Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This situation reminds me of the "Bad Art Friend" story by Robert Kolker in the NYT a few years ago.

One side is a neophyte and less talented person swimming in a pond with successful professionals. They are weird, cringe worthy and have inflated egos about their purpose in life.

The more successful people see them as losers yet use them for their own interests. They are pompous and arrogant and seem to hold the upper hand in the dispute. A not small part of this is because their opponent is in no way any kind of threat, not having their professional or social standing.

The more successful people involve their nasty friends in a takedown at some point and everything they wrote cones out in evidence. They look like a!sholes. They think that because the cringy person is a loser that they won't fight back. But they do and all it does is tarnish the more successful people's reputations.

You never know who is going to acquiesce or fight back. I think Baldoni is a weirdo but I think ultimately Lively and Reynolds come off worse.

I think it's really different. Justin isn't a "neophyte". He was on a hit TV show. Also his friends are both powerful and, IMO, nasty. Sarowitz is a billionaire who threatened Blake on multiple occasions. Melissa Nathan is a known bottom dweller known for helping such swell, upstanding people as Johnny Depp and the Alexander brothers. Jed Wallace is a shady creep.

Blake and Ryan are definitely powerful, and yes they used their connections in this battle. But I think portraying Justin as some newbie who got swallowed up by a machine when some big and powerful giant stomped on him is incorrect. He had and continues to have plenty of power and friends, as well as lots of money and other resources. This is very, very different from Bad Art Friend where one woman was a more successful writer with friends who were on bestseller lists, and the other woman was a total nobody who'd paid to participate in some workshops with the more successful one. Also, that story involved flat out IP theft. The more successful writer lifted a letter the less successful writer had posted on a private Facebook group and included it as her own work in a short story she published and was celebrated for. There's really no comparable situation here. I know Justin accuses Blake of "stealing" the movie, but he still owns it (it actually made him a lot of money). Movies are collaborative art and there was a power struggle on the set of this movie. But it's functionally very different than one writer taking another writer's words and passing them off as her own.

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Anonymous wrote:The New York mag / Vulture has a new long piece on this case. I haven’t read it yet, but here’s a link to an archive (paywall workaround)

https://archive.ph/pQDab

https://www.vulture.com/article/justin-baldoni-blake-lively-hollywood-feud-taylor-swift-ryan-reynolds.html

Thank you for the article and the gift link. This kind of got buried amid the discussion but it was a pretty good read. I liked that it started from when they met, not with the lawsuit, and it's pretty fair.

Reading this is so embarrassing for these people. All of them behave like petty mean middle school girls, including Blake, Taylor, Ryan, Matt Damon's wife Lucy, etc. Justin is annoying, but at least he seems like a decent human being.

And although there is some balance, this still feels like the writing tips towards being biased towards Blake. Ryan and Blake made a whole character openly mocking and humiliating Justin to the entire world, and they have the nerve to act offended that Justin inquired about her weight and other dumb misunderstandings. They are AWFUL people.

Nobody knew Nicepool was based on Justin until Justin tried to sue Ryan and Marvel for basing Nicepool on Justin. No one noticed or cared about it at the time. Had Justin not gone after Blake with TAG and Jed Wallace, and thus this lawsuit never happened, no one would associate that with him at all.

Lily Allen literally wrote an entire album that is explicitly based on David Harbor cheating on her in their relationship. She even wears a dress on stage when performing one of the songs that is printed with images of Berdorf receipts she found that revealed Harbor's cheating to her. She is explicit and accusatory about the entire situation, and EVERYONE knows who she is talking about. And yet David Harbor appears to be less personally injured by this situation than Justin was over a character no one even associated with him until he pointed it out. And guess what? It is affecting Harbor's career less as a result. And David Harbor is an addict with mental health issues who apparently treated his ex-wife horribly (his ex-wife is also crazy but then again, he married her). Yet he is more mature and capable of moving on from a public slight than Justin Baldoni. That's really sad.

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Anonymous wrote:Freedman has been disciplined lately… didn’t judge Liman scold him for his past antics? I don’t think Friedman not making a big deal of this means it’s not a thing. The trial is in two weeks.

Oh I thought that ruling was a big win for Freedman and that a court sanction without money damages wasn't actually "disciplining" Freedman. At least that's what I was told by Baldoni supporters at the time. You'd think Freedman would be emboldened after that.

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m not following this case as closely as others. I just think it’s a stretch to say that because BF is not publicly celebrating it means it’s not a thing? The trial is in two weeks so that just seems a strange take.

The fact that there’s a trial at all means Blake already lost. I can’t imagine any scenario that gets her more work.

This is such an interesting take? Can you elaborate? It isn't intuitive to me based on what I know about lawsuits.

Is it an interesting take? I don’t think celebrities who are trying to sell aspirational brands like hair products and star in movies want to have two years worth of headlines about a major court case, but I’m certainly not an expert.

People would have moved on from this in August 2024. Her reputation had taken a major hit, but it would’ve died down. Yet here we are two years later and it still constant headlines and we are two weeks away from the trial talking about how she wanted to destroy dailies, reading documents she wanted to be sealed, and reading reports about how poorly all her brands are doing and how companies are spooked. I don’t think these are conversations Blake wants about her but again, I’m not an expert.

Would love to hear your take on why this is maybe a good thing for Blake? I just don’t think they ever thought it would get this far and I certainly don’t think they wanted a trial.

Normally when someone files a law suit and it survives pretrial challenges to go to trial, that is not considered "losing".

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Freedman has been disciplined lately… didn’t judge Liman scold him for his past antics? I don’t think Friedman not making a big deal of this means it’s not a thing. The trial is in two weeks.

Oh I thought that ruling was a big win for Freedman and that a court sanction without money damages wasn't actually "disciplining" Freedman. At least that's what I was told by Baldoni supporters at the time. You'd think Freedman would be emboldened after that.

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m not following this case as closely as others. I just think it’s a stretch to say that because BF is not publicly celebrating it means it’s not a thing? The trial is in two weeks so that just seems a strange take.

The fact that there’s a trial at all means Blake already lost. I can’t imagine any scenario that gets her more work.

This is such an interesting take? Can you elaborate? It isn't intuitive to me based on what I know about lawsuits.

Is it an interesting take? I don’t think celebrities who are trying to sell aspirational brands like hair products and star in movies want to have two years worth of headlines about a major court case, but I’m certainly not an expert.

People would have moved on from this in August 2024. Her reputation had taken a major hit, but it would’ve died down. Yet here we are two years later and it still constant headlines and we are two weeks away from the trial talking about how she wanted to destroy dailies, reading documents she wanted to be sealed, and reading reports about how poorly all her brands are doing and how companies are spooked. I don’t think these are conversations Blake wants about her but again, I’m not an expert.

Would love to hear your take on why this is maybe a good thing for Blake? I just don’t think they ever thought it would get this far and I certainly don’t think they wanted a trial.

Normally when someone files a law suit and it survives pretrial challenges to go to trial, that is not considered "losing".

Anonymous wrote:I’d put money on the likelihood that Blake though the dailies for the dance scene has been destroyed. The birth scene as well. ooops.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Freedman has been disciplined lately… didn’t judge Liman scold him for his past antics? I don’t think Friedman not making a big deal of this means it’s not a thing. The trial is in two weeks.

Oh I thought that ruling was a big win for Freedman and that a court sanction without money damages wasn't actually "disciplining" Freedman. At least that's what I was told by Baldoni supporters at the time. You'd think Freedman would be emboldened after that.

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m not following this case as closely as others. I just think it’s a stretch to say that because BF is not publicly celebrating it means it’s not a thing? The trial is in two weeks so that just seems a strange take.

The fact that there’s a trial at all means Blake already lost. I can’t imagine any scenario that gets her more work.

This is such an interesting take? Can you elaborate? It isn't intuitive to me based on what I know about lawsuits.

Is it an interesting take? I don’t think celebrities who are trying to sell aspirational brands like hair products and star in movies want to have two years worth of headlines about a major court case, but I’m certainly not an expert.

People would have moved on from this in August 2024. Her reputation had taken a major hit, but it would’ve died down. Yet here we are two years later and it still constant headlines and we are two weeks away from the trial talking about how she wanted to destroy dailies, reading documents she wanted to be sealed, and reading reports about how poorly all her brands are doing and how companies are spooked. I don’t think these are conversations Blake wants about her but again, I’m not an expert.

Would love to hear your take on why this is maybe a good thing for Blake? I just don’t think they ever thought it would get this far and I certainly don’t think they wanted a trial.

Anonymous wrote:I’d put money on the likelihood that Blake though the dailies for the dance scene has been destroyed. The birth scene as well. ooops.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Freedman has been disciplined lately… didn’t judge Liman scold him for his past antics? I don’t think Friedman not making a big deal of this means it’s not a thing. The trial is in two weeks.

Oh I thought that ruling was a big win for Freedman and that a court sanction without money damages wasn't actually "disciplining" Freedman. At least that's what I was told by Baldoni supporters at the time. You'd think Freedman would be emboldened after that.

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m not following this case as closely as others. I just think it’s a stretch to say that because BF is not publicly celebrating it means it’s not a thing? The trial is in two weeks so that just seems a strange take.

The fact that there’s a trial at all means Blake already lost. I can’t imagine any scenario that gets her more work.

This is such an interesting take? Can you elaborate? It isn't intuitive to me based on what I know about lawsuits.