Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - Oh no, her case just COLLAPSED !？!

00:00:00.000 Bring your friends, wear your florals. Oh my god, this looks so bad.

00:00:09.040 Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk. I'm Sashdi Floor, journalist, Hollywood truth teller,

00:00:13.380 and your voice of reason in a town built on delusion. Okay, I hope everyone is having a

00:00:18.860 lovely day so far. I just finished reading a New York Times article about the legal feud between

00:00:25.020 Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. It's called Lively vs Baldoni tests what crosses the line

00:00:31.900 on a steamy movie set. They're going through all the claims Blake has against Justin and his defense,

00:00:38.420 but there is no mention of a smear campaign. Hmm, let's also take another look at Blake Lively's

00:00:46.780 own deposition and how she's claiming that Justin Baldoni and the Wayfair parties harmed her entire

00:00:52.920 family. And also it's revealed that she doesn't know what it means to be offered employment.

00:00:59.380 And this is really interesting because we now also have a deposition from Josh Greenstein,

00:01:05.180 the president of Sony. And guess what? Now we know who came up with that tone-deaf marketing

00:01:11.480 campaign. And this is so funny to me because the more this guy is bragging about Blake, because he

00:01:16.780 is, he's one of those people who wrote a glowing letter for her to get the producer credit. But the

00:01:22.280 more he brags about her, the worse it looks for Blake. And we have another expert from Blake Lively's

00:01:29.340 team. They just keep coming. I think this is number six. And after reading his deposition and

00:01:35.460 his report, it's clear that Blake Lively really should have sued Sony. This is quite entertaining.

00:01:43.260 Okay, so let's look at this New York Times article quickly. It was published this morning. I was reading

00:01:47.520 through it, expecting it to be, you know, leaning towards Blake. I found it to be quite balanced,

00:01:53.060 actually. They were referring to a lot of her claims. And then they did mention Justin Baldoni's

00:01:58.100 defense in the middle of this. But they don't really mention any of the evidence that we've seen

00:02:02.220 lately with these horrific text messages and emails that put both Blake and Ryan in a terrible light.

00:02:08.240 But the thing that really stands out for me here is that they don't even mention the word

00:02:13.860 smear campaign. Remember that original story that they did in 2024 in December, the big expose of

00:02:22.200 Hollywood's big smear machine? We can bury anyone? Well, they don't talk about that anymore. Now it's

00:02:30.440 basically only focusing on Blake Lively's SH claims. They do mention in the article that she sued him for

00:02:37.200 retaliation. But that's just one sentence where they mentioned she sued him for that as well as SH.

00:02:42.520 But anyways, they have a legal expert here who is agreeing basically with all other legal experts

00:02:47.640 that I've been listening to or I've been reading about. Everyone is kind of agreeing at this point

00:02:52.960 that her claims will not hold up in court for SH. Her claims are not serious enough for that. And he

00:03:02.200 is saying here, one way to think about this case is a clash between broader cultural perceptions

00:03:06.860 of harassment post-MeToo movement, said Russell Robinson, this legal expert. And he has expertise

00:03:14.400 in anti-discrimination law. And he says that where I think a lot of people, especially women,

00:03:20.820 would read the allegation and say that's inappropriate. But I think for courts, the standard

00:03:27.300 for harassment is much more demanding than the general public perception of what's appropriate

00:03:32.500 or inappropriate. And here's what's interesting, because they're also mentioning this other

00:03:38.600 lawsuit here. And this lawsuit also involves Judge Lyman, the same judge as we know from Blake

00:03:46.600 and Justin's case. So one of the real housewives, her name is Leah McSweeney. She sued Bravo TV

00:03:53.660 and Andy Cohen. I think that was in 2024, 2025. She sued for 33 civil counts. And one of those counts

00:04:02.640 was SH because she felt when Andy Cohen was asking her a question in one of those Real Housewives

00:04:09.500 reunion, he SHed her because he asked about her sexual experiences with other women. And she felt that

00:04:17.740 that was inappropriate. She also sued them for pushing her to drink alcohol when they knew she 1.00

00:04:22.560 had issues with alcoholism and all that stuff. But the interesting thing here is that Judge Lyman

00:04:27.800 threw out that claim. There are some other claims that survived, but he threw out that claim

00:04:34.500 specifically. And the New York Times is saying here, in dismissing the gender discrimination claims,

00:04:40.620 Judge Lyman noted that if the conduct she described had occurred on the factory floor or in an executive

00:04:47.960 suite, it would rise to a valid harassment claim. But this was reality television. The judge ruled

00:04:54.620 and the cast members were all aware of the agitating role that Mr. Cohen had long played as moderator of

00:05:02.000 the reunions. So he was basically saying you have to expect these kind of questions when you sign up

00:05:07.980 for a role in a reality show. And that's exactly how Justin Baldoni's attorneys were arguing his case in

00:05:15.260 court for the hearing in January saying, you know, Blake signed up for this. This was on a movie set.

00:05:20.800 They were discussing characters in a film. You have to expect these kind of conversations when you sign

00:05:26.700 up for a movie like that. So the fact that Judge Lyman already ruled on something a bit similar,

00:05:32.120 I think that is a sign that he is going to throw out Blake Lively's SH claims. And also, as you know,

00:05:39.260 I mentioned the other day, there is a similar lawsuit. There was a similar lawsuit about 20 years ago

00:05:44.400 from an assistant who was helping out in the writer's room of the TV show Friends. And she

00:05:50.260 filed a lawsuit saying that the language in that room was so vulgar and she felt harassed by it.

00:05:56.180 And she lost because they said that you have to have creative freedom in these writer's rooms.

00:06:02.200 So I find it very hard to believe that Blake's case is going to survive. And as you know,

00:06:08.060 there are two major factors that's really important in this case. And that is that she's claiming

00:06:13.080 that Justin Baldoni and the Wayfair parties retaliated against her because she spoke up

00:06:18.380 about these SH claims. And if there aren't any SH claims, what's going to happen to that

00:06:23.760 retaliation? That doesn't make the retaliation illegal anymore. If there was any, I obviously

00:06:29.260 don't think there was any retaliation or any smear campaign. But if there was even, then it's not

00:06:35.580 illegal if they didn't retaliate against her for speaking up about something like this.

00:06:39.860 As I already mentioned, I wanted to get into Blake Lively's deposition a little bit more

00:06:43.900 because there's so much interesting stuff here. And we have to keep in mind that Blake Lively

00:06:48.460 need to stick with everything that she's claiming in her deposition when she's at trial, 0.54

00:06:54.020 when she's at that stand, when she is questioned by Justin Baldoni's attorneys. So she's questioned

00:06:58.800 here by Justin's attorneys how much this smear campaign has damaged her career and her personal

00:07:08.040 life. But before we get into that, I wanted to show you Blake's IMDb page, how much she's actually

00:07:14.060 worked the last 10 years. You can see that after It Ends With Us, she did do another simple favor.

00:07:21.940 She did shoot that after she finished shooting It Ends With Us and it did premiere after It Ends

00:07:27.180 With Us. Before that, she did the movie If, where she had a voice and same as in Ladypool, 1.00

00:07:33.320 in Deadpool. She was only voicing that. And prior to that, she didn't have a movie since 2020,

00:07:41.200 the rhythm section. There was a lot of controversies around that as well. And before she did that,

00:07:46.220 she hadn't worked for two years since she did A Simple Favor in 2018. So she's not a busy actress.

00:07:54.640 And that's also why it's going to be so impossible for her to claim that she lost work because of the 0.96

00:08:03.140 Wayfair parties or Justin Baldoni and Jamie Heath. So she's asked here if she's worked since It Ends

00:08:09.340 With Us. And she says, yes, but she's worked on her companies. Have you worked about, have you done

00:08:13.440 something else? The attorney says here and she says, no, I don't believe so. And then they're asking,

00:08:18.720 were you in a movie with Anna Kendrick? And she says, are you talking about, I understood your

00:08:23.100 question to be since It Ends With Us came out. That's correct. Since you shot It Ends With Us.

00:08:29.480 Okay. She says, the attorney says, since the beginning of the smear campaign. And she says,

00:08:33.780 you're using your definition in a different ways. The way you have defined the smear campaign for

00:08:38.800 purposes of today is the digital manipulation that occurred in August of 2024. That's when the film

00:08:45.920 was released. So that's what I understood us to be talking about. Are you asking, are you asking about

00:08:52.700 from the time the film was completed being shot or from when it was released? She's asking. Again,

00:08:59.540 she's trying to divert the conversation here. And he says, did you go to Toronto Film Festival on a

00:09:05.160 movie that involved Anna Kendrick? When, she says, did you go to any, oh, it was actually Austin.

00:09:11.720 Did you go to Austin on a film that involved Anna Kendrick? And she says, yes, I just don't want to

00:09:17.880 misstate my testimony. So when you say since It Ends With Us, I just want to be clear for the record

00:09:23.620 that I understood you to be saying since It Ends With Us came out because you're testing, because you're

00:09:28.520 timestamping it from the smear campaign. And then she says, so I have done a movie since It Ends With Us

00:09:33.740 finished shooting. I have not done a movie since It Ends With Us came out and the retaliation campaign

00:09:38.120 started. Have you received any offers of employment? The attorney is asking and she says,

00:09:42.700 of employment? I don't know what that means. This made me laugh so much. How does she not know what

00:09:50.960 it means to get any offers of employment, especially because she is suing wayfarer parties and 1.00

00:10:00.600 Justin Baldoni based on the fact that she was an employee at the time all of this happened. If she wasn't

00:10:08.720 an employee, she would have no grounds to sue them because that would make her a contractor

00:10:14.400 and she wouldn't get away with this lawsuit. And here she says that she doesn't even know what it 0.99

00:10:20.020 means to receive an offer of employment. The attorney is trying to make things clearer saying, well,

00:10:27.020 has anybody offered you a role in a movie or asked you to take a look at a movie to be an actress or a

00:10:31.980 writer or director or an actor or any role? And she says, since, since when? He just pointed that

00:10:39.680 out to you. Since It Ends With Us came out. Not that I'm aware of, she says. Well, there was just a

00:10:45.280 press release in August of last year saying that Blake Lively is cast in first movie since It Ends

00:10:50.660 With Us drama. She is cast to act and produce in the movie The Survivalist. So she's not telling the

00:10:59.320 truth here. Maybe that happened after this deposition, but she did get an offer. I don't

00:11:05.820 think that movie is ever going to happen, but this is one of the things that keeps backfiring on Blake

00:11:10.640 because she keeps bragging to everyone that this isn't affecting her and she's having a wonderful life

00:11:16.520 and she's still popular and she's still getting all these parts because she doesn't want her public 1.00

00:11:22.060 image to get damaged more. So she has to pretend that she's still working and that she's still important. 0.99

00:11:29.320 But all of that, that is backfiring on her because she's claiming that they took away all her

00:11:35.660 opportunities. Anyways, they keep asking here, who are your family members that have been substantially

00:11:40.760 harmed? My husband and children. I think your husband, Ryan Reynolds, really put himself and

00:11:48.200 planted himself into this drama. If we should believe all those text messages and emails. Of course,

00:11:55.200 her children. I have sympathy for her children. No children deserves to be in a situation like this.

00:12:00.480 But anyways, anyone else? The attorney is asking. I believe that my mother, I believe, she doesn't

00:12:06.500 even know. She hasn't talked to her mother about this, that her mother is upset. We know her mom

00:12:11.040 from that Time 100 most influential people when she was fake crying or asking Blake, should I, or asking

00:12:19.300 Ryan, should I cry now? So yes, she believes her mom is harmed by this. And my siblings have been

00:12:28.300 emotionally harmed. And I believe my sister and her husband have been harmed as well. So my question

00:12:35.540 is, would any of these people be harmed if she just had moved on and not filed this lawsuit? No.

00:12:42.420 So I love this new question from Baldoni's team here asking, you won some accolades since it ends

00:12:48.820 with us has come out. Is that true? And she's like, I don't know. Were you selected having something to

00:12:56.600 do with either Time 100 or People 100? Did anyone honor you? And she's like, I don't think that's

00:13:04.280 characterized as winning an accolade. But yes, I was honored at Time 100 in the Time 100 list

00:13:09.980 and at the events. Again, these are things that are going to look so bad in front of a jury.

00:13:17.680 She claims that he ruined her career and her life. And then she's one of the most one. And then she's

00:13:23.540 on this list of Time 100 most influential people. I am sure now that Ryan Reynolds was behind that

00:13:30.200 because it made no sense whatsoever for her to be on that list. And because he was fighting so hard to

00:13:36.120 make his wife popular again, it's now backfiring because this as well does not look good in front 0.89

00:13:42.120 of a jury. I remember that during that event, I was thinking this is so bad for her case. Why are they

00:13:48.540 doing this? This is terrible. She should go into hiding. She should act like a real victim. Instead,

00:13:55.900 she was there on a red carpet showing off all the glamour, having a speech. It was just a terrible,

00:14:02.800 terrible choice. Anyways, as I said in the beginning of this episode, I wanted to mention

00:14:07.540 Josh Greenstein's deposition. He used to be the president of Sony. Now he works for Paramount.

00:14:14.840 And he's one of Blake Lively's big supporters through all of this. He was one of the people

00:14:20.620 who wrote this glowing report, this letter to PGA, Producer's Guild of America, so that Blake Lively

00:14:28.320 would get a producer credit on this movie. He's asked about that in the deposition. And he said,

00:14:34.320 yes, she's amazing. I haven't worked with anyone that's worked harder on all aspects of a movie for

00:14:40.900 25 years. So he's basically admitting that she worked on every aspect of this film. Not great for Blake,

00:14:49.660 who's trying to portray herself as a powerless victim. But anyways, this is even worse for Blake

00:14:55.820 and terrible for Sony. So he's saying in this deposition that he's asked about the marketing

00:15:02.400 campaign. And you know, Blake and Ryan and all her disciples, all of them agree that it was Justin

00:15:09.320 Baldoni and the Wayfair Party's fault that she got backlash and the rest of them got backlash during

00:15:15.220 the promotion of this movie because they told them not to talk about DV. Anyways, so here Josh is asked

00:15:23.860 by the attorneys who came up with the idea of promoting the movie the way they did. I was asked

00:15:30.220 by the attorney here, was grab their friends, wear their florals part of Sony's marketing campaign,

00:15:36.340 which was in respect to it ends with us. Yes. So you're not suggesting that someone other than

00:15:43.040 Sony came up with the concept of grab your friends, wear your florals. I don't know who came up with it,

00:15:49.800 but it was certainly part of the Sony campaign. It was embraced. He's trying to protect Blake here,

00:15:56.700 saying that they came up with this and it was a successful campaign. Because then we might believe

00:16:03.620 that the backlash that Blake received because of this wasn't organic. That's my guess here. But at the

00:16:11.140 same time, how can they blame all the bad marketing on Justin Baldoni and the Wayfair Party's

00:16:18.220 when Sony is admitting that they were behind this idea that got so much backlash, saying I don't know

00:16:24.020 who came up with it. It was certainly part of the Sony campaign. What was Sony's goal with the grab

00:16:29.040 your friends, wear your florals aspect of the marketing campaign? I assume it was to show support

00:16:34.980 for the book and Lily's character and turn it into a group outing. Why did Sony want to turn the event

00:16:40.920 into a group outing? Because how strong the movie played and the more people that saw it,

00:16:46.180 the better reactions you'd get in the world. And then he's showing him some documents here,

00:16:51.860 showing him saying that friends in floral screening plus Lily Bloom pop-up shop experience.

00:16:56.700 He's pointing out at a special event they were organizing. And he says, do you see that? He says,

00:17:01.780 what is your understanding of what this paragraph describes? And he says that we had a pop-up shop,

00:17:08.240 a Lily pop-up shop in Century City, invited a bunch of influencers to come and take pictures and videos.

00:17:13.520 And when you say we, who do you mean? And he says, Sony. Okay, are these the fun and sexy pop-up shops

00:17:21.880 that Wayfarer had early recommended? I assume so, he says. When did ever the Wayfarer parties recommend

00:17:29.680 to have a fun and sexy pop-up store? Anyways, do you see what in the middle it talks about influencers

00:17:37.940 to check out the space and partake in fun group activities, such as ironing floral patches to their denim?

00:17:46.560 Like that was Justin's idea, right. Receive temporary tattoos inspired by the film, sip Aunt Betty Boo's buzz,

00:17:55.380 and enjoy a gift bag with film-inspired goodies and screen the film in advance of the release.

00:18:00.680 Do you see that? Yes. Was this part of Sony's marketing? Yes. Okay.

00:18:05.640 And why did Sony offer visitors the ability to sip on Betty Boo's? I don't know.

00:18:12.240 Does that, is it common for these to be sponsors of films, events? Yes, very much, she says.

00:18:18.200 Do you believe it was Sony's idea? I have no clue, but it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.

00:18:24.740 I don't know who specifically came up with it, but I wouldn't be surprised. Why not?

00:18:29.920 Because it's Sony's job to come up with inventive ways to market the film.

00:18:34.480 So, yes. Here, Josh Greenstein from Sony says that it was their idea.

00:18:40.600 He takes the responsibility for bringing your friends and wear your florals.

00:18:46.180 So, why is Blake Lively not suing Sony then?

00:18:50.360 Because that is some of the biggest backlash she received from promoting this movie,

00:18:55.760 as well as putting Betty Buzz in there. 0.95

00:18:58.540 And he doesn't even know if it was Sony's idea to add a product from Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds

00:19:04.180 to promote this movie, an alcohol drink.

00:19:06.660 He doesn't even know whose idea it was.

00:19:08.620 I don't believe that.

00:19:09.620 But let's talk more about Sony here, because they also mention in this expert report.

00:19:14.740 So, Blake Lively has a lot of experts that she paid a lot of money. 0.96

00:19:19.200 I talked about, I think, four or five of them already.

00:19:21.920 This is, I think, number six.

00:19:24.440 His name is Michael Robbins, and he did a report on the policy of the Wayfair parties and Sony,

00:19:32.420 and the fact that they didn't take the SH claims seriously, and it was their responsibility,

00:19:37.680 and the HR departments weren't really working.

00:19:40.840 Before I go through more of this report, I wanted to point out one thing that Blake Lively

00:19:45.700 says in her letter to Producers Guild of America.

00:19:50.220 As you know, she wrote this incredibly long email to them.

00:19:54.900 It looks like it was written by a 12-year-old.

00:19:57.480 It's terrible.

00:19:58.560 But anyway, she's mentioning all the things, all her things that she did as a producer of

00:20:03.420 this movie.

00:20:04.200 There's a reason why she wanted this sealed, and she wanted to keep it sealed, because

00:20:08.280 it's so revealing.

00:20:10.460 Either she's lying a lot here, or this is terrible.

00:20:16.420 So she's saying here that I manage the politics and HR concerns on a daily basis, acting as

00:20:24.920 an intermediary to keep crew and cast engaged, safe, and on board.

00:20:31.980 So she was the HR department, she says.

00:20:34.840 So yeah, keep in mind that Blake Lively herself is the HR department here. 0.97

00:20:40.240 So what's really bad about this report, I have to start with that, is that this guy

00:20:43.740 is repeatedly stating that he's not determining whether harassment or retaliation actually

00:20:50.360 occurred.

00:20:51.500 He's saying that I'm writing this report pretending that it happened, and what should have happened,

00:20:57.760 and what should have come from that.

00:20:59.700 But he's not claiming that it actually took place, that there was any harassment on the

00:21:04.780 set.

00:21:05.080 And that's, again, what makes this so weak.

00:21:07.280 It's the same standard as all the other experts that I've been quoting.

00:21:12.840 And when he's saying that they should have investigated this without saying that these

00:21:17.280 claims were so serious that they should have been investigating, it makes absolutely no

00:21:21.820 sense.

00:21:22.420 You can't really say that they failed to investigate harassment when you can't really say that any

00:21:26.940 harassment actually happened.

00:21:28.500 What were they supposed to investigate then?

00:21:30.360 And on top of that, it was Blake Lively's responsibility as the HR person and the go-to

00:21:35.920 person on set to take this further and investigate.

00:21:39.700 Of course, this entire report is built on only information that they received from Blake Lively

00:21:44.460 and her team.

00:21:45.400 And he's repeating things that he's taken out from depositions from her and other people

00:21:50.640 who support her.

00:21:51.720 He's not taking into consideration anything from the other parties and from the defendants

00:21:57.080 here.

00:21:57.500 So this looks more like advocacy for Blake than anything else.

00:22:02.040 But the interesting thing here is that they're blaming a lot on Sony as well.

00:22:07.420 They're saying here, because Sony had so much responsibility here, he's saying that Sony had an anti-harassment

00:22:15.160 policy and the policy applied to individuals performing services and Sony was made aware of complaints.

00:22:24.840 And Sony chose not to investigate.

00:22:28.080 He's, of course, saying all the same things about Wayfair, but we know that she sued them.

00:22:31.840 So the question again is, why did she not sue Sony?

00:22:35.120 Because it wouldn't benefit her.

00:22:37.340 Because they're a big studio.

00:22:38.620 Because they have a lot of lawyers. 0.77

00:22:41.260 And because it would look terrible for her.

00:22:43.480 And it will burn her.

00:22:44.940 And it will burn Ryan Reynolds in this industry.

00:22:48.140 So that's obviously why she left Sony out of it.

00:22:51.120 And also, now that we know that Sony was behind the marketing campaign, she claims, we all

00:22:57.860 know it was also Maximum Effort, Ryan Reynolds' company.

00:23:01.500 But Josh Greenstein doesn't want to throw anyone under the bus here.

00:23:04.760 So he's taking responsibility.

00:23:07.040 He doesn't even work for Sony anymore, by the way.

00:23:09.240 So also a very interesting fact.

00:23:10.900 But he says it was Sony's responsibility.

00:23:13.240 And obviously, Blake just followed advice from Sony.

00:23:16.320 We know she doesn't follow advice from anyone.

00:23:19.100 And we know how much power she had on this movie. 0.86

00:23:22.160 So why would she listen to Sony when they're saying that you should do promotion like this

00:23:26.940 if she had any other ideas?

00:23:29.120 She wouldn't.

00:23:30.160 Because he also said that she was the one coming up with a lot of the ideas for the marketing,

00:23:35.600 for the trailer, for the editing.

00:23:37.340 He said, like, she played a part in every aspect of this film.

00:23:40.960 So yes, the more of this evidence we go through, the worse it looks for Blake.

00:23:47.560 Anyways, that's it for me, you guys.

00:23:49.620 I hope you enjoyed this episode.

00:23:51.480 And thanks for being here.

00:23:53.220 And thanks for subscribing.

00:23:54.900 And also check if you've been unsubscribed.

00:23:56.840 I keep seeing people commenting saying that they have been unsubscribed without knowing about it.

00:24:01.960 So please check if you're still interested in following my channel.

00:24:05.360 So yeah, that's it for me.

00:24:07.040 I'll see you soon.

00:24:08.080 Bye!

00:24:10.960 Bye!

Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - February 20, 2026

Oh no, her case just COLLAPSED !？!

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