My lawsuit against Blake Lively !!
Episode Stats
Summary
Should I sue Blake Lively? Do I have a better case than she does against Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath, and the rest of the Wayfair parties she attended in 2016? In this episode, Tashina Flohr explains why she thinks so.
Transcript
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Should I sue Blake Lively? Do I have a better case than her? I actually think so.
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Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk. I'm Tashdi Flohr, journalist, Hollywood truth teller and your voice
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of reason in a town built on delusion. Happy holidays everyone. I'm in a holiday spirit today
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wearing some sparkles. First I wanted to apologize for something I said yesterday in my episode.
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I misspoke big time. I reported that it was Ellen Garofalo, Justin Baldoni's attorney,
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who subpoenaed me and 107 content creators. That of course is false. It is Ezra Hudson and I kept
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saying Ellen Garofalo instead of Ezra Hudson. I'm so so sorry and I did pin it in a comment and I did
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put it in the description as well and I also did a community post about it. I hope everyone sees that
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and again my deepest apologies for me speaking like that. That was awful. Anyway it's been a year
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now since that article in the New York Times dropped and it's been a year since Blake Lively
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filed her lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath and the rest of the Wayfair parties. And now
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after one year as you know we haven't seen any evidence yet. So that made me think, should I sue
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Blake Lively? Do I have a better case against her than she has against the Wayfair parties? Let's look
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into it. So as you know a little background here. This interview took place in 2016. I was going to
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interview Blake Lively, Parker Posey and also Kristen Stewart for the movie Cafe Society in New York. I
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went there being optimistic. I had my questions ready but nothing went as planned because of what
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Blake Lively and her co-star did. So here is a snippet from what happened in the beginning of that
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interview. First of all congrats on your little bump. Congrats on your little bump. Okay so I was not
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pregnant here. There was no bump. My body was not a topic. Therefore this qualifies as fat shaming. She
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was drawing attention to parts of my body. Body shaming. This is a public comment on my body and my
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appearance. And reproductive shaming. She was implying that I was pregnant without any grounds to do so.
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And critically as well the context here. She was only saying this out of spite. It was meant as
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retaliatory. And now we have to add group mockery. Because Blake Lively was not there by herself.
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She was paired up with another actress, Parker Posey. The interaction then shifted from conversation
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to being entertainment on my expense. Due to this shared mockery, this qualifies as coordinated
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conduct. And this can be seen as a pattern. I'll get back to that. After the comment on the bump,
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this happened. What about my bump? You've got two nice ones. And these, they are kind of bumps aren't
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they? No, not bumps. The lovely lady lumps. Check it out. Thank you. Thank you. The two women here were
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pointing at their breasts. They gestured physically towards their own breasts. And they did that in
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front of me during my interview. This introduces a second category of harm. Sexualized conduct in a
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professional setting. It doesn't matter if they were referring to themselves and their own bodies. Because
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under modern standards, sexualization does not require touching. And it doesn't require targeting.
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it does not require intent. It only requires sexual language, a work environment, and a participant who
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does not consent. Me. Now we're getting to the third count here, which is hostile interview environment.
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Once sexual humor enters the workplace, the environment changes. And in that moment, I did not
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initiate sexual content. I did not consent to it. I could not exit that moment. I was stuck there. I had
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to be there in the minutes that I was required to be there to interview them to do my job. And I was
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outnumbered. There were two. I was one. That also means a power imbalance. They had all the power.
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There were two people. They were the actresses. They were the ones who were in control. And I was just
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a random journalist. This shows a toxic workplace and a hostile interview environment. Here we have
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count four, which is sexism accusations as professional damage. So what happens next is that I asked the two
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actresses about wearing those costumes in the movie because they were beautiful costumes. It was a period
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piece. So the costumes were playing whatever their own part in the movie, if you want to put it like
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that. And to ask a question like that cannot be seen in any way as inappropriate in this context.
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Yeah, it's gorgeous. Did you guys love wearing those kind of clothes that you got to wear?
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You're working in digital. Everyone wants to talk about the clothes, but I wonder if they would ask
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the men about the clothes. I would. I love Jesse's suits. That's what I'm saying. His wardrobe was
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beautiful. When I asked that question, she implied sexist intents. She questioned my professional
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ethics because of that. And she reframed my journalism and my question as discrimination.
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And in today's standards, you don't need to prove sexism. You only need to suggest it. This was on
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camera. It was a professional interview and it had an audience there. And we have to add to that.
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Instead of answering my question, Blake turned to Parker Posey and they started their own conversation
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about the men's wardrobe in the movie and how much they appreciated what the men were wearing.
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At that point, they ended my role as an interviewer. They ignored me throughout the entire, through the
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rest of this interview. And under modern language, this can qualify as professional marginalization,
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silencing, and exclusion from the interaction. And also remember, they kept talking about the
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men's wardrobe. So that means that they think only asking about a women's wardrobe is sexist, but
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celebrating men's clothing is fine. So to use Blake's own logic here, this can be seen as gender-based
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gatekeeping, selective outrage, and arbitrary enforcement of moral rules. And once I asked this
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question, I was completely sidelined from the rest of the interview. And I did not consent in being
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silenced and sidelined. This can be seen as retaliatory disengagement and professional
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invalidation. And also the rest of the people who were present, who were there for Blake Lively, who
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also represented her, they didn't do anything about this situation. And they should be responsible for
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maintaining a safe work environment as well. They should have intervened when this happened and stopped
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it from escalating. They allowed this harm to happen to someone who's just trying to do their job. They allowed
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this trauma to deepen for the plaintiff. It's not because they caused the behavior, obviously, but they failed
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to stop it. And now we come to the economic coercion here. After this interview, this plaintiff, me, wanted to
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quit her job. But she couldn't do that because I had to pay my bills. And that doesn't mean consent. It just
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means that I had to survive. And survival in itself then becomes evidence of coercion. And then comes the
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continuing course of conduct two years later. Because in 2018, I had to interview Blake Lively again.
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I had no choice in this. I had to do this on behalf of the employer that I had in Norway, who asked me to
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interview Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick for a simple favor. That means that I had to face this person again
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without any safety net around me. And I have to relive all the trauma once again. So this memory in itself becomes
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continuing conduct. And when I arrived at that interview, I also experienced through another
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person who was there who just left the interview, who had a traumatic experience with Blake Lively and
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Anna Kendrick, when he asked them a question about their characters and called them bitchy. And they
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snapped. And he was reprimanded outside in the hallway because he had asked them this question.
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That also brought back the trauma. Another example of toxic work environment. Even though this guy has
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nothing to do with my case, I think I'm going to bring him in here anyways to just show a pattern.
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Then we have a third party who enters this as well, who is my partner Magnus. Because Magnus
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also was interviewing Blake Lively in 2018 for a simple favor.
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Magnus, when I saw you earlier, you said, oh, let me get a shot. And I thought you meant of alcohol,
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but you meant a photograph. So guess what? Time to put up. And what are we drinking?
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Aviation American gin, who's owned by a very, very sexy man.
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What happens under this interview also should be considered misconduct. During this interview that
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lasted for four minutes, Blake Lively served Magnus, her husband, Ryan Reynolds gin, and she was
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putting it in front of the camera so that Magnus, first of all, could never show this, could never
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air this interview in Sweden, where you are not allowed to do any advertisements for alcohol.
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Keep that in mind. Also, Magnus was served this alcohol at 10 a.m. in the morning. And because,
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again, of the power imbalance here, he felt obliged to do as Blake Lively said. She was in control of
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this situation. She pressured him as well to chug the entire glass of gin before he left the interview.
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Just shoot it. Just shoot it. The interview would be so much more interesting.
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Come on, down it. Here we go. Come on. Woo! Yeah!
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This can be seen as alcohol-based pressure, unsafe workplace conduct, and also professional coercion.
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She also used sexualized language, and this is a pattern. So during this four-minute interview,
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It was owned by a very, very sexy man. And, you know, martinis are so sexy. But the glass and the
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way you swirl it, and you dump it, and you twist the lemon, and it's just like, oh, it's so sexy.
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Five times is definitely a pattern, and it made Magnus feel very uncomfortable. And Magnus was sitting
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there during this time being pressured to drink gin. He was not asked beforehand if he had any issues
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with alcohol. If he was an alcoholic, for example, then this would be a very dangerous environment for
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him to step into. She also hijacked the entire interview by not talking about the subject matter
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of the movie at all. She only spoke about alcohol and drinking alcohol, and how to produce Ryan
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Reynolds' gin, and how she doesn't drink coffee, but she loves the way it's made.
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But I drink it because I love the way they crush the beans, and they talk about it, and the story
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of the, you know, the origin of them, and, you know, the milk, and the foaming, and all of that.
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And the same thing with alcohol. When I hear about, you know, how this is distilled in Portland,
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and how this, the reason this one is winning all the taste tests, actually, is because gin has a high
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juniper content, which is why a lot of people don't like gin, because there's no juniper, and like,
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all of that story, I just love. Because I like storytelling, it's what I do for a living.
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And then, you know, martinis are so sexy, I mean, that's why they're in this movie.
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She exploited this interview format, and made it into an advertisement for gin. It's also obvious
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that she used flirtation in this interview, and therefore she interfered with my relationship.
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And by modern standards, I am allowed to infer flirtation. I can speculate as much
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as I want, and I say that this was boundary crossing, and I say this was a relationship
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interference between me and Magnus, and it caused Magnus emotional distress. And his stress,
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because of this, adding up to my stress from previous experiences working with Blake Lively,
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amplified the trauma for both of us. And I experienced secondary trauma. Okay, so let's jump
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forward to 2024 December, about a year ago, when New York Times published the article,
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We Can Bury Anyone, and including me as part of their smear campaign, insinuating that I had been
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paid by Baldoni's team to help smear Blake Lively. What followed that article for me personally was that
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I was trolled online, and it was claimed that I was corrupt, and all this hatred that I experienced
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online, and people contacting me, and threatening me, and threatening to even burn down my apartment
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in New York, which I don't live anymore, but anyways, all of this can be considered a smear campaign.
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An untraceable smear campaign, because I don't have the evidence yet to prove that Blake Lively
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herself is behind that smear campaign, but I can say that she started it by putting my name in that
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article in the New York Times. And also, other stories were spread about me online that weren't
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true, and that is called astroturfing. All of this was just designed to look like natural backlash,
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but it was definitely a smear campaign, an orchestrated smear campaign. And there's more evidence for this.
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My Wikipedia page. It kept changing. It kept changing up to 50 to 100 times every day by people
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or by editors who changed it back and forth, trying to make me look like a corrupt journalist.
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They removed context of things and my achievements, and they also added negative framing to make me look
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bad. So that makes Wikipedia a part of this smear ecosystem and a part of this bigger smear campaign.
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To add to that, I was also subpoenaed, meaning that I, of course, experienced extra harm and financial
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strain because I had to hire an attorney. Then I also had to focus on getting that tossed out. So I lost
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other opportunities because of that. That means that my damages for this lawsuit could be enormous
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because I lost so many opportunities from my other companies as well. I have redacted what those
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companies and those businesses are here, but I did lose a lot of opportunities. I've also redacted
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the amount here and I lost an opportunity. This is true from working with Mint Mobile who wanted to
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sponsor my channel and I had to say no. So what do you think? Do I have a better case than Blake Lively?
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And did I miss anything here? And also we have to keep in mind here, if they respond to my lawsuit,
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I see that as a continuation of a smear campaign. If they come out and say anything, if there's any
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statements by her legal team in any media outlets, that is another sign that this smear campaign is
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still going on against me. And if I see any critics online posting anything on Reddit or TikTok or
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Instagram or YouTube, I see that as astroturfing, which again proves that this smear campaign is still
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ongoing. Also, I am a woman and Blake Lively supports women, so she has to support me here. So she can't
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really defend herself against this because that means she doesn't support women and she's continuing the
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smear campaign. Also, I'm going to add all the people who worked with Blake Lively on previous
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projects that has had bad experiences with her to show a pattern here. Maybe I should call the New York
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Times and get them to print this article because I have more evidence than Blake Lively showed to the
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New York Times. I have video evidence. This case is based on facts and a lot of emotions because my
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feelings matters and I can sue someone based on my feelings and based on what I felt in that moment
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when it happened, although everyone else in the room saw that situation differently. That doesn't
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matter because it's my feelings. Anyways, thanks for watching you guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
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Please leave a comment below if I missed anything or if you think that I have a better case than Blake
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Lively has and please subscribe if you haven't. Hit the notification bell so you don't miss an episode