Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Again let’s continue to ignore the person trying to bait others. You know, the one who serially posts.

[Anonymous]

I just saw that Blake vs Justin is a show streaming on Hulu. Crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is not misogynistic to call someone who has been caught lying a liar.

This. Essential and unavoidably true.

[Anonymous]

I'm a DP than the PP who posted about reporting posts and I agree with them, so carry on being wrong.

[Anonymous]

Interesting that the language police arrive the same day as Blake having a bad day at Court. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:JB engaged a crisis management team in order to protect his reputation from the rumors and gossip being promoted by three public refusal of BL and cast to work with JB. This was most publicized by BL shutting him away from the cast at the premier. It was not a result of any claim made by BL in regards to the workplace

But will a court see it that way? Did his team just seek to protect Baldoni's rep or did it explicitly seek to destroy Lively's?

“Will a court see it that way” is not a synonym with establishing a fact pattern. Do better, okay?

What are you talking about? It's a valid question. I'm not trying to "establish a fact pattern." I'm trying to have a conversation about this case, which I think is interesting. Sorry if you thought this was a Justin Baldoni fan club website? I don't actually care about any of these people.

If Baldoni's team hired Jed Wallace and Jed Wallace employed bots to post on popular sites and stir up negative sentiment about Lively, and they did, would that be viewed as retaliation? I'm genuinely asking because it seems like that's kind of the crux of her retaliation case.

The whole basis of the retaliation is that JB’s actions were the result of BL’s sexual harassment complaints. If that wasn’t what happened there’s not a retaliation case.

I don't think that's actually true.

On the thread that got shut down, there were some very interesting (and I think unbiased) comments from people who are well versed in employment law talking about how in a case like this, the harassment part can be weak and the employer can still get hit on the retaliation claim. They were talking about how that's why employers are advised to be extremely careful with dismissing employees who have raised harassment accusations and have to treat former employees like this with kid gloves (don't bad mouth them to other employers, etc.) because you can lose a retaliation claim even if the harassment allegations are thin.

I'm not an employment lawyer so I'm probably butchering this but it was an extensive conversation about this aspect of her complaint and was very interesting. That's why the discussion of Jed Wallace is so critical, I think. I believe that was the first deposition Lively's team sought, even before deposing Baldoni or Heath or the PR folks. I think they know that if they can prove Baldoni employed Wallace and Wallace actually did work for him, it would be incredibly helpful to their case.

You’re not understanding - the retaliation that BL is claiming is a result of her reporting sexual harassment and a negative work environment on the set. JB bent over backwards to apologize and attempt to make her comfortable after that. It wasn’t until that BL started publicly taking actions meant to cause harm to JB’s reputation that he consulted or crisis management.

[Anonymous]

The speed at which many people have reversed course after the Blake Lively complaint was released and are re-siding with Justin is honestly a little surprising to me. Like they're actually going through Justin's long-ass document and believing him.

I find all of Justin's rebuttals credible, but I wonder if it goes to show that many people really do not like Blake and were waiting just waiting to turn on her once they got some receipts. This is why the effort to restore her reputation baffles me -- they're willing to go through hell with this lawsuit, but they don't offer any sort of counter-PR campaign to actually make her look good?

Why don't they circulate stories about how nice she is? There have to be people out there who had good experiences with her (I remember in her early GG days, there were, so I do not believe Blake is a sociopath). Why didn't they have her apologize to that Norwegian journalist? It's just shocking and shows a total lack of humility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JB engaged a crisis management team in order to protect his reputation from the rumors and gossip being promoted by three public refusal of BL and cast to work with JB. This was most publicized by BL shutting him away from the cast at the premier. It was not a result of any claim made by BL in regards to the workplace

But will a court see it that way? Did his team just seek to protect Baldoni's rep or did it explicitly seek to destroy Lively's?

“Will a court see it that way” is not a synonym with establishing a fact pattern. Do better, okay?

What are you talking about? It's a valid question. I'm not trying to "establish a fact pattern." I'm trying to have a conversation about this case, which I think is interesting. Sorry if you thought this was a Justin Baldoni fan club website? I don't actually care about any of these people.

If Baldoni's team hired Jed Wallace and Jed Wallace employed bots to post on popular sites and stir up negative sentiment about Lively, and they did, would that be viewed as retaliation? I'm genuinely asking because it seems like that's kind of the crux of her retaliation case.

The whole basis of the retaliation is that JB’s actions were the result of BL’s sexual harassment complaints. If that wasn’t what happened there’s not a retaliation case.

I don't think that's actually true.

On the thread that got shut down, there were some very interesting (and I think unbiased) comments from people who are well versed in employment law talking about how in a case like this, the harassment part can be weak and the employer can still get hit on the retaliation claim. They were talking about how that's why employers are advised to be extremely careful with dismissing employees who have raised harassment accusations and have to treat former employees like this with kid gloves (don't bad mouth them to other employers, etc.) because you can lose a retaliation claim even if the harassment allegations are thin.

I'm not an employment lawyer so I'm probably butchering this but it was an extensive conversation about this aspect of her complaint and was very interesting. That's why the discussion of Jed Wallace is so critical, I think. I believe that was the first deposition Lively's team sought, even before deposing Baldoni or Heath or the PR folks. I think they know that if they can prove Baldoni employed Wallace and Wallace actually did work for him, it would be incredibly helpful to their case.

You’re not understanding - the retaliation that BL is claiming is a result of her reporting sexual harassment and a negative work environment on the set. JB bent over backwards to apologize and attempt to make her comfortable after that. It wasn’t until that BL started publicly taking actions meant to cause harm to JB’s reputation that he consulted or crisis management.

You should know that your use of JB/BL makes your posts very identifiable.

Anyway, I understand that is Baldoni's argument. But Lively's argument is that Baldoni signed a document agreeing to change certain things on set and also promising not to retaliate against her for her claims, and that he later hired crisis PR that engaged in efforts to smear Lively's name online, including hiring Jed Wallace who runs an astroturfing firm and later crediting "Jed and his team" with a lot of negative online content about Lively.

I don't actually know which narrative is correct, I was just writing about how I'm interested to see what comes of the Wallace deposition, as if he testifies that he was in fact hired by Baldoni and his PR team and did engage in astroturfing against Lively, this will strengthen Lively's retaliation claim. Because it's very hard for Baldoni to argue that he hired Wallace to astroturf negative content about Lively online simply to protect his own rep.

Maybe Wallace will testify that he never actually did any work for Baldoni's team, or he'll provide proof that he didn't astroturf against Blake but only seeded positive stories about Baldoni. That would back up Baldoni's claim and really undermine Lively's.

It will be interesting to see what he says. That's all I'm saying. I fully understand the underlying claims made by both sides. Do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The speed at which many people have reversed course after the Blake Lively complaint was released and are re-siding with Justin is honestly a little surprising to me. Like they're actually going through Justin's long-ass document and believing him.

I find all of Justin's rebuttals credible, but I wonder if it goes to show that many people really do not like Blake and were waiting just waiting to turn on her once they got some receipts. This is why the effort to restore her reputation baffles me -- they're willing to go through hell with this lawsuit, but they don't offer any sort of counter-PR campaign to actually make her look good?

Why don't they circulate stories about how nice she is? There have to be people out there who had good experiences with her (I remember in her early GG days, there were, so I do not believe Blake is a sociopath). Why didn't they have her apologize to that Norwegian journalist? It's just shocking and shows a total lack of humility.

I have also wondered why there is not more effort to get positive stories of Lively out there. I wonder if it's hard because it would look so transparent at this point? Maybe it makes more sense to just focus on the legal stuff because her reputation will rise or fall based on success there to some extent.

I say this as someone who is skeptical of both Lively's claims AND Justin's. I tend to think this is a case of a toxic relationship between two kind of screwed up people (the both seem very annoying in almost directly opposing ways, which I think is the source of the problem) and they've both decided to burn it all down instead of quietly settle out of court. It makes for good entertainment but I am not really convinced that either one of them is "right." Maybe one is "less wrong." We'll see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The speed at which many people have reversed course after the Blake Lively complaint was released and are re-siding with Justin is honestly a little surprising to me. Like they're actually going through Justin's long-ass document and believing him.

I find all of Justin's rebuttals credible, but I wonder if it goes to show that many people really do not like Blake and were waiting just waiting to turn on her once they got some receipts. This is why the effort to restore her reputation baffles me -- they're willing to go through hell with this lawsuit, but they don't offer any sort of counter-PR campaign to actually make her look good?

Why don't they circulate stories about how nice she is? There have to be people out there who had good experiences with her (I remember in her early GG days, there were, so I do not believe Blake is a sociopath). Why didn't they have her apologize to that Norwegian journalist? It's just shocking and shows a total lack of humility.

I have also wondered why there is not more effort to get positive stories of Lively out there. I wonder if it's hard because it would look so transparent at this point? Maybe it makes more sense to just focus on the legal stuff because her reputation will rise or fall based on success there to some extent.

I say this as someone who is skeptical of both Lively's claims AND Justin's. I tend to think this is a case of a toxic relationship between two kind of screwed up people (the both seem very annoying in almost directly opposing ways, which I think is the source of the problem) and they've both decided to burn it all down instead of quietly settle out of court. It makes for good entertainment but I am not really convinced that either one of them is "right." Maybe one is "less wrong." We'll see.

There has been plenty of pr stories to try and make her look good. They go under the radar because no one cares. Bake nor Ryan have ever never been a "tabloid fodder" by themselves. Think about it. It's Blake + met gala, or Blake + Taylor, or Ryan + Deadpool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The speed at which many people have reversed course after the Blake Lively complaint was released and are re-siding with Justin is honestly a little surprising to me. Like they're actually going through Justin's long-ass document and believing him.

I find all of Justin's rebuttals credible, but I wonder if it goes to show that many people really do not like Blake and were waiting just waiting to turn on her once they got some receipts. This is why the effort to restore her reputation baffles me -- they're willing to go through hell with this lawsuit, but they don't offer any sort of counter-PR campaign to actually make her look good?

Why don't they circulate stories about how nice she is? There have to be people out there who had good experiences with her (I remember in her early GG days, there were, so I do not believe Blake is a sociopath). Why didn't they have her apologize to that Norwegian journalist? It's just shocking and shows a total lack of humility.

I have also wondered why there is not more effort to get positive stories of Lively out there. I wonder if it's hard because it would look so transparent at this point? Maybe it makes more sense to just focus on the legal stuff because her reputation will rise or fall based on success there to some extent.

I say this as someone who is skeptical of both Lively's claims AND Justin's. I tend to think this is a case of a toxic relationship between two kind of screwed up people (the both seem very annoying in almost directly opposing ways, which I think is the source of the problem) and they've both decided to burn it all down instead of quietly settle out of court. It makes for good entertainment but I am not really convinced that either one of them is "right." Maybe one is "less wrong." We'll see.

There has been plenty of pr stories to try and make her look good. They go under the radar because no one cares. Bake nor Ryan have ever never been a "tabloid fodder" by themselves. Think about it. It's Blake + met gala, or Blake + Taylor, or Ryan + Deadpool.

point taken!

[Anonymous]

Bad day in court for Blake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The speed at which many people have reversed course after the Blake Lively complaint was released and are re-siding with Justin is honestly a little surprising to me. Like they're actually going through Justin's long-ass document and believing him.

I find all of Justin's rebuttals credible, but I wonder if it goes to show that many people really do not like Blake and were waiting just waiting to turn on her once they got some receipts. This is why the effort to restore her reputation baffles me -- they're willing to go through hell with this lawsuit, but they don't offer any sort of counter-PR campaign to actually make her look good?

Why don't they circulate stories about how nice she is? There have to be people out there who had good experiences with her (I remember in her early GG days, there were, so I do not believe Blake is a sociopath). Why didn't they have her apologize to that Norwegian journalist? It's just shocking and shows a total lack of humility.

I have also wondered why there is not more effort to get positive stories of Lively out there. I wonder if it's hard because it would look so transparent at this point? Maybe it makes more sense to just focus on the legal stuff because her reputation will rise or fall based on success there to some extent.

I say this as someone who is skeptical of both Lively's claims AND Justin's. I tend to think this is a case of a toxic relationship between two kind of screwed up people (the both seem very annoying in almost directly opposing ways, which I think is the source of the problem) and they've both decided to burn it all down instead of quietly settle out of court. It makes for good entertainment but I am not really convinced that either one of them is "right." Maybe one is "less wrong." We'll see.

There has been plenty of pr stories to try and make her look good. They go under the radar because no one cares. Bake nor Ryan have ever never been a "tabloid fodder" by themselves. Think about it. It's Blake + met gala, or Blake + Taylor, or Ryan + Deadpool.

Did you see Ryan’s fake pap walk last week? Hired fake fans and fake paparazzi. Hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Will Blake’s team get the protected order on the high profile witnesses granted?

In other words the conniver used her and hubby’s A-list friends to intimidate and bully Justin and the studio and now she wants to shield them from the fallout after Justin didn’t roll over? This is too funny.

Again this is a good example of how the rhetoric on this thread reminds me so much of the Amber Heard rhetoric. Why say "the conniver"? It's clear from the rest of the comment that you don't like Lively and are glad she lost the motion. I don't understand why the name calling is necessary. It makes it seem like some of you are just gleeful at the opportunity to call a woman names. Can you imagine a man called "the conniver"? This is very misogynist language. You can make your point without it.

I have the same problem with PP's language and other similar language in this thread. It's just so overblown into woman hating. Make your point rationally and calm down.

Is this a new crisis PR angle being floated?

Justin must have hired and/or inspired sexist MAGA influencers to smear Blake because…of her affiliation with Taylor Swift. Yeah, yeah, that’s it!

Very pathetic and desperate. Instead of blowing money on crisis PR maybe Blake and Ryan should ask their lawyers how to untangle this and walk it all back.

I am a DP and you sound crazy.

PP is correct that there's nothing wrong with posting that you don't believe Lively or agree with Baldoni or whatever, but when the people saying that also use this extremely charged, often misogynist language, it destroys the tenor of the conversation on here and totally undermines whatever valid point you might be making.

Like whenever I look at this thread I find myself feeling stressed because of the intensity of some of the posting and how angry it is and the name calling and rudeness (of Lively/Reynolds but also of other posters, even when they aren't even posting anything sympathetic to Lively, it's so weird).

Similarly, earlier today I clicked a link for a Perez Hilton video about this whole thing and it had the exact same vibe -- just extremely nasty and rude in this aggressive way that is very unpleasant. I was actually interested in the subject he was talking about (about Lively getting people fired on the set) but I turned it off because I can't listen to someone talk like that.

The thread isn't always like that but it's especially bad today -- I can't tell if it's one or two posters doing it but I really dislike it and wish you would stop. You don't have to be antagonistic. You can just disagree and focus on the content of the disagreement, instead of content nasty language and personal attacks.

Harsh language on a thread = super bad and causes intense stress.

Ruthlessly and methodically trying to destroy an innocent man’s life for sport, power and profit = kosher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bad day in court for Blake.

Eh, sounds like a mixed bag. The protective order was always a reach -- those are rarely granted. The judge told attorneys on both sides not to try and litigate the case in the media and also threatened that if the parties try to just go at each other in the press, he could move up the court date. It's pretty much what I would have expected going in. Gag orders are very rare, especially in a civil case -- it's not like this is a mob case or something.

I am not sure anyone really thought they were going to get the protective order anyway but that's how motions practice works -- you file for the protective order so you can get the arguments against Baldoni's lawyer into the record. It gives Lively's lawyer a chance to stand up and say to the judge "oh you know this guy has been going after her character in the press." It dovetails with their narrative about Baldoni trying to smear her in the press. It also gets Baldoni's lawyer in the courtroom making his arguments which helps them preview his style and see what he does that plays with the judge or doesn't. It's a way to get the parties (well the lawyers -- Lively and Baldoni weren't there) in a room together with the judge to take a temperature. And that might help them with figuring out what tone or slant to take with the amended complaint.

Sure it would have been better if the order had been granted but I would actually assume they got most of what they hoped for out of it. The protective order is immaterial to the case itself. It's not like it was a motion to admit or bar certain evidence, or compel testimony, or an MSJ or anything.