Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - LOST EVERYTHING !!

00:00:00.000 She could have done no worse, no worse than what she did by settling this case.

00:00:06.560 You want to encourage people to settle and not use their statements in settlement against them.

00:00:15.600 Thank you, John, for being here again.

00:00:17.660 This is John Genga, my attorney who helped me out of the subpoena that Blake Lively sent me and over 100 other content creators.

00:00:26.900 And, John, you have some opinions about what just happened right now.

00:00:31.260 We thought it was a settlement, and then—

00:00:34.300 So there is a settlement, and I guess the terms of the settlement are confidential,

00:00:40.220 but otherwise people can say whatever they want.

00:00:42.620 And, boy, Lively's side is saying some pretty outrageous things, I've got to tell you.

00:00:47.080 And, in fact, some of the things that they're saying are, you know,

00:00:52.460 If I'm if I'm Brian Friedman, I would be much more outraged than he indicated on in the interview that he was on last night.

00:00:59.460 But they're basically saying that, oh, that that they still have a way to recover jillions of dollars from him.

00:01:08.260 And he's going to he's admitted that he's harassed her by the language of the settlement agreement, which, by the way, is, you know, they're asserting a claim to recover damages under some privilege.

00:01:19.440 they're accusing what they're what they're claiming right now is also privilege they can't

00:01:24.580 use the settlement statement or the settlement discussions under federal rule of evidence 408

00:01:29.260 against against uh baldoni or his or his company or his his other descendants they can't use that

00:01:35.860 they didn't admit anything the for this evidence code 408 was enacted so that people could you want

00:01:43.300 to encourage people to settle and not use their statements in settlement against them so there's

00:01:47.840 an absolute privilege against that. And the fact that they have done that, I mean, to

00:01:51.600 me, it's just beyond the pale. It seems like a total sucker punch on the part of Lively's

00:02:00.220 attorneys. I'm sure they spent days going over this settlement language, particularly

00:02:05.780 that one line about, oh, everyone has a right to be heard or whatever. I mean, it probably

00:02:11.960 started out much more egregious than that. And it took three, eight, the whole weekend

00:02:16.400 to negotiate that down. I'm sure. And, and then to say, and then to use that, you know, against

00:02:23.220 them, you know, publicly, I mean, for a lawyer to do that, that's just, I mean, that, that's what

00:02:31.280 gives lawyers bad, you know, bad reputations. It makes you think you can't believe anything a

00:02:36.540 lawyer says. And I got to tell you, the, the, that is not, that's embarrassing to me. It is

00:02:42.920 offensive to me and it gives us a bad name and and it's not it's not okay that they did that

00:02:49.840 i'm just outraged that they did that um and and you know they're gonna have they're gonna have

00:02:55.980 a day in court they do have a motion out there um which i can go over with you i'm very happy

00:03:01.120 to discuss yes i would love to understand that because i think everyone now is like okay this

00:03:05.940 is over and now the judge is going to say fine and then file something and it's over with but now

00:03:11.480 it's not over and they're going to go to court somehow still can yeah please explain it's not

00:03:16.920 completely over so there's there's a tiny bit of the case that was carved out and it was it was

00:03:23.000 this um there's a motion uh that uh blake uh brought under california civil code section 47.1

00:03:31.840 which is a newly enacted statute it became effective january 1 2024 so and an anti-slap

00:03:37.620 is a strategic lawsuit against public participation.

00:03:41.820 It's basically you can't sue someone for exercising their right

00:03:49.060 to speak at a city council meeting or exercising their right to file a lawsuit

00:03:54.420 or exercising the right to speak on a public issue.

00:03:58.460 It's never been tested.

00:04:00.220 The settlement carves out the motion against that complaint.

00:04:05.780 So the motion, 47.1 allows, and I'm going to look at it right here.

00:04:10.940 It's like the Me Too law.

00:04:11.840 A lot of people are referring to it like a Me Too law,

00:04:14.940 like you have no right to countersue someone if they sue you for that.

00:04:20.520 It says, and there's several elements that have to be shown for them to prevail.

00:04:27.080 So it says that a communication made by an individual without malice

00:04:33.360 regarding an incident of sexual assault, harassment, or discrimination is privileged.

00:04:38.520 So they can't be sued over that, okay?

00:04:42.060 But there's an important limitation later in the statute to that provision.

00:04:51.820 It says this section shall only apply to an individual that has,

00:04:56.500 or at any time had, a reasonable basis to file a complaint of sexual assault, harassment, or discrimination.

00:05:03.360 So, now you're going to pit the claims, this motion, basically against the summary judgment motion that Baldoni won, right?

00:05:15.620 So, and that motion, the ruling on that motion said, there was no basis to bring these claims.

00:05:23.580 There is no evidence at all to support the claims that are being brought.

00:05:28.020 The way I read this provision of the statute, a reasonable basis to file a complaint means a legal basis to file the complaint. So if you're going to say, well, she had a reasonable basis because she believed that some of this conduct was not appropriate, but she filed a complaint that had no support in the law.

00:05:47.260 She filed a complaint on the basis that she was an employee, for example. She filed a complaint, you know, for conduct that took place outside the relationship, all kinds of things. So I would argue if I'm, you know, Baldoni's lawyers, that the summary judgment motion has already determined that she had no reasonable basis to file these complaints and that therefore she should not be able to recover under this statute.

00:06:15.060 Do you think that's how the judge will also rule on this?

00:06:19.020 You know, I don't know.

00:06:20.780 I mean, I think judges, especially in a case like this, they look at this as, you know, a bunch of rich people fighting over money.

00:06:32.280 And they say, you know, you know, you guys all took your shot and it pops on all your houses and I'm going to, you know, you could just say I'm going to deny this motion.

00:06:41.180 Now, if he finds that that the motion was is proper and he grants the motion, I think he does have to award attorney's fees.

00:06:51.180 It says a prevailing defendant in any defamation action brought against that defendant for making a communication that is privileged under this section shall be entitled to their reasonable attorney's fees and costs for successfully defending themselves.

00:07:06.780 So if he finds that Section 47.1 was violated,

00:07:11.500 she will get to recover her attorney's fees for filing the motion to dismiss.

00:07:18.480 But then she's also asking for punitive damages.

00:07:22.400 Yeah, so then it says, it goes on,

00:07:27.260 plus treble damages for any harm caused to them by the defamation action,

00:07:32.420 which are basically the attorney's

00:07:34.760 fees she had to suspend 0.99

00:07:35.680 the court doesn't

00:07:38.760 have an obligation to trouble the damages

00:07:40.480 and

00:07:42.380 I think he's going to say there's no other damages

00:07:44.580 because

00:07:45.220 you produce no evidence that you were

00:07:48.720 subject to any actual harassment

00:07:50.480 so I doubt he's going to award

00:07:52.580 any damages beyond attorney's

00:07:54.740 fees and he's not going to award

00:07:56.580 punitive damages because that's sort of duplicative

00:07:58.640 of the trouble damages so

00:07:59.820 I would be surprised

00:08:02.320 I would be surprised, A, if he granted this motion, but B, if he awarded anything more than 100,000 bucks or something like that, which is, you know, Blake can find that in a cushion to the couch.

00:08:13.920 Interesting. But could she claim, you know, that part of this, that part of this was a smear campaign, that she could claim damages for her reputation because she was countersued? 0.96

00:08:26.500 Could she try or will she try to do that, you think, now that you're starting to know these lawyers?

00:08:30.540 Yeah, I don't think so. I think that that that that is all out because of the settlement. I think anything beyond the four walls of this motion is not fair game to be able to recover.

00:08:46.520 She can't she can't recover everything she spent on this case. That's just not going to happen. That'll never happen in a million years. First of all, the judge would find that outrageous, number one. But secondly, there's no basis, I believe, under the settlement to do that because they've they've released all those claims. So she doesn't have any additional right to bring any claim for all of what she did to fight this so-called smear campaign.

00:09:13.060 So do you think now that, will there be more evidence that anyone has to file?

00:09:18.720 Will we see more filings around this in general?

00:09:22.960 So the Lively Party has just submitted a letter asking for leave to file a supplemental brief of no more than five pages.

00:09:34.540 So that might happen. I don't know.

00:09:37.740 Or the court could say, I've seen enough. I don't need to see any more.

00:09:40.960 um and um but the court i doubt will take any more evidence there there won't be any uh testimony at

00:09:49.120 the hearing i don't think it's just going to be a legal argument so but there will be a hearing

00:09:54.820 about this there will be a hearing if the court decides to hold a hearing the court could decide

00:09:59.580 the court could say i have enough information that i can decide on the papers and i won't hold

00:10:03.960 a hearing um the courts do that from time to time i out here they do that a lot in the central

00:10:09.040 District of California. I don't know how much they do that in this other district in New York.

00:10:12.420 When I saw they come out and say, like, this is a victory for Blake Lively, I was like.

00:10:16.360 Yeah, this is a victory for Blake Lively, really? I mean, so spending $40 million on lawyers and

00:10:23.580 recovering nothing is a victory. By the way, I think, I don't know, I think Friedman somewhere

00:10:29.080 said something about she recovered nothing in the settlement. Which, which I think, excuse me.

00:10:36.160 Yeah. So how did that, because that information has been out there. But how did that leak? Because I'm sure that that was not supposed to be public information.

00:10:45.900 Yeah, I don't know. But it seems to be.

00:10:49.700 Yeah, and there's no NDIS signed here from any party. So both parties can come out and talk about this as much as they want. Is that normal?

00:10:57.060 But they can't but they can't talk about the settlement. So I don't know, maybe Friedman, you know, maybe maybe he was talking about in the context when someone was asking about reports that that that she recovered nothing.

00:11:10.120 So but because otherwise, if he if he said that she recovered nothing in the settlement, that would be I mean, that could violate the confidentiality of the settlement.

00:11:20.880 Is it normal that they don't sign NDAs? I thought that usually during settlement agreements that both parties would just like shut up from now on and don't talk about this anymore. So we wouldn't get to know anything. But it seems like it's the Wild West now. Everyone is out there talking on behalf of their clients and it's kind of out of control.

00:11:40.660 Yeah, often in a settlement agreement, you have not only a provision for confidentiality of the terms of the settlement, but a provision that says, and by the way, you won't say anything more about this case other than that it was amicably resolved, right? Amicably resolved.

00:11:57.340 Here, they didn't do that. They said, we won't talk about the terms of the settlement, but everyone's free to talk about whatever the heck they want to talk about. So I'm sure that they'll be doing that.

00:12:08.560 Now, according to Sigrid Nicali, Blake is going to be out there, you know, working with state legislatures and changing the laws and things like that.

00:12:18.580 I'll believe that when I see it.

00:12:20.440 Right.

00:12:21.460 Yeah, I don't see that happening.

00:12:24.280 It's like O.J. Simpson said that he was going to spend the rest of his life to find the real killer.

00:12:29.380 I love that.

00:12:30.260 And then he went playing golf for several years.

00:12:32.560 And that's, I guess.

00:12:33.700 Yeah.

00:12:35.240 I guess Blake was doing that when she was at the Metcaller.

00:12:37.780 What do you think about that, that she actually, you know, showed up there?

00:12:43.160 So I actually I have to say that Sigrid Nicali's explanation of that was was quite precious that, you know, she's moving on with her life.

00:12:57.040 and that's what this whole thing is about that um and this is why she's bringing this 47.1 motion

00:13:03.900 that you know assaults harassment survivors are not going to be silenced and they should go on

00:13:10.780 with their lives and she was making that statement so um that's you know uh that was pretty good i

00:13:17.960 thought that was uh my favorite part is when she is talking about blake as a survivor i'm like yeah

00:13:24.880 She survived a hit movie and she survived doing a scene where she was

00:13:29.220 falling in love with this guy who, I mean, it's,

00:13:32.120 it's such an insult to all real survivors out there.

00:13:35.860 I have to say, you know, that's the one really great point.

00:13:39.000 I think Brian made yesterday in his interview is that that,

00:13:42.300 that whole point has been completely lost.

00:13:46.400 Now that was the whole point. I didn't see the movie, so I,

00:13:49.120 I can't say, but supposedly that's the whole point of the movie.

00:13:52.520 That's why he made the movie.

00:13:54.200 And that message is completely gone from from this. And because of of of essentially the the the you know, the way she is kind of almost belittled this notion by by making the ridiculous claim she has where there's where there's real victims out there. 0.93

00:14:17.700 And and she's not one of those. It's sad that that message has gotten lost here because that was the whole point of the show.

00:14:23.480 Do you think that this could actually, you know, harm her legal team in any way, you know, that they actually did something like that?

00:14:31.840 Because I'm assuming that lawyers like you and lawyers talk together and, you know, this is like something that will be looked upon, you know, by the industry or by, you know, by other lawyers as well.

00:14:44.580 It's like this is very unethical.

00:14:46.480 Yeah, I tell you, let me just put it this way.

00:14:50.020 If I was asked to make a statement like that by my client, I would say no.

00:14:56.080 I would say no.

00:14:57.180 I wouldn't do it because, first of all, it's not right to basically sabotage someone like that.

00:15:07.940 It's like they're in line and wait.

00:15:09.260 They made this deal, and then they're going to use what they say in the deal against them, which, first of all, the rules of evidence prohibit that, number one. 0.74

00:15:19.260 So, Nenti, but they don't prohibit you from saying something in the public, but, I mean, ethically they should.

00:15:25.840 I mean, or at least the lawyer should feel bound by that.

00:15:30.240 And, you know, the lawyer's reputation is kind of on the line at that point.

00:15:34.260 And if people are out there saying, oh, you've got a lawyer that's willing to say anything, you know, I mean, I don't know if, I mean, I wouldn't want to, I would not want to portray myself that way in the public.

00:15:46.280 because I wouldn't want people saying, you know,

00:15:48.500 I don't know if I could trust this guy, you know,

00:15:50.740 so I don't know if I'm ever going to hire this guy.

00:15:53.200 You know, I mean, you know,

00:15:55.100 trust is one of the most important things we have with our clients.

00:15:58.540 And when you don't know if your client, you know,

00:16:01.940 if a client doesn't know if they could trust you, you might as well.

00:16:04.000 I mean, that's your whole stock and trade.

00:16:06.520 Yeah.

00:16:07.040 So, yeah, because it seems like, okay, you can ask,

00:16:09.840 you can make a lawyer do anything for you.

00:16:12.320 No, I mean, you can't.

00:16:13.440 I mean, that's, yeah.

00:16:14.280 So, you know, a lawyer, you know, clients ask lawyers to do things all the time that lawyers don't think are in their client's best interest.

00:16:23.440 And they'll say, yeah, you can ask me to do this, but I'm not going to do it because I don't think it helps you.

00:16:27.420 I think it and I'll tell you why I don't think it helps you.

00:16:29.620 And so, you know, sometimes the client will overrule the lawyer and sometimes the lawyer will overrule the client.

00:16:36.880 And in this situation where there's absolutely nothing to be gained by the lawyer for going out there and saying these things and everything to lose, I would just say no.

00:16:48.500 I would not have made those statements.

00:16:50.760 So what do you think, like last year, what do you think, what are the different scenarios that can come out of this now?

00:16:56.060 As you said to me in an email yesterday where you were like so outraged by this, you said that maybe they could rescind the settlement.

00:17:03.260 Is that an option?

00:17:05.080 Well, yeah.

00:17:05.720 So that was before I knew about this carve out from the settlement.

00:17:10.720 So, yeah, I don't know that they could do that.

00:17:14.980 If there wasn't this carve out, I would I would say, you know, I would say there's more likelihood of that happening.

00:17:22.280 But and rescinding a settlement is very hard to do, by the way.

00:17:25.800 So the courts really don't like to do that. And I mean, unless unless there was I mean, I mean, here, there was certainly a situation where there there's arguably an agreement reached and then and then arguably breached by what was said publicly.

00:17:44.780 But there is a right that they have under the settlement carve-out to bring these claims.

00:17:52.480 And so I don't think there's a possibility of rescinding the settlement. 0.92

00:17:57.460 Baldoni people have already moved on.

00:17:59.840 I mean, there's no way they want to go back into court at this point.

00:18:03.260 No, I don't think so either.

00:18:05.060 But why do you think, because I've heard a lot of people just last day,

00:18:07.600 why do you think that Baldoni's team allowed this claim to still be here?

00:18:14.480 the attorney's fees, why would they allow that to still be under discussion here at all?

00:18:21.340 That's a very good question. I don't think that they were willing. I don't think that

00:18:26.840 the lively side was willing to give that up. And I think that the Baldoni side felt that it was

00:18:35.560 enough of a non-issue that it didn't bother them because they didn't think there would be any

00:18:43.780 material exposure by this claim so um they said you know go at it and in fact i think

00:18:52.900 i think it's somewhat consistent with you know baldoni's general view that he was trying to

00:18:58.560 portray in this movie about people who are victims should be able to speak out of them and then we're

00:19:04.500 going to be testing this statute we're going to be testing 47.1 to see what the uh you know what

00:19:09.840 the parameters of this statute are at least in the first instance so so i think that he didn't

00:19:15.700 think that there was a a realistic um possibility that it would that it would have any material

00:19:22.240 impact on him so that's why and if that was a condition to settling and and to basically being

00:19:27.580 able to walk away without having to pay anything being sued for 300 million dollars and and walking

00:19:33.100 away with paying zero and that's a complete victory and by the way that's that's that's

00:19:38.380 that's as well as he could have done what the the what happened with the settlement was as well as

00:19:47.620 he could have done had he gone to trial and won everything so so to for for what's her name to

00:19:54.220 lively to say that this is a complete victory it's a complete loss it's an absolute complete loss

00:20:01.360 She could have done no worse, no worse than what she did by settling this case. 0.98

00:20:08.720 She could have gone to trial and completely gotten creeped and done no worse than the terms on which she apparently settled this case.

00:20:18.400 So that's another reason, by the way, they probably, the Baldoni team agreed to keep this motion alive because they would have had that anyway.

00:20:27.880 So they felt that they did.

00:20:32.280 The bailout team got a complete victory.

00:20:33.900 Complete victory.

00:20:35.780 So again, I have one more question on it.

00:20:38.120 So if they had gone to trial, it would never be a scenario where he would get attorney's fees paid by her?

00:20:48.000 Really?

00:20:48.740 No.

00:20:49.160 That's not America.

00:20:51.220 That's Great Britain.

00:20:54.140 That's terrible.

00:20:55.200 Because, I mean, imagine you could just be like complete bankrupt, get bankrupted by someone like this if they go after you.

00:21:02.980 They could just ruin your financially forever if you don't have insurance or whatever, if this happens to you.

00:21:08.980 It's terrible.

00:21:10.260 You know, then you've got the unemployed postal worker who slips and falls on a watermelon at the grocery store.

00:21:15.980 And he doesn't have the money to bring a lawsuit.

00:21:18.220 And so, you know, you want to encourage people to be able to bring those lawsuits.

00:21:23.240 But if they can't and they're under threat of having to pay attorney's fees if they lose, so that's the rationale in the U.S. rule.

00:21:32.360 So in the United States, unless there is a statute or a contract that entitles you to recover fees, everyone pays their own fees.

00:21:44.400 Wow.

00:21:45.520 Okay.

00:21:46.420 So don't get sues in America, basically, bottom line.

00:21:52.220 That's terrible.

00:21:53.060 I have insurance for sure.

00:21:55.520 Well, do you have anything else you want to add?

00:21:57.880 What would you tell Blake Lively's Adorn is right now?

00:22:01.520 I would tell Ezra Hudson that I'm really disappointed in her.

00:22:05.220 I have to say she was very involved in this case.

00:22:09.240 She, I'm sure, has strong opinions or was, you know,

00:22:14.680 obviously wants to advocate for her client.

00:22:16.480 But I just think she went too far by getting an agreement that she did and getting the language that she did and then saying, aha, see, you admitted that you, you know, harassed my client.

00:22:32.520 That's just not OK.

00:22:34.020 We knew that was going to come.

00:22:35.480 When I saw that statement, I was like, oh, they're going to weaponize this for sure.

00:22:39.120 And they did.

00:22:39.940 It's very predictable at this point, I think.

00:22:42.960 Yeah, it's too bad because, you know.

00:22:45.280 So anyway, the case will be over after this motion gets heard.

00:22:52.220 I suppose people can still talk about it all they want after that,

00:22:55.160 but there's nothing anyone can do on either side to get anywhere further.

00:23:02.740 The thing is, yeah, but I think the thing here is that this is not really a legal war.

00:23:08.040 This is a PR war.

00:23:09.840 Of course.

00:23:10.760 And I think that's where this is never going to end

00:23:14.220 because for some reason

00:23:16.160 they still want to destroy this man

00:23:18.900 and yeah, they're not going to

00:23:21.720 because now most people out there

00:23:23.380 really knows the truth

00:23:24.540 and yeah, anyways, thank you so much, John

00:23:27.260 for doing this again

00:23:28.240 you've been amazing

00:23:29.140 and also, you know, you helped me

00:23:32.860 in that moment where I was desperate

00:23:35.320 where Blake Riley was going after me

00:23:38.140 wanted to subpoena my Google account

00:23:41.260 my YouTube, everything

00:23:42.680 my bank account, everything 0.99

00:23:44.060 and you quashed it yeah well just one more example of uh her attorney's overreaching so

00:23:50.660 yeah just like just like with this statement that they just made so anyway well it's been

00:23:55.580 my pleasure thank you so much on the show thank you john thank you so

Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - May 10, 2026

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