Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - May 07, 2026


Justin's Lawyer Tells Me EVERYTHING !!


Episode Stats


Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

148.15555

Word count

3,956

Sentence count

168

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Brian Friedman joins Jemele to discuss the dismissal of the Justin Baldoni and Jamie Heath Lawsuit, and the settlement reached in the case. Brian also talks about how the case was handled and why he is disappointed that the case never went to trial.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I was kind of looking forward to being on that stand, being questioned by you about my video.
00:00:06.700 But you never, you never know.
00:00:10.880 That's true.
00:00:11.900 So I wouldn't say never.
00:00:19.260 Brian Friedman, I am so excited to finally see you face to face like this.
00:00:24.740 I feel like I know you because, you know, I mean, I feel like this journey has been so long.
00:00:29.600 I'm so happy that you came on here because I've gotten so many messages from people who are so sad and disappointed right now.
00:00:36.740 So what can you tell people?
00:00:40.880 You know, I can I can tell people a couple of things.
00:00:44.820 First of all, I want to say it's an honor to be here.
00:00:49.520 and um you you have done just an incredible job of keeping people informed of your opinions
00:00:58.940 um your humanity um you know i i can't i most people who who had gone through your experience
00:01:09.460 of that interview and you know would have posted that interview up right away and said look at this
00:01:14.920 And I just I just I just think you're a really you're a really good person and and it's an honor to be here.
00:01:23.520 So let me start with that. Thank you. Thank you so much for saying that.
00:01:28.200 That really. Thank you. And and and and talking about the case a little bit.
00:01:36.560 You know, I do want to say that, you know, summary judgment was really the key to this because this has always been about harassment and Justin Baldoni being accused of harassment.
00:01:57.360 Jamie Heath being accused of harassment, Melissa Nathan, Jen Abel, Steve Sarawitz being accused of different things in the claims in the case.
00:02:09.600 And what people, I think, don't remember or at least aren't thinking of is what's the trial about versus what was it about before?
00:02:22.540 These people are not defendants in trial.
00:02:26.420 Justin Baldoni is not a defendant.
00:02:29.440 And, you know, frankly, the case shouldn't even be called Lively Baldoni anymore.
00:02:33.880 And and Jamie Heath is not an individual defendant.
00:02:37.300 The the summary judgment ruling and the motion for judgment on the pleadings ruling was such a significant ruling that essentially the judge said there's not enough here that I'm going to allow this to go to trial.
00:02:51.600 And why that's so significant is because all the individuals were out
00:02:58.180 So you had, it ends with us, the movie LLC, Wayfair Studios
00:03:03.140 And you had the agency group
00:03:05.880 And that's what the trial would have been about
00:03:09.800 Assuming that more motions weren't granted before that
00:03:14.180 Eliminating the case even further
00:03:16.560 So as much as people are disappointed
00:03:20.900 And, boy, I don't know that anybody's more disappointed than I am.
00:03:25.200 Oh, really?
00:03:26.480 Truly.
00:03:27.420 And other than, you know, look, I want what's best for these people,
00:03:32.880 and they have been through absolute hell for a long time.
00:03:37.280 And I would say that if they still had significant claims against them
00:03:44.280 and they didn't have the opportunity that they had to get out of this case,
00:03:49.460 And, you know, when opportunity comes along, my father used to tell me when opportunity comes along that's too good to be true, you take it and you don't pass it up.
00:04:00.920 And so, you know, people had to make their own decisions. But but it would have been, you know, the case that would have been great to see is is did Justin Baldoni, you know, commit harassment?
00:04:14.180 Did Jamie Heath commit harassment as he was allegedly walking around the set like it was a barbecue? Right.
00:04:21.800 Right. Yeah. You know, and and and, you know, and that would have been the the more exciting case.
00:04:28.760 I think factually it would have been the less exciting case.
00:04:33.620 But but but the reality and the the the fortunate part of it is this case was pretty much gutted almost completely after the summary judgment.
00:04:45.460 So can you tell us anything about what went on, how long you've been like, you know, in this settlement talks, how it went down so people understand?
00:04:56.320 I don't I'm sure you can't talk about the details, but how much can you tell us about how this came about?
00:05:03.640 Like yesterday, everyone was in shock because it didn't seem like that on Friday when all these new end ceilings were dropped in the docket and people were a bit shocked by the things, the new things that we found out.
00:05:15.960 And all of a sudden, it's like it settles.
00:05:19.340 on um on on friday i had my um my i had a couple suits ready to ship to new york and um on
00:05:30.760 saturday i had a couple of suits still being shipped to new york and on sunday i still had
00:05:38.700 those same suits sitting around waiting to send them to new york so so um we didn't we didn't
00:05:46.500 really get a, a, um, indication that there would, there, there would be a, a real, um, desire
00:05:54.400 to, to have a settlement, um, conference until Friday. Um, and, um, and, and on Saturday there
00:06:04.340 were, there were some settlement discussions that took place. Um, and then on Sunday there was,
00:06:09.520 There was a lot more in terms of settlement discussions that took place and, you know, and it didn't resolve itself.
00:06:22.560 And, you know, until, you know, until yesterday and I'm not, you know, you know, let's hope it's resolved itself as it is, because it's not really our choice ultimately to resolve the case.
00:06:34.720 It's the plaintiff's choice to resolve the case and with the judge's approval.
00:06:39.640 So this has a few more hurdles to go before this is in any way finished.
00:06:46.440 Really? Oh, I didn't know that.
00:06:49.200 So the judge has to, like, agree on this first.
00:06:53.120 And what else needs to happen?
00:06:55.240 Do you have to file more papers in that docket?
00:07:00.060 I think there's more papers that would be filed in the docket, ultimately, that judge has to approve any kind of settlement.
00:07:10.160 And the parties ultimately, you know, would be agreeing to a document, you know, which the parties would think would reflect the accurate, you know, the accurate agreement that is agreed to by the parties.
00:07:29.260 So so so there's still those things to go.
00:07:33.560 And we also still have the Abel versus Jones and Jones versus Abel. Right.
00:07:38.180 Or. Oh, we certainly do. And and and then that should be a fun one in itself.
00:07:45.720 You know, we we are marshalling once once we're sure this is done because we're still working on this.
00:07:53.400 But once we're sure this is done, we will be marshalling all resources possible toward that case and and and and moving forward that case to try and and and and get that case positioned to go to trial and to go to trial in a significant way.
00:08:12.220 Good. And so then we'll hopefully find out more about this Van Zandt thing, because I think a lot of people were looking forward to that whole thing being exposed.
00:08:22.140 what really happened with that sham lawsuit, as some people call it.
00:08:28.020 And like, so you think we're going to get some more answers?
00:08:32.060 I think we'll get some more answers.
00:08:33.600 I think that you did a terrific job with some timeline and stuff
00:08:37.600 that you had worked on and saw some things.
00:08:40.700 And I think some of the released, you know, it's funny,
00:08:46.300 people seal documents in cases.
00:08:49.160 I see it all the time.
00:08:50.300 And then when they get released, there's almost more attention to them than had you just released them in the first place.
00:08:58.460 And I certainly understand, you know, when you redact addresses and personal information and medical information, but for, you know, other things that get redacted, there may not be the same reasons to do that.
00:09:16.720 So I think some of the stuff that came out on Friday was surprising to people that hadn't seen them before and, you know, certainly indicated some things that, as I saw in your timeline, were very interesting in terms of what was being kept and what might not have been kept.
00:09:43.660 so what about the new york times are they still somehow involved now or is this just like
00:09:52.360 what does it mean for them well i i don't know that this touches on much of the new york times
00:09:59.360 situation i mean there's there's there's certainly some issues that are going on with the new york
00:10:04.480 times but um um but uh you know suffice it to say that that um you know it'll be the client's
00:10:12.480 decision whether they wish to appeal um if there's an ultimate decision in the case and there's you
00:10:18.900 know there's a final decision um whether the clients want want to do that or not i think that
00:10:23.980 that the clients um in a perfect world would love to overturn you know the the time sullivan case and
00:10:31.880 and um uh you know and whatnot but whether that's possible whether that's you know probable or not
00:10:39.320 is another story.
00:10:42.180 And, but, you know, the New York Times,
00:10:45.320 you know, I for one will never forget it.
00:10:48.800 I'll never forget the story.
00:10:50.420 I mean, what they did to me as well in that article,
00:10:53.460 I was, I mean, that's one of the things from this
00:10:56.420 that I've been like mostly shocked about
00:10:59.420 that they never contacted me to ask
00:11:02.800 about this, me being part of this smear campaign.
00:11:06.800 um so what have you personally learned from this being you know representing this case
00:11:14.720 you know i learned so much from this and um you know look it's it's not it's never been about me
00:11:24.000 it's not about me um i wish it was less about me frankly but but but it's it's it's really been
00:11:31.360 about um watching people go through seeing and and look you've been a part of this too i mean
00:11:38.200 watching people go through seeing their lives kind of plastered all over media mainstream media
00:11:45.280 social media you know i've learned that that um you know trump made a comment a few years ago
00:11:54.480 and and called something fake news and everybody was like what is he talking about fake news that's
00:12:00.640 crazy and um and and then people started to look at it and go hold it you know maybe there's you
00:12:07.720 know maybe maybe there is a lot of liberty that the media takes and um and and and now you see
00:12:15.380 the difference between social media and mainstream media so i think that was an interesting lesson
00:12:20.460 um for me to see that on display and now now you're in a situation where you see you know
00:12:27.080 you know certain political parties are are buying media even um but but what i you know what i
00:12:35.620 really learned more than anything is the group of people out there um wrongfully subpoenaed in my 0.99
00:12:43.680 mind just just morally um and that's completely my opinion um these these tiktokers and youtubers
00:12:52.300 and and content creators um have been brilliant uh you included and and and have spent so much
00:13:02.000 time and so much energy to really um find out the truth to really dig in and and and really take a
00:13:10.520 look at stuff and and i can tell you from a lawyer's perspective you have helped us you know
00:13:15.980 you have helped us you have helped us even in things that you found that are unhelpful
00:13:20.060 And things that you found that are helpful. And it's amazing to have that type of learning experience. And just the personalities of some of these people are hysterical. They're funny and they're intelligent and they're amazing.
00:13:39.020 You know, and you and I have spoken, I believe, once, which was when I asked if you would be so kind as to appear at trial because your video, in my opinion, was so important.
00:13:55.320 But, you know, in a perfect world, you know, I'd love to see how you work.
00:14:01.240 I'd love to see how these content creators work because they just do such an incredible job researching.
00:14:08.240 And they're so important in the process.
00:14:11.480 And talk about a jury of your peers.
00:14:14.240 I mean, these are the people doing the research.
00:14:16.400 I mean, who's to say that one day that the TikTokers and YouTubers and Instagram people, you know, won't be our jury one day because they really are so diligent at what they do.
00:14:30.200 That is very true.
00:14:31.880 I'm so impressed by so many people as well.
00:14:34.360 you know how they find things and i can imagine for you guys because it's almost like you had an
00:14:38.820 army out there working for you the entire time and revealing all this all these things so
00:14:46.940 as i understand it i think i read somewhere this morning then that justin and blake i guess
00:14:52.500 everyone involved here they're able to talk about their experience what what what are they going to
00:14:58.740 be able to talk about like specifically i understand none of the things that you agreed
00:15:03.800 in the settlement itself, but what can they talk about?
00:15:08.960 Well, you know, there's not a final and complete, you know,
00:15:14.000 it's not final and complete in terms of documentation.
00:15:16.880 But, you know, for Justin, this was so important that no one be silenced,
00:15:25.660 that he be able to speak his truth, that he be able to speak about,
00:15:30.400 you know, he's never spoken this whole time.
00:15:33.800 Yeah. And and and and and it's been a really painful experience for him, Emily and the kids and and same with Jamie Heath.
00:15:44.220 And and and there will be a time, you know, probably sooner rather than later that he'll be able to share his experience.
00:15:52.460 And first of all, his disappointment, I think, on what this took away from the domestic violence survivors.
00:16:00.520 um i i think that's probably you know his biggest um concern and his biggest regret and and you've
00:16:09.720 seen that in some of the evidence of how important that was it was for him um i think he'll be able
00:16:15.520 to talk about what this does to a family um what this does to to feel like you're wrongfully accused
00:16:22.820 of something and that, um, and what it feels like to be fighting, you know, the, you know,
00:16:30.280 some of the most powerful people in Hollywood with, with incredible resources. Um, and, and
00:16:37.100 so I think those are, you know, those are the types of things, um, that he'll talk about. I
00:16:42.960 think he'll talk about what it's like when you have children, you know, young children and
00:16:48.480 they're hearing things um what his life has become you know from the standpoint of you know he was
00:16:54.940 i don't want to say nobody because that's not true but but he was um an actor and and and he
00:17:01.480 had done some directing and some producing but but but you know he certainly wasn't well known
00:17:06.580 you know he does can't walk outside can't walk to an airport can't walk anywhere without being
00:17:12.000 recognized um for who he is and while you know as a little kid you know i would dream about
00:17:18.200 something like that the reality of being in that is very very difficult um and the reality of
00:17:26.520 knowing oh there's the guy that got accused of this or there's the guy in that lawsuit i think
00:17:33.300 is really disheartening because justin never wanted this to be about him he wanted wayfair
00:17:39.640 to be about making films which mattered in the world and which changed people and helped people
00:17:48.600 And I think that's the disappointment.
00:17:50.680 But I think, you know, very soon one day he will be talking about all of it.
00:17:57.840 I hope he will.
00:17:59.040 And I hope he will do it here as well.
00:18:01.180 That would be amazing.
00:18:02.140 Can you tell him that?
00:18:03.500 That would be amazing.
00:18:05.020 I will definitely share that with him.
00:18:07.260 And I'm sure that'll be a personal decision between him and Emily and how they choose to do it and what they choose to do.
00:18:15.680 But but I I I've never met someone like him who is so genuine and and is so honorable.
00:18:27.420 And I think what surprised me the most is having done cases for thirty three plus years.
00:18:34.700 You know, look, if you were looking at my text messages when I'm angry, right?
00:18:38.800 Like, I wouldn't want to expose. They're not they're not going to be looking very good.
00:18:42.640 Um, but, but when, when, when you look at his text messages, even after he's going through the worst of the worst of the worst of it, he's respectful. He's kind. He may be sad. He may be upset. Um, he may have emotions, but he's always trying to prop up other people.
00:19:06.260 He's always trying to make them better. And he's always trying to look at as much as he can on the bright side of things.
00:19:14.060 And that's what amazed me, right, is that if you just compare text messages and you were to say to yourself, who's the better person?
00:19:22.600 You know, who's the kinder person? There's no question here.
00:19:27.980 No. And I think we saw that in the statement. And I think a lot of people were disappointed in the statement because it said she deserved to be heard.
00:19:35.660 I think that's what people reacted mostly to. And I've been sleeping on it, thinking about it.
00:19:41.660 And I was thinking, you know, that's who Justin is, because he never wanted revenge on anyone.
00:19:47.060 He says that everyone deserves to be heard. I'm sure there were a lot of back and forth about these things.
00:19:54.180 Can you say something specifically about that? Does she deserve to be heard? 0.57
00:19:58.740 I think we don't believe so. But I believe that anyone who has an honest feeling about anything, you know, deserves to be heard.
00:20:12.940 And that doesn't mean that, you know, it doesn't mean that someone's a liar per se.
00:20:18.960 It doesn't mean that someone is is making something up.
00:20:23.740 people have different perceptions of things based on their own life experience i think the really
00:20:31.160 difficult part to this is um that if you're claiming a smear campaign and you're claiming
00:20:39.740 that there's um harassment and then you look in which the way that that's delivered um it's not
00:20:50.280 delivered in the formal fashion that you one would expect it's delivered in a way that felt
00:20:57.060 through van zam and through other things that um that it was exactly the opposite in terms of
00:21:08.200 the way in which someone who felt like they were part of a smear campaign would have handled that
00:21:14.620 Yeah, I think I saw some comments today, I think it was in the New York Post, where some people from the industry were saying, you know, I would rather gamble on Blake than Justin in the future, because we don't know if it was a toxic work environment, whatever.
00:21:33.940 which also really upset a lot of people, I think,
00:21:38.320 to hear people from the industry saying something like that
00:21:41.660 when, you know, as you were mentioning,
00:21:44.360 they dropped the judge, dismissed 10 of the 13 claims.
00:21:48.480 But for like the general public who only reads headlines,
00:21:52.380 it could seem like, you know, that he is not vindicated.
00:21:59.340 Would you agree?
00:22:01.220 What do you think?
00:22:02.020 I think you cannot get any more vindicated than a judge saying, I'm throwing out all of this harassment claims.
00:22:14.020 And and it doesn't get any more.
00:22:17.640 There's no more vindication than that.
00:22:19.780 Now, what he can't control, right, is he can't control whatever relationships there are in media and mainstream media with, you know, Ryan Reynolds and and and and others that that that have power in the industry.
00:22:35.480 And that's how this case started, was you were fighting an uphill battle.
00:22:39.880 If you remember from day one, and you will remember from day one, I mean, everyone, when that New York Times article came out, you know, hated Justin.
00:22:50.440 He was lucky to have his family support.
00:22:52.900 I can't even imagine. Yeah.
00:22:54.220 And that's why it was so important to put out, you know, all of the receipts, all of the text messages, all of the information so that people could make their own determinations.
00:23:07.260 And while, you know, New York Post or anybody else can say whatever they want, take a look at the Sony texts.
00:23:15.540 They'll tell you all you need to know.
00:23:18.220 So true.
00:23:20.200 Yeah.
00:23:20.680 Yeah. No. So what what do you know about their future plans now? Are they are they going to continue making movies? Do you know what their hopes are and what their plans are?
00:23:31.440 I don't know
00:23:34.160 I assume the kind of people they are
00:23:36.680 They will continue to put out content that helps people
00:23:40.140 That shines the light on things that are wrong
00:23:43.800 That shines the light on things that are great
00:23:47.280 And that really helps the world
00:23:51.400 And I do believe that's what will happen
00:23:54.000 I don't know
00:23:55.020 And I'm not sure Justin knows right now
00:23:58.020 But I think, you know, in my mind, Justin stands for a hero, you know, stands as a hero for someone who stood up for themselves, who realized that he was accused of harassment and and took a stand and took it all the way to summary judgment and won and was victorious in summary judgment and had that thrown out.
00:24:20.660 and and that was the most important thing was his integrity his belief and his truth and
00:24:28.300 i can't tell you what's going to happen in the future about who's going to be who and what's
00:24:33.300 going to be what and and i i hope they all find peace and i hope they all find you know a successful
00:24:39.820 future for themselves and and they learn from this and are able to move on um with grace
00:24:47.620 and are better people because of it
00:24:52.320 because that's all we're all trying to do
00:24:54.420 is just be better.
00:24:56.320 That's so nice.
00:24:57.760 I was kind of looking forward to being on that stand,
00:25:00.480 being questioned by you about my video.
00:25:04.400 But yeah.
00:25:05.820 You never know.
00:25:08.820 That's true.
00:25:09.600 So I wouldn't say never.
00:25:12.280 We'll see.
00:25:13.640 That's a cliffhanger.
00:25:14.960 I feel like something more is coming.
00:25:16.680 I mean, by the way, can he still appeal if he wanted to at this point?
00:25:23.160 You know, it'll have to do with the terms of the settlement, and there's a lot of moving parts still going on.
00:25:29.420 So we'll see what happens.
00:25:31.460 You might be surprised at some things you hear, and maybe you won't be, but we'll see.
00:25:37.560 And you'll hear about him soon because that's the way these things tend to roll.
00:25:44.200 And again, I apologize for what you experienced in this, and I'm sure you didn't expect this to be what it is today.
00:25:53.360 And I'm grateful for your willingness to testify, and I'm grateful for, again, the content creators who, at their own expense, had to kind of suffer here.
00:26:07.520 Thank you so much for doing this.
00:26:09.340 I really appreciate this.
00:26:10.340 And I feel like I learned so much from this conversation now and hear it directly from
00:26:15.280 you as well.
00:26:17.060 I hope people can find some peace now and start this grieving process, because I feel
00:26:22.640 like it's kind of a grieving process for a lot of people from the way that they have
00:26:27.480 expressed themselves to me.
00:26:29.140 So thank you so much, Brian.
00:26:31.020 I really appreciate this.
00:26:32.140 And maybe I'll see you again sometime.
00:26:34.780 Yes.
00:26:35.220 And look, you don't know what you don't know.
00:26:39.260 So let's see what happens.
00:26:40.340 We've lost some talk.