Hollywood says： GO AWAY, BLAKE !!
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
169.38284
Summary
Blake Lively and Justy Baldoni are back in court, and this time it s a soap opera. Is it time to call it quits? Or is it time for a new season of .
Transcript
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This January on Paramount+, it began on the shores of New Jersey.
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Now, a new pack emerges in the great white north.
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Canada Shore, new original series, now streaming on Paramount+.
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With the RBC Avion Visa, you can book any airline, any flight, any time.
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Switch and get up to 55,000 Avion points that never expire.
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I'm Sashdi Flohr, journalist, Hollywood truth teller,
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and your voice of reason in a town built on the illusion.
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As you can see, I'm sitting here trying to dress up a little bit for you guys.
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And I've also changed my background a little bit.
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I'm moving things around in my studio to see what fits best.
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I think it's a little bit calmer and maybe looks a little more professional.
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So, anyways, let me know what you think in the comment section.
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And also, if you have other ideas, I'm always open for input and improvements.
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Anyways, I hope you guys have some great plans for New Year's and that you're looking forward to 2026.
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We were going to celebrate with some friends, but then they got sick.
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So, then we're just going to be here by ourselves, dressing up for each other and Oscar and welcoming 2026 with open arms.
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And now they're calling Blake Lively's lawsuit a soap opera.
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This is from The Hollywood Reporter, which is pretty major.
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They were the ones who made that list a few days ago with the biggest winners and losers of 2025.
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And today, they made a list of the biggest Hollywood bummers of 2025.
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And you won't believe what they're saying about Blake Lively.
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So, my big question now is, how is a jury ever going to believe anything Blake says when no one else does?
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Also, in this episode, I wanted to look a little bit about how the media chose to cover this case
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and how that has changed from when Blake Lively sued Justy Baldoni in December of 2024 until today
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Anyways, let's get into this Hollywood Reporter article.
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So, it says here the biggest Hollywood bummers of 2025.
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And then in a year of serious crisis, there was no shortage of minor annoyances from the decline of Squid Game
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to the rise of Tilly Norwood, that AI actress, to the unending Lively Baldoni soap opera.
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And then there's stories about other things, other big bummers of 2025 in Hollywood.
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And then it says here, everybody in the Blake Lively Justy Baldoni saga is horrible.
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But I do think that we've seen the worst coming out in some people.
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And we've seen how incredibly hypocritical Hollywood really is
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and how many cowards there are with no moral compass.
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Anyways, it continues to talk about this legal feud like this.
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The only clear winner in the Blake Lively versus Justy Baldoni courtroom saga
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And that schadenfreude is not on Justy Baldoni's behalf.
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What began as a celebrity dispute ballooned into a rolling public demonstration
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of how not to behave on set, in the media, or under oath.
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Each new filing somehow made everyone involved look worse.
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I think it's very easy for people to choose a side here.
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Although I'm not saying that Justy Baldoni's side is perfect in any way.
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We've seen things, we've seen they say and do things as well
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But I think everyone knows where the truth lays here.
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No one's talking about Blake Lively as a victim anymore.
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And by the end, the prevailing emotion wasn't outrage or sympathy, but fatigue.
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The kind that comes from watching very rich, very unpleasant people
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Yeah, one thing that we've learned from this is definitely how celebrity privilege and big
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egos can cost you millions and millions and hundreds of millions of dollars.
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And I think the summary that both sides came out with last week when Blake Lively's lawyers
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were just talking about how she's staying strong through all of this.
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And she's being a victim while Baldoni's side was saying,
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hey, there's other things going on in the world.
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And we really appreciate the support that we're getting.
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But yes, there are other things that are more important than this lawsuit.
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As I said, Hollywood Reporter did another report last week where they basically called
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Anyways, as I said, I wanted to focus a little bit as well on how the media has covered these
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lawsuits from the beginning of when Blake Lively filed this in December of 2024 until now.
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Because as you remember, after that New York Times article, everyone jumped on this.
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And the headlines were everywhere portraying Blake Lively as a victim of SH.
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And everyone was shocked and had so much sympathy and empathy for Blake Lively that it was even
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possible to create an untraceable smear campaign like this.
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Until we learned, of course, there were more sides to this story.
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Not only did we see Justin Baldoni's receipts coming out at the time when he sued them,
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but we also have seen throughout this year, throughout discovery and more and more evidence
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being unsealed, that there were a lot of twisted facts involved in all the reporting
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I've been covering a lot of the articles covering this story here on my channel.
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And one of the things that I noticed especially is how the media was focusing on all the legal
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It's all about these little cherry-picked facts that they find from the evidence that
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People magazine was very pro-Blake in the beginning.
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But then I feel like as soon as Taylor Swift entered, they kind of changed their ways a little
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For them, it's always been important to be on good terms with the big celebrities.
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Because that gives them sometimes exclusive interviews.
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And this time it was so obvious after Taylor Swift's dad revealed that he was the source
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of the information that Blake Lively had tried to pressure Taylor Swift to support her in
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When that story hit, all of a sudden People magazine started shifting a little bit.
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And the last four or five months, I think we've seen them being much more balanced in their
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Although I have to add that they do still pick up those stories that I'm sure Leslie Sloan
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or someone else from Blake Lively's team is feeding them to make Blake Lively look wholesome
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and like a good mother and good wife and very relatable.
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Also, TMZ in the beginning was so pro-Blake Lively.
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One of the stories I remember was when they said that there was another person who was
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And then we realized it was Claire Ayub, this female director, who did another project with
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And she ended up having some kind of disagreement with Baldoni.
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And then she had recorded this conversation that we all got to hear.
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But anyway, TMZ said that she was willing to testify.
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The thing is, she couldn't have testified because she had nothing to do with this case.
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But still, they said another victim is willing to testify, which was just BS.
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They also said that Travis Kelsey was showing love for Blake Lively because he published this
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podcast episode talking about traveling, that sisterhood of the traveling pans, a movie that
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And then they realized that, oh, that was an old podcast that was re-uploaded.
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And they did come out and talk about it, but still so sloppy.
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And another thing they did, which I thought was really suspicious, is that they said that
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Justin Baldoni had missed the deadline to appeal his case.
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And also thinking that Harvey Levine, the editor of and the owner, I think, of TMZ, he's a lawyer.
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Yeah, there were so many things like that that was published on TMZ that made people think like,
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In their live stream, it seemed like they were not on Team Blake at all.
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And I just hope that they can do some more due diligence in 2026 before reporting on things
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because misinformation like this spread so fast and people don't come back to see if there's
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any updates on an article or if it's been corrected.
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The industry magazines have been very pro-Blake as well, especially Deadline, all their articles.
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And Variety, except that Variety did a story on the content creators who were being subpoenaed by Blake Lively.
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And The Hollywood Reporter has been a little more balanced, I think.
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They did this story that was huge and got a lot of attention when it dropped about how Justin Baldoni and Jamie Heath
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and the rest of the Wayfair parties brought Baha'i Faith into the set of It Ends With Us.
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And that's where things started, like that's where the friction came from.
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What we know by now, I don't see that there's any truth to that, really.
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They were talking about this culture of hugging, which kind of just disappeared as well,
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especially since we know that Blake Lively is a big hugger as well.
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But I think the main reason this story got so much attention was because of the illustration
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that they made of Blake and Justin and then Ryan Reynolds' nice pool and Brian Friedman there.
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One of her spokespeople said to Daily Mail that the framing in this picture is outrageously insulting
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as it plays into every sexist trope about women who dare file a workplace complaint,
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turning them into the aggressor and suggesting they deserve the retaliation that comes their way.
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And then, of course, you have all the fashion magazine, all the women magazines.
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And all their stories about Blake has been like fluff pieces about her outfits
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and about her hair care line and whatever products she's trying to sell.
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So I think the outlets mainly that has been telling the truth,
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basically, is Daily Mail and sometimes Page Six as well.
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It's interesting to think that New York Times broke this story last year
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and they haven't done really any follow-up stories.
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I think they did one story when Justin Baldoni's lawsuit was dismissed,
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but they haven't followed up on anything in this legal case.
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I remember when LA Times did the expose of the Golden Globes
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And they did follow-up stories like every single day for like six months after that.
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So when you break a story like that and then choose not to follow up,
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I think all the speculations people had in the beginning
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because Blake didn't really tell us the entire truth.
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and painted a picture that she wanted to sell us.
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And I think a major problem now is that all of these facts are really undisputed.
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The things that Blake Lively accuses Justin Baldoni of,
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And that is what people are starting to realize.
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And that is why all these Blake Lively supporters are just disappearing.
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It's funny now, looking back, I was a part of four documentaries in 2025.
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One on HBO Max, one on Hulu, one on Discovery Plus,
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and then one for Andy Signor over at Popcorn Planet that he is planning,
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Anyways, all of these three documentaries were really leaning towards Blake Lively's narrative.
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Some of them extreme, some a little more balanced.
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But now that we've seen so much from the depositions and the evidence being unsealed,
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And of course, no one is going to admit that they were wrong.
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So instead, now they're just trying to ridicule the entire situation.
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And that's exactly what the Hollywood Reporter is doing here.
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and something that really needs to be taken seriously and looked at.
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And now everyone realizes that, oh, we were fooled.
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Now they're just looking at this as a lot of mess and they want it to go away.
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Because this case can do a lot of damage and has already done a lot of damage in Hollywood.
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We don't know yet how this will affect SAG in the future.
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It was obviously Blake Lively's responsibility to get in touch with SAG
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and tell them what happened on this set, but she didn't do that.
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But still, SAG should have some sort of responsibility here.
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Same goes for Producers Guilds of America and Directors Guilds of America.
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How are they going to have to change their rules now
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to prevent something like this from happening again?
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To prevent a situation where a big actress can come in and take over an entire movie
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and then sue the director afterwards for all his money.
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As we know, Blake Lively walked all over Sony and took away their power as well.
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Also for new directors, up-and-coming directors who want to work with bigger stars.
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And as we now know, a lot of actresses have come out and complained
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about these intimacy coordinators that are all over the place,
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Cameron Diaz has talked about these intimacy coordinators
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and how they really feel uncomfortable with them being present.
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Also something that obviously is related to this lawsuit.
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Yeah, I think this has told us a lot about Hollywood itself.
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I did not know how dirty it was behind the scenes.
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I'm as shocked as everybody else learning about how things went down behind the scenes.
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Now let's hope that 2026 is going to give us some real answers
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now that more and more evidence will get unsealed.
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I can't wait for the media to finally pick up the story about Van Zandt.
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No one has really mentioned it except Daily Mail and Page Six.
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And there was actually an article in Deadline about Van Zandt,
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but they managed to put a negative light of Justin Baldoni anyways,
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Justin Baldoni damns Blake Lively for abuse and sham lawsuits,
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but they weren't really throwing any shade at Blake Lively.
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to get to the text messages on Jennifer Abel's phone
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Yeah, let's hope that 2026 becomes the year of truth.
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I am so excited for more of the truth to come out.
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And I'm so excited to get into this new year with you guys.
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And even though I'm here talking about these awful things
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I think that there's still so much we can learn from this.
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And to also remember to be respectful of each other.
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where you have to pick between right and wrong,
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a lot of people probably didn't follow their gut feeling
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And I think everyone at the end will get what they deserve.