Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - Ep 17 The Vanzan lawsuit could ruin Blake Lively's entire case

00:00:00.000 his face is toxic and he said people are having a visceral reaction to this person.

00:00:11.240 Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk. I'm Tashdi Flohr, journalist, Hollywood truth teller,

00:00:16.000 and your voice of reason in a town built on delusion. So it's Friday, it's my podcast day

00:00:22.980 where I try to talk about other things than just divulgating Blake Lively's legal feud,

00:00:27.260 but it's very difficult today because there's been so many filings. The docket is flooding with

00:00:34.280 new documents and some of them are very interesting. There's a lot going on in this

00:00:39.200 Van Zandt sham lawsuit. Remember those text messages that somehow ended up in Blake Lively's

00:00:47.360 lawsuit and in the New York Times? The way that those text messages were retrieved was very

00:00:53.020 questionable. And now Van Zandt is being subpoenaed and there's a big mess. Also in

00:01:00.120 this episode, I'll go through some of the stuff going on with those signal messages. Remember

00:01:04.720 those messages that Blake Lively's team is convinced is about the smear campaign and they're trying to

00:01:10.000 get hold of them and it's so much back and forth. This is going to delay this trial so much what's

00:01:17.000 going on right now. Anyways, I wanted to start this episode with this video, this interview that

00:01:23.360 I saw with Glenn Powell yesterday. I don't know if you've seen it yet, but he's on this podcast

00:01:29.240 talking about this person that is cancelled in Hollywood and that he wanted to avoid taking a

00:01:37.300 photo with this person at an event. He said that this person was recently cancelled. Okay, so this is

00:01:43.540 what he says. And just the question, who comes to mind when you hear him talk about this? One of the

00:01:50.300 things that I, I'm not going to say who it was, but there was, I was at a party and I, I, you know,

00:01:58.180 showed up to the party and there was somebody that had basically been on the ropes in terms of sort of

00:02:01.780 getting cancelled. And this person had made a lot of, some of my favourite movies. And I was like,

00:02:06.980 oh, like, this is, this is great. Like, and he came up and he said, nice to meet you. So I was like,

00:02:10.880 oh dude, big fan. And then a photographer said like, hey, can we take a picture of the two of

00:02:14.300 you guys? And this person was recently cancelled and it was like, it was, it was like, not good.

00:02:18.820 I was a fan of their work, but not a fan of their, their choices. Right. Uh, so I was just kind of

00:02:23.380 being nice. But then when you, you're there, want to take a picture with you, I realized very quickly

00:02:28.240 how like, I was like, ooh, I don't know if this is a good idea. He clearly clocked that I was like,

00:02:33.160 this is probably not a good idea. And I realized I was like, this guy, his face is toxic. You know,

00:02:38.160 like going out in the world, like people are having a visceral reaction to this person in

00:02:42.500 terms of the bad choices they've made. I, thinking about it, it's like this year,

00:02:46.940 I can't really come up with anyone this year that was cancelled, maybe Russell Brand. I don't know

00:02:53.040 if that was this year. But the one thing that stood out for me and what he was saying is that

00:02:57.340 he met this person at a Hollywood party. And who would get invited to a Hollywood party

00:03:02.480 if you really cancelled by the industry? Look at someone like Will Smith. Have you seen

00:03:07.100 any pictures of him at any Hollywood parties the last couple of years? No. And he doesn't

00:03:12.680 want to say this person's name. If this person was, if this person was really cancelled, it

00:03:17.460 wouldn't be an issue for him to mention him by name. But he didn't want to do that. And

00:03:23.340 what I think when you've seen the backlash that people have gotten from taking photos with

00:03:29.140 Ryan Reynolds, I totally see where he's coming from. Just Hugh Jackman as an example,

00:03:37.780 he was guilty by association by being friends with Ryan Reynolds. He was out there supporting

00:03:43.100 Ryan Reynolds. He was photographed with him and Blake Lively. And it really turned on him. His

00:03:48.580 Instagram was blowing up with negativity, not only because of that, also because of his divorce and

00:03:54.120 all that stuff. But the fact that he was friends with Ryan Reynolds really gave him a lot of

00:03:57.940 criticism from people. And I remember, I think it was Channing Tatum who posted a photo with Ryan

00:04:03.060 Reynolds and everyone was just like crazy in the comment section. And as you know, Ryan Reynolds

00:04:08.500 has to close off the comment section on everything he does. If it is an advertisement with maximum

00:04:14.180 effort, if it is just showing up at an event and receiving an honoree or an award, he's turning off

00:04:22.360 the comment section on everything that he does. To me, that is a person that is cancelled in the

00:04:28.120 public eye. I think this is Ryan Reynolds. Let me know who you think it is. He said also that he's

00:04:34.360 a fan of their work, but his face is toxic. And he said people are having a visceral reaction to this

00:04:41.880 person. I can't come up with anyone else right now that this is happening to, but Ryan Reynolds.

00:04:49.240 Just remember what happened when he showed up at the Toronto Film Festival. Everyone was attacking

00:04:54.680 him. He was headlines everywhere when he was being rude to this kid. Now it seems like he swapped out

00:05:00.440 Hugh Jackman, by the way, with Rob, his Rexham partner, the one who's invested in the Rexham football

00:05:07.800 team with him. Because now he's bringing him with him everywhere. He just brought him, for some reason,

00:05:13.800 I don't know why. It doesn't make any sense that he brought him to a screening and a Q&A for his

00:05:19.000 movie, the documentary that he produced about John Candy. What is he doing there? He had nothing to do

00:05:25.640 with the movie. He's just like, hey, I have a friend and his name is Rob. I don't remember his last name

00:05:30.760 now. But anyways, he is Ryan's new BFF now that Hugh Jackman is out of the picture. So yeah, again,

00:05:38.840 let me know what you think if Glenn Powell is talking about Ryan Reynolds here. So let's talk

00:05:43.960 about the bombshell in the docket, you guys. So remember Van Zandt, the company who just decided

00:05:50.680 to sue 10 anonymous people? And then they ended up getting hold of Jennifer Abel's phone. And then it

00:05:58.760 turned out that the owner of that company was Blake Reynolds. And the CEO of that company is Ryan

00:06:08.360 Reynolds. And they used this lawsuit to subpoena Stephanie Jones, who used to work for Justin

00:06:15.080 Baldoni. And through that subpoena, they got hold of Jennifer Abel's phone, who was about to leave

00:06:20.920 Stephanie Jones to start her own company. And somehow, miraculously, these text messages ended

00:06:29.080 up in the New York Times and in Blake Lively's complaint. And funny enough, this entire lawsuit

00:06:35.480 that was filed against these anonymous people were dropped just the day before Blake Lively

00:06:42.840 filed that CRD complaint. So when this came to light a while back that this was the way,

00:06:49.160 this was the method that they had used to get hold of Jennifer Abel's phones to get hold of the only

00:06:55.720 evidence that they have, Blake Lively's team came out and said that this is just normal.

00:07:02.920 Everyone does these kind of things. And it's just really normal. But here's the thing.

00:07:08.760 So Stephanie Jones got hold of Jennifer Abel's phone already in August. This lawsuit wasn't filed

00:07:17.560 until September 27. So what was that phone doing in those three or four weeks or even longer when it

00:07:26.360 was in Stephanie Jones possession? Was she actually accessing all the private information of one of

00:07:32.200 our employees? Did she find these text messages and then alerted Blake Lively and then conspired with her

00:07:41.000 on how she could access these text messages legally. And another thing that I found so shady about that

00:07:47.720 is why was Jennifer Abel's phone the only one that was confiscated in this lawsuit? Why weren't there other

00:07:55.160 employees' phones? Like Stephanie Jones, she's the one that owns the company that represents Justin Baldonio,

00:08:01.800 represented him at the time. Why wasn't her phone confiscated by Van Zandt? The only reason I could

00:08:09.480 find for that is that she was conspiring with Blake Lively. Anyways, as I said, it's so obvious.

00:08:17.640 So Tuesday next week, the Wayfair party and Justin Baldoni's team is supposed to depose

00:08:24.680 Van Zandt. And a representative from Van Zandt is supposed to show up and tell the truth. And this

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00:12:23.240 5060. Okay, so let's dig back into this. As I said on Tuesday, Justin Baldoni's team and the Wayfair

00:12:42.840 parties are supposed to depose someone from Van Zand, the company that Ryan Reynolds is CEO of,

00:12:51.720 the company that they've been trying to hide, desperately hide this entire time because they

00:12:57.640 know what they did was truly shady and maybe even illegal. So Van Zand has agreed to be deposed

00:13:08.120 by the Wayfair party, but they're saying that they only want to talk about things that happen after

00:13:14.520 September 27th, which was the day that they actually filed this lawsuit against these 10

00:13:20.840 anonymous people to get hold of Jennifer Abel's phone. And the thing is, that's not really that

00:13:26.960 interesting. What's interesting here is what led up to that lawsuit. And the truth is that Van Zand

00:13:35.320 filed this lawsuit saying there was a contractual breach somewhere. They didn't say that this had

00:13:42.460 anything to do with Blake Lively's lawsuit against the Wayfair or any SH complaints or any retaliation

00:13:50.960 campaign. They were not being honest about what they were after. And also when you subpoena someone

00:13:56.960 that has to give information about another party, that party should be informed that party was Wayfair

00:14:03.720 and Justin Baldoni and they were not informed. Anyways, now they're arguing back and forth about this

00:14:08.840 date. And now the judge has said to Justin Baldoni's team that they have to refile this because they

00:14:15.980 didn't do it the right way. I feel like Judge Lyman is just trying to find little loopholes here so he

00:14:21.540 can support Blake Lively because what this information would bring could be catastrophic to Blake Lively.

00:14:28.340 It could really bring down her entire case because if this, because if these texts were obtained

00:14:35.860 illegally, she can't use them and she has zero. She has absolutely nothing. The one text message

00:14:44.320 that's been quoted over and over again is that Melissa Nathan said, or was it Jennifer Abel? One of

00:14:51.360 them said, sorry, I don't remember which one said that we can bury anyone. And that's what Blake Lively

00:14:56.900 has based this entire lawsuit on this retaliation campaign or this smear campaign. The big question

00:15:04.920 here is why is it so important for Van Zand not to talk about what happened before they filed this

00:15:13.380 sham lawsuit? Why can't they be open about that? What are they hiding? They're obviously hiding a lot

00:15:20.500 of things. And I really hope that the Wayfair party has enough time now to refile this and do it the exact

00:15:27.560 way that the judge is telling them to do this. So they have time to get his approval, to ask them

00:15:34.480 questions before September 27, before this deposition is taking place on September 30th,

00:15:42.200 which is on Tuesday. I don't know why they keep delaying all these things. Why hasn't all of this

00:15:48.000 stuff happened so much earlier in the process? Why are they pushing everything to the end of the

00:15:54.020 discovery phase, which is at the end of this month? They only have like four days left. As I said,

00:15:59.940 this is such a big mess. Also in question here is who is going to represent Van Zand in that

00:16:05.940 deposition? Ryan Reynolds is the CEO. I don't know if there's any other employees here because that Van

00:16:12.000 Zand company has no real business. They don't really do anything. It's just a shell company. So it's

00:16:18.640 either him or maybe some lawyers that are working for the company. I don't know. I think Ryan Reynolds

00:16:25.120 is going to try to avoid this as much as possible. And also, why was his company, he's the CEO of this

00:16:33.400 company, he's responsible for this company. Why was his company playing such a big part in this lawsuit

00:16:40.280 that had nothing to do with him? Right now, this is a civil case, as you know. But could this end up being a

00:16:48.300 criminal case because of all of this? Because if the Wayfair could prove that Ryan used a shell

00:16:54.980 company to funnel stolen data, that's pretty serious. And that's basically what he did. I'm so

00:17:02.360 curious to find out what happened leading up to that subpoena, the conversations that they had between

00:17:09.320 them. You know, Stephanie Jones was really pissed off with Jennifer Abel because she wanted to leave the 1.00

00:17:14.420 company and start her own. And that's where this feud between them started. And of course, she should

00:17:20.320 be loyal to her client, which was at the time, Justin Baldoni. She was not loyal to him. She was not

00:17:27.000 loyal to her to her own employee. She was loyal to Blake Lively and Leslie Sloan and Ryan Reynolds.

00:17:34.100 Why? This is really bad for Stephanie Jones as well, because we know that there was a period of time

00:17:39.960 that she was in possession with Jennifer Abel's phone. And she didn't have the legal grounds to

00:17:46.380 have that phone at the time. And if there's any information that the Wayfair can get hold of

00:17:52.040 that proves that Stephanie Jones shared that information before that subpoena was filed on 0.93

00:18:00.020 her company, that could put her in a lot of trouble. All right. And then we have the signal messages.

00:18:06.340 This is also so messy. So Blake Lively's team have been trying to get hold of these signal messages

00:18:13.900 that have been like group chats that's been happening between Brian Friedman and the Wayfair

00:18:19.140 parties and other parties, because they think that that is the evidence that they're looking for,

00:18:25.120 that they will find evidence for the smear campaign in there. So the Wayfair parties have said all the

00:18:30.320 time that they have given them what is relevant for the case. And they're saying that there's a lot

00:18:36.340 of text messages that are privileged. They're personal or they're privileged because of attorney

00:18:42.460 client privilege. And Blake Lively saying, we're not interested in your excuses. We want to see

00:18:49.000 everything. And whatever you're not showing us, you need to prove the reason that there's a good reason

00:18:54.440 for you not to show us those text messages. So Lively's team is pointing at 7,529 messages that

00:19:02.420 they're saying that they want access to. So far, they've gotten 523 signal messages. And they're

00:19:10.700 saying that, of course, some of these other messages might be important to us. So now what Wayfair

00:19:16.280 party has to do is to log all of these 7,000 messages and explain why each of them should be

00:19:24.620 privileged. This could take so much time. Just imagine the billing hours for doing something like

00:19:32.540 that. 7,000 messages. Every message has to be filed into a system and explained why Blake Lively's team

00:19:41.800 shouldn't be allowed to see it. The judge hasn't ruled on this yet. But when he does and if he does

00:19:47.840 and if he sides with Blake Lively, which he most likely will do, then this is going to be a nightmare

00:19:54.400 for the Wayfair parties. I understand why the Wayfair parties don't want to share all this information

00:20:02.600 in the first place. Maybe they're not hiding anything that could be relevant to the case. But if they've been

00:20:07.440 talking about Blake Lively in a bad manner or, you know, I'm sure they don't really like her at this

00:20:14.460 point and there are a lot of messages that are expressing their feelings around her, they don't

00:20:19.960 want that to be public. And I think those are the kind of things that they've probably been hiding in

00:20:26.260 here that they don't want Blake Lively's team to see. Yes, anyways, the signal saga continues. Let's see

00:20:33.200 what the judge says this time. And yeah, stay tuned. Also, Ryan Reynolds has been busy running around

00:20:41.420 promoting John Candy, the movie, and now he's bringing his friends into the occasion as well.

00:20:48.060 He brought his friend Rob, I can't remember his last name still, but he brought him on stage

00:20:54.040 the other day. So he's been booking this tour promoting his movie that he he just produced the

00:21:01.660 movie. He didn't direct it, but he produced it. And now it's, of course, all about Ryan Reynolds.

00:21:06.640 So this whole tour is called Ryan Reynolds with friends. And it's his picture everywhere. He's in

00:21:13.760 front of everything. It's just so narcissistic. But anyways, thanks, Glenda, for pointing this out to

00:21:20.100 me. She sent me that the cocktail menu that was at one of these events, and it looks so similar to

00:21:27.660 what the cocktail menu looked like at It Ends With Us. Remember that cocktail menu that Blake Lively

00:21:34.640 had, where people were saying, like, why are you making cocktails about a DV movie? And one of the

00:21:42.200 cocktails were named after one of the abusers in the film, Ryle. I don't know the meaning behind

00:21:49.000 Ryle, you wait. But it doesn't give me a good taste in my mouth. Also, it ends with Buzz

00:21:56.740 playing on the title of a DV movie, making it into a movie about booze. I mean, this got a lot of

00:22:04.920 backlash as well back like a year ago when all of this happened. And now Ryan Reynolds made a drink

00:22:10.000 menu for the John Candy movie for a person that is dead. Yeah, like Glenda is saying here, you know,

00:22:18.440 maximum effort didn't learn anything. Remember, this is a movie to honor a comedian that's passed,

00:22:26.140 and Ryan Reynolds is using the opportunity to push aviation gin. Isn't it just amazing? I'm sure

00:22:34.680 John Candy's family feels great about that. And interestingly enough, on all the venues that

00:22:42.080 Ryan Reynolds is touring with this film, you can't record or take any photos. It says absolutely no

00:22:50.880 photos or recording of any kind. Why is that? That never happened to the Q&As, the Deadpool Q&As,

00:22:59.900 or the Time Magazine sit down. It was never rules like that, that you can't take any photos or any

00:23:05.660 recordings at any time. Yeah, this tour is just about Ryan Reynolds monetizing on a dead comedian

00:23:12.720 and using his image and his legacy to try and clean his own. Anyways, I got really deep into the rabbit

00:23:21.280 hole yesterday and I did some research and I found something really amazing about Ryan Reynolds that I'm

00:23:28.040 going to talk about in my episode on Sunday. So please stay tuned for that. It's going to be

00:23:33.620 really revealing, I promise you. Anyways, you guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I wanted to end it

00:23:39.860 with a recommendation. I watched this TV show that I finished last night that I just found so thrilling.

00:23:46.360 So if you like crime and dark, dark, dark materials, this TV show is amazing. It's German and it's called

00:23:54.640 Dear Child and it's on Netflix. Yeah, I just thought I'll throw it in there. I always love when people give

00:24:00.460 me recommendations for good TV shows. So there you go, Dear Child. Anyways, thank you so much for watching.

00:24:06.300 I really appreciate your support. You're amazing. And if you haven't subscribed, please do check if you've

00:24:11.780 been unsubscribed and resubscribe if you want to and hit the notification bell. Hype, like, share,

00:24:20.100 comments and all that good stuff. And I'll see you in my next one. Bye!

00:24:23.940 Bye!

00:24:24.440 Bye!

Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - September 27, 2025

Ep 17 The Vanzan lawsuit could ruin Blake Lively's entire case

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