seems apparent that Baldoni was in over his head with the movie -- between directing, starring, and still being a pretty green director and not having a particularly assertive or decisive personality, I think he was flailing very early on.

Heath appears to have been his support system throughout the process. Heath is older (in his 50s) and sounds like he's had a bit more experience with producing. But I actually think Heath was also out of his depth, with the added problem of his age and belief system making him a bit out of touch in terms of how people outside Wayfarer would perceive the culture and some of their onset discussions and practices. Like I don't think it occurred to him that the actors coming on the set who aren't Bah'aí and aren't enmeshed of the culture of their company or podcast might find the hugging, touchy-feely atmosphere, and the "let's share about our sexual pasts" culture really off-putting.

I think if Baldoni had instead had a producer who wasn't so deep into Wayfarer/Bah'aí culture, they might have been able to translate a bit to the newcomers, explain to Baldoni and Heath why some of their behavior violated boundaries (like someone should have just pulled them aside and told them to NOT comment on childbirth, motherhood, etc., to these women -- that was never going to be received positively in that setting but they clearly didn't understand that).

Anyway, regardless of whether you think Baldoni/Heath are innocent or guilty, or somewhere in between (I kind of land in that gray area -- I think their behavior was unintentionally offensive, and might count as SH, but I don't think they are sexual predators or were trying to grab a$$ or anything), it does seem apparent that a huge part of the problem here was a culture clash. I think that should have been anticipated and that a savvier studio/producing team would have addressed it early on. But Wayfarer didn't even seem to get it was happening and just kept making it worse, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people comparing Justin to Harvey Weinstein appear to be Justin supporters. Harvey Weinstein is a rapist. He assaulted many women over a lot of years, and threatened to assault or ruin others.

But now, every time any man gets accused of any wrongdoing, defenders say "Look, he's not Harvey Weinstein, this is so much more minor." As thought that's the bar. Louis CK exposed himself and pleasured himself in front of young female comics on his tours, and when this came out, a bunch of people said, "oh is that all? Well at least he's not Harvey Weinstein."

I think Baldoni and Heath created a hostile work environment on the set of IEWU, and I think they smeared Lively in the press to discredit her so no one would find out about their weird, inappropriate behavior on the set. I don't think they are rapists and I don't think they've ever assaulted anyone. I don't think they belong in jail. I do think they should be held accountable for the on set behavior and the PR retaliation. It has nothing to do with Weinstein, IMO.

The accusations against Heath are absolutely ridiculous. She’s just lumping Heath and Sorowitz in so she can have more examples to support her allegation that SH was pervasive on the set. So she accuses Heath of looking her in the eye and showing her porn (but we know it was really a birthing video). She accuses Sorowitz of being on set during the birthing video (but we know he wasn’t there and it was a closed set).

No, I don't think so. If you read her complaint, she has many allegations against Heath. And the supposed allegations from Jenny Slate (unconfirmed) involved Heath, not JB. The birthing video, the discussions of porn and past sexual relationships on set, the discussion of whether or not she would be nude in the birth scene -- Heath is alleged to have been involved in all of these. Plus, yes, he is accused of entering her trailer when she was unclothed and not either leaving or looking away.

You can disagree with these allegations, but the idea that Heath is somehow tangentially related and she shoehorned him in is false. In her first complaint, Heath was centrally involved in many of the allegations and it's clear he was on set pretty much daily. So *if* there was SH going on, Heath either witnessed it, condoned it, or participated in it. It makes sense he's a central figure.

Sarowitz's alleged involvement is much more tangential.

I think you’re conflating things and taking some of BL’s lies as truth. She invited Heath in, he didn’t barge in. She was having body makeup removed and told him to look at the wall while speaking to her (how demeaning) then accused him of looking her in the eye. There are witnesses for this. The Jenny Slate stuff is pure speculation in the press and is not in BL’s complaint, but it sounds like Heath was actually just helping her get a better apartment (no good dead goes unpunished with these people). The porn addiction stuff was from JB’s book, and sounds like BL brought it up first. BL said I don’t want the scene (I don’t remember which scene) to look like porn and she mentioned she’d never seen porn. JB said oh that’s great b/c porn is such a problem in society and I’m guessing then he told her how he wrote about porn being a problem in society in his book (but that was JB not Heath). The porn allegations against Heath are all about the birthing video.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people comparing Justin to Harvey Weinstein appear to be Justin supporters. Harvey Weinstein is a rapist. He assaulted many women over a lot of years, and threatened to assault or ruin others.

But now, every time any man gets accused of any wrongdoing, defenders say "Look, he's not Harvey Weinstein, this is so much more minor." As thought that's the bar. Louis CK exposed himself and pleasured himself in front of young female comics on his tours, and when this came out, a bunch of people said, "oh is that all? Well at least he's not Harvey Weinstein."

I think Baldoni and Heath created a hostile work environment on the set of IEWU, and I think they smeared Lively in the press to discredit her so no one would find out about their weird, inappropriate behavior on the set. I don't think they are rapists and I don't think they've ever assaulted anyone. I don't think they belong in jail. I do think they should be held accountable for the on set behavior and the PR retaliation. It has nothing to do with Weinstein, IMO.

The accusations against Heath are absolutely ridiculous. She’s just lumping Heath and Sorowitz in so she can have more examples to support her allegation that SH was pervasive on the set. So she accuses Heath of looking her in the eye and showing her porn (but we know it was really a birthing video). She accuses Sorowitz of being on set during the birthing video (but we know he wasn’t there and it was a closed set).

No, I don't think so. If you read her complaint, she has many allegations against Heath. And the supposed allegations from Jenny Slate (unconfirmed) involved Heath, not JB. The birthing video, the discussions of porn and past sexual relationships on set, the discussion of whether or not she would be nude in the birth scene -- Heath is alleged to have been involved in all of these. Plus, yes, he is accused of entering her trailer when she was unclothed and not either leaving or looking away.

You can disagree with these allegations, but the idea that Heath is somehow tangentially related and she shoehorned him in is false. In her first complaint, Heath was centrally involved in many of the allegations and it's clear he was on set pretty much daily. So *if* there was SH going on, Heath either witnessed it, condoned it, or participated in it. It makes sense he's a central figure.

Sarowitz's alleged involvement is much more tangential.

As someone who thinks that Baldoni and Heath, at a minimum, were inappropriate on the set (even if it doesn't rise to the level of SH -- I have no idea), I think Heath is a really important character to what happened. Because it seems apparent that Baldoni was in over his head with the movie -- between directing, starring, and still being a pretty green director and not having a particularly assertive or decisive personality, I think he was flailing very early on.

Heath appears to have been his support system throughout the process. Heath is older (in his 50s) and sounds like he's had a bit more experience with producing. But I actually think Heath was also out of his depth, with the added problem of his age and belief system making him a bit out of touch in terms of how people outside Wayfarer would perceive the culture and some of their onset discussions and practices. Like I don't think it occurred to him that the actors coming on the set who aren't Bah'aí and aren't enmeshed of the culture of their company or podcast might find the hugging, touchy-feely atmosphere, and the "let's share about our sexual pasts" culture really off-putting.

I think if Baldoni had instead had a producer who wasn't so deep into Wayfarer/Bah'aí culture, they might have been able to translate a bit to the newcomers, explain to Baldoni and Heath why some of their behavior violated boundaries (like someone should have just pulled them aside and told them to NOT comment on childbirth, motherhood, etc., to these women -- that was never going to be received positively in that setting but they clearly didn't understand that).

Anyway, regardless of whether you think Baldoni/Heath are innocent or guilty, or somewhere in between (I kind of land in that gray area -- I think their behavior was unintentionally offensive, and might count as SH, but I don't think they are sexual predators or were trying to grab a$$ or anything), it does seem apparent that a huge part of the problem here was a culture clash. I think that should have been anticipated and that a savvier studio/producing team would have addressed it early on. But Wayfarer didn't even seem to get it was happening and just kept making it worse, IMO.

I don’t disagree that perhaps some of the things Baldoni did made BL uncomfortable but I think the discomfort went both ways and was only weaponized by one party. I don’t like this case because it sets the bar for harassment extremely low such that anyone could be sued for almost any reason. I’m fine with the 17 pt complaint b/c the appropriate thing to do when you’re uncomfortable is to let people know and ask for a change. It sounds like those changes were made and everyone moved on. That’s how the system is supposed to work and would actually be an HR success story. My problem is with everything that happened after that. With BL using SH to gain power over the movie she wasn’t contractually entitled to, sidelining the director, cutting her director and costar from the promotion and premiere. This is what needs to be explained in court imo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people comparing Justin to Harvey Weinstein appear to be Justin supporters. Harvey Weinstein is a rapist. He assaulted many women over a lot of years, and threatened to assault or ruin others.

But now, every time any man gets accused of any wrongdoing, defenders say "Look, he's not Harvey Weinstein, this is so much more minor." As thought that's the bar. Louis CK exposed himself and pleasured himself in front of young female comics on his tours, and when this came out, a bunch of people said, "oh is that all? Well at least he's not Harvey Weinstein."

I think Baldoni and Heath created a hostile work environment on the set of IEWU, and I think they smeared Lively in the press to discredit her so no one would find out about their weird, inappropriate behavior on the set. I don't think they are rapists and I don't think they've ever assaulted anyone. I don't think they belong in jail. I do think they should be held accountable for the on set behavior and the PR retaliation. It has nothing to do with Weinstein, IMO.

The accusations against Heath are absolutely ridiculous. She’s just lumping Heath and Sorowitz in so she can have more examples to support her allegation that SH was pervasive on the set. So she accuses Heath of looking her in the eye and showing her porn (but we know it was really a birthing video). She accuses Sorowitz of being on set during the birthing video (but we know he wasn’t there and it was a closed set).

I would think that if you’re upset about Reynolds’ predator statement, though it was made protectively of his actual spouse, you would also be upset about Sarowitz’s statement that he was going to “protect the studio like Israel protected itself from Hamas. There were 39,000 dead bodies. There will be two dead bodies when I’m done. Minimum. Not dead, but you’re dead to me. So that kind of dead. But dead to a lot of people.” Or his earlier August 6 statement that he was prepared to “spend $100 million to ruin the lives of”Lively and her family. Isn’t that sort of dead body/ruin your life threat bad to you? Guessing not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people comparing Justin to Harvey Weinstein appear to be Justin supporters. Harvey Weinstein is a rapist. He assaulted many women over a lot of years, and threatened to assault or ruin others.

But now, every time any man gets accused of any wrongdoing, defenders say "Look, he's not Harvey Weinstein, this is so much more minor." As thought that's the bar. Louis CK exposed himself and pleasured himself in front of young female comics on his tours, and when this came out, a bunch of people said, "oh is that all? Well at least he's not Harvey Weinstein."

I think Baldoni and Heath created a hostile work environment on the set of IEWU, and I think they smeared Lively in the press to discredit her so no one would find out about their weird, inappropriate behavior on the set. I don't think they are rapists and I don't think they've ever assaulted anyone. I don't think they belong in jail. I do think they should be held accountable for the on set behavior and the PR retaliation. It has nothing to do with Weinstein, IMO.

The accusations against Heath are absolutely ridiculous. She’s just lumping Heath and Sorowitz in so she can have more examples to support her allegation that SH was pervasive on the set. So she accuses Heath of looking her in the eye and showing her porn (but we know it was really a birthing video). She accuses Sorowitz of being on set during the birthing video (but we know he wasn’t there and it was a closed set).

I would think that if you’re upset about Reynolds’ predator statement, though it was made protectively of his actual spouse, you would also be upset about Sarowitz’s statement that he was going to “protect the studio like Israel protected itself from Hamas. There were 39,000 dead bodies. There will be two dead bodies when I’m done. Minimum. Not dead, but you’re dead to me. So that kind of dead. But dead to a lot of people.” Or his earlier August 6 statement that he was prepared to “spend $100 million to ruin the lives of”Lively and her family. Isn’t that sort of dead body/ruin your life threat bad to you? Guessing not.

I believe he’s denying this was said, so we’ll see in discovery. I truly believe BL included these allegations for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to flip the power narrative. Everyone sees BL and RR as these powerful, extremely wealthy megastars, so they want people to know that JB has a billionaire on his team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people comparing Justin to Harvey Weinstein appear to be Justin supporters. Harvey Weinstein is a rapist. He assaulted many women over a lot of years, and threatened to assault or ruin others.

But now, every time any man gets accused of any wrongdoing, defenders say "Look, he's not Harvey Weinstein, this is so much more minor." As thought that's the bar. Louis CK exposed himself and pleasured himself in front of young female comics on his tours, and when this came out, a bunch of people said, "oh is that all? Well at least he's not Harvey Weinstein."

I think Baldoni and Heath created a hostile work environment on the set of IEWU, and I think they smeared Lively in the press to discredit her so no one would find out about their weird, inappropriate behavior on the set. I don't think they are rapists and I don't think they've ever assaulted anyone. I don't think they belong in jail. I do think they should be held accountable for the on set behavior and the PR retaliation. It has nothing to do with Weinstein, IMO.

The accusations against Heath are absolutely ridiculous. She’s just lumping Heath and Sorowitz in so she can have more examples to support her allegation that SH was pervasive on the set. So she accuses Heath of looking her in the eye and showing her porn (but we know it was really a birthing video). She accuses Sorowitz of being on set during the birthing video (but we know he wasn’t there and it was a closed set).

I would think that if you’re upset about Reynolds’ predator statement, though it was made protectively of his actual spouse, you would also be upset about Sarowitz’s statement that he was going to “protect the studio like Israel protected itself from Hamas. There were 39,000 dead bodies. There will be two dead bodies when I’m done. Minimum. Not dead, but you’re dead to me. So that kind of dead. But dead to a lot of people.” Or his earlier August 6 statement that he was prepared to “spend $100 million to ruin the lives of”Lively and her family. Isn’t that sort of dead body/ruin your life threat bad to you? Guessing not.

I believe he’s denying this was said, so we’ll see in discovery. I truly believe BL included these allegations for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to flip the power narrative. Everyone sees BL and RR as these powerful, extremely wealthy megastars, so they want people to know that JB has a billionaire on his team.

Seems like if he’s denying he said it he would make it part of the defamation suit, which he has not. It’s a long statement very exactly laid out and my guess is Lively (or more specifically the person he said it to) has him saying it on tape or something.

[Anonymous]

The internet sleuths found another video. This time it’s Blake, Anna Kendrick, and Paul Feig talking about a Simple Favor 1. Apparently Blake thought a scene would play better if she grabbed her male costar’s groin. This wasn’t in the script but was added by Lively. To be fair, they don’t say she improvised (she may have gotten his consent) but it wasn’t in the script and wasn’t added by the director, but by Blake. I imagine if she got consent from her costar, there was a creative discussion, not unlike the one surrounding the birth scene. But when JB does it, it’s harassment. Blake and Ryans old interviews are the gifts that keep on giving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people comparing Justin to Harvey Weinstein appear to be Justin supporters. Harvey Weinstein is a rapist. He assaulted many women over a lot of years, and threatened to assault or ruin others.

But now, every time any man gets accused of any wrongdoing, defenders say "Look, he's not Harvey Weinstein, this is so much more minor." As thought that's the bar. Louis CK exposed himself and pleasured himself in front of young female comics on his tours, and when this came out, a bunch of people said, "oh is that all? Well at least he's not Harvey Weinstein."

I think Baldoni and Heath created a hostile work environment on the set of IEWU, and I think they smeared Lively in the press to discredit her so no one would find out about their weird, inappropriate behavior on the set. I don't think they are rapists and I don't think they've ever assaulted anyone. I don't think they belong in jail. I do think they should be held accountable for the on set behavior and the PR retaliation. It has nothing to do with Weinstein, IMO.

Nobody is leading with, “he’s not Harvey Weinstein.” That comes after people make the comparison, and people are forced to say, nope, not even a little bit.

Please point to anyone, on this thread or elsewhere, claiming that Baldoni is like Harvey Weinstein. I haven't seen it. I have seen many JB-supporters bring it up as a straw man, as in "Blake's acting like Justin is like Harvey Weinstein, and that's not fair." But I've never seen Blake, her lawyers, or anyone who supports her make the comparison.

Weinstein, Epstein, Cosby, these are the people who come to mind when you label someone a predator. You don’t think of someone who asked about someone’s weight. RR has repeatedly called JB a predator. They have used minor infractions to take control of his movie and get him fired. Predator is a very strong word, as Ryan’s own lawyer has argued in representing his other client Drake, who claims he was defamed by Kendrick Lamar. The word predator carries a lot of weight and is extremely damaging. It does not fit Justin Baldoni.

I truly have no problem differentiating between someone who has done what Baldoni is accused of, and Weinstein, Cosby, Epstein.

At no point in this process have I thought, wow Baldoni is the next rapist/child rapist/serial rapist. I have always viewed it as a workplace SH situation, which is a totally different category, and to me much more about fairness than exploitation.

The only person who labeled him a "predator" was, allegedly, Reynolds. I agree it's unhelpful hyperbole. But I also think people tend towards hyperbole when they are very upset and feeling protective of a family member. Reynold's use if the word dies not appear to have been taken seriously (perhaps specifically because it was obviously hyperbole) -- Baldoni didn't lose his agent or agency after Reynolds called him that. In fact, that language probably made people take the accusations of ess seriously because nothing Baldoni was accused if was predatory, except maaaaaybe in the sense that his "male feminist" schtick is misleading.

But that doesn't mean he's not guilty if SH and retaliation. If other people have trouble differentiating between SH and the serious crimes of SA, child exploitation, drugging/kidnapping women, then I suggest those people spend some time reading up on these issues and getting it straight in their head.

But, to analogize, you can engage in workplace racial discrimination without belonging to the Klan or ever committing an act of violence against a POC. Well, you can also SH without being a predator.

Agree they are different but that’s what Reynolds has called him, both privately and publicly. BL has repeatedly called herself a victim and invoked me too laws, which again Weinstein was really the face of that. They’ve implied these comparisons. Not everyone is going to bother to read the details, especially in 20 years when no one even remembers the details. They’ll just remember he was a “predator” accused of me too. BF will challenge all of that in court of course. He’ll point out how frivolous the SH claims were and that some were outright lies. He’ll point out how defamatory the accusations have been. But truly a lot of damage has been done and can never be undone even if JB prevails. BL now says she wishes people would just wait for all the facts to come out, but she didn’t feel that way in December when she was pushing her narrative in the NYT and everyone was coming to her defense. She only feels that way now b/c JB is fighting back.

Reynolds didn't call Baldoni a predator publicly. He allegedly used the term in two private conversations. And that may be actionable for Baldoni! I don't criticize Baldoni for arguing that was defamatory. But Reynolds didn't come out and call Baldoni a predator in the press or in large groups of people. Whereas Baldoni's legal team has repeatedly called Lively a liar in the press.

And I disagree that people get written off forever for this stuff or that people are too dumb to tell the difference between what Baldoni is accused of and what Epstein did. Aziz Ansari was accused of a fairly mild incident of maybe applying more pressure in a sexual date situation than was appropriate, and no one thinks he's akin to Weinstein. He's working and has toured and people seem to generally think he is an okay dude who either did nothing wrong or just made a minor mistake. The aforementioned Louis CK continues to tour and has a lot of internal industry support -- I personally won't watch his stuff anymore because I think what he did *was* predatory and he hasn't shown any real remorse or even understanding of why what he did was wrong. But others have forgiven him or never really cared. James Franco has multiple credible allegations against him and he still works and a lot of people don't even care. And so on. The worse and more credibly the allegation, the more it sticks. But Baldoni is being accused of something much more mild, plus even among those of us who think he's probably guilty, I am open to the idea that this was a cultural misunderstanding, that Wayfarer has a somewhat insular culture with shared religious belief systems and that when you tried to shift that do a mainstream movie with lots of non-Bah'aí participants, it caused problems. I don't necessarily think Baldoni is a terrible human being. I do think he lacks self-awareness and has some personality issues that resulted in him abusing his role as director/producer on this movie in inappropriate ways.

I personally think the most damaging things that have happened for Baldoni and Wayfarer were (1) the decision to go hard negative against Lively, and Reynolds and her friends like Taylor, to try and protect themselves, (2) the people they've chosen to surround themselves with in order to protect themselves, specifically Melissa Nathan, Bryan Freedman, and media proxies like Perez Hilton and Megyn Kelly -- these people have all trafficked heavily in misogynist stereotypes to discredit Lively, which I think is gross even if her allegations dont' wind up amounting to SH, (3) their decision before this all happened to brand themselves as male feminists and "allies" which in retrospect really looks like a cynical branding ploy and not particularly genuine. I think a lot of us are much more annoyed by the hypocrisy of some the stuff they've been accused of. Making money off of being an ally to women and then telling an actress who has given birth four times that she should be nude in a birth scene because it's not "normal" for her to wear a hospital gown? Sorry, but yuck. Whereas if they had not branded themselves as allies, I might look at that incident and see him as tone-deaf and incorrect, but not necessarily bad intentioned. Sometimes men have dumb ideas about how childbirth works.

The TL;DR (sorry for the lengthy response): most people don't struggle to put these allegations in perspective and there's really no history of people accused of similar things of being written off forever or never being given a chance to rehabilitate. Plus I think Baldoni/Wayfarer have done some stuff to make it worse for themselves when some humility and self-awareness might have made this all blow over a lot faster.

It makes no sense to say Reynolds didn’t call him a predator privately. Do you not understand this whole thing is public relations? I didn’t find out he called Baldoni a predator because Reynolds told me, just like back in August I didn’t hear about fat shaming rumors cause Blake blasted it out on her social media. They wanted to get the word out and they did.

Guess what? If it’s public information, they called him a predator publicly. They weren’t trying to keep it a secret. They wanted everybody to know and now we do.

The problem is, because they have a history of lies and manipulation, few people believe them, and they just look like idiots who blew up their careers.

[Anonymous]

The Heath allegations are continuing to be problematic. Im seeing commentary that Blake just did the typical rich southern white lady who thinks everything the Black man does is sexual.

Add that to the alleged complaint from slate that was not sexual in nature (sounds like he over shared or made her feel uncomfortable about motherhood and maybe he was preaching or something) and it seems to get messy. In Courtney, we may hear more details about the complaint but again it’s gonna be over a year of assuming and I’ve not heard anything other than he talked about motherhood and gave her $15,000 which is not going over well with the public.

I think to the PP’s point above they had to add heath in because they knew about the slate complaint and they wanted to add a few more incidents to the list because it seemed pretty sparse, but ultimately I think it’s going to backfire.

[Anonymous]

From the legal perspective (I understand that people are discussing a broader context), for purposes of defamation a "publication" of a statement can mean saying it to only one person, so it doesn't matter in that sense whether it was public or private, especially since the claim is that Reynolds said this to WME and directly caused damages by getting Baldoni dropped. OTOH, Reynolds' attorneys had some case law that specifically states calling someone a sexual predator isn't defamatory (which surprised me and I'm interested to see the response there from Freedman) and some pretty good arguments on lack of actual malice. But I get that people are talking more PR, which is fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Heath allegations are continuing to be problematic. Im seeing commentary that Blake just did the typical rich southern white lady who thinks everything the Black man does is sexual.

That is very unfair, because she also makes complaints about being uncomfortable with Baldoni and the OBGYN guy, who has a Jewish name. She pretty clearly articulates the issues with Heath are that he said he wouldn't turn around and face her while she was undressed but then he did, and that he should her an unwanted video of his wife. Those might be a stretch, but no more so than what she says about Baldoni, and there is no reason to make it a race thing. I'm 100% sure that if Baldoni or Sarowitz or the OBGYN actor had turned around and looked at her while she was breastfeeding or having makeup removed, she also would have complained.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the legal perspective (I understand that people are discussing a broader context), for purposes of defamation a "publication" of a statement can mean saying it to only one person, so it doesn't matter in that sense whether it was public or private, especially since the claim is that Reynolds said this to WME and directly caused damages by getting Baldoni dropped. OTOH, Reynolds' attorneys had some case law that specifically states calling someone a sexual predator isn't defamatory (which surprised me and I'm interested to see the response there from Freedman) and some pretty good arguments on lack of actual malice. But I get that people are talking more PR, which is fine.

Dp. I’m not up on the details. Who are RR lawyers? Is it Boies?

I find that claim that sexual predator is not defamatory hard to believe. I assume the case was a very specific and unique set of facts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the legal perspective (I understand that people are discussing a broader context), for purposes of defamation a "publication" of a statement can mean saying it to only one person, so it doesn't matter in that sense whether it was public or private, especially since the claim is that Reynolds said this to WME and directly caused damages by getting Baldoni dropped. OTOH, Reynolds' attorneys had some case law that specifically states calling someone a sexual predator isn't defamatory (which surprised me and I'm interested to see the response there from Freedman) and some pretty good arguments on lack of actual malice. But I get that people are talking more PR, which is fine.

Dp. I’m not up on the details. Who are RR lawyers? Is it Boies?

I find that claim that sexual predator is not defamatory hard to believe. I assume the case was a very specific and unique set of facts

Here's Ryan's MTD, the discussion begins on pg 17 but I'm sorry, it appears I misremembered... now I see the caselaw mentions "predator" but I don't see one that specifically says "sexual predator," so maybe Freedman can distinguish there.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304.133.0_1.pdf