Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - The Secret's Out - And It's getting UGLY !!

00:00:00.000 Then Ryan sucker-punches my friend in the face, which ended up breaking his nose.

00:00:12.240 Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk. I'm Kersti Flohr, journalist, Hollywood truth-teller,

00:00:16.720 and your voice of reason in a town built on delusion. So many of you have sent me this

00:00:22.360 podcast and I've been watching it a few times now and I have to say I'm both happy and pretty

00:00:28.280 shocked at the same time. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, TMZ's big boss invited

00:00:34.240 Brian Friedman onto his podcast and Justin Baldoni's attorney took the opportunity to confront Harvey

00:00:42.120 about all the false reporting that they've been up to. Also a big thank you to everyone for supporting

00:00:49.160 Rick Fedrick, the photographer that I had on my show yesterday. He told the mind-blowing story of

00:00:55.640 what happened to him after Blake and Ryan decided to go after him. If you missed that,

00:01:01.480 you really should go and watch that. And after watching that interview, someone DM'd me on

00:01:06.740 Instagram and said, you know, I have a friend who also had a violent experience with Ryan Reynolds.

00:01:14.060 You won't believe what happened to this person that ended up with a broken nose.

00:01:19.440 Apparently Hollywood is in shock by Blake Lively's demand from last week. I did speak about that a few

00:01:26.620 times. She's demanding $161 million in damages and on top of that, punity damages with ends up being 0.98

00:01:34.760 $650 million. And people in Hollywood are like, does she think she is Beyonce? And we have to talk

00:01:41.880 about this crazy GQ interview with Sydney Sweeney, the one that went viral for all the wrong reasons

00:01:49.220 and the internet is going wild. And now we know the entire PR spin, the operation that happened behind

00:01:57.080 the scenes of the premiere of Stranger Things last week. As you know, Millie Bobby Brown accused 0.96

00:02:04.220 her co-star David Harbour of harassing and bullying her. And all of a sudden, they were best friends.

00:02:12.160 Okay, so let's get into this TMZ podcast. As I said, Justin Baldoni's attorney, Brian Friedman,

00:02:19.520 was invited to this podcast. And the podcast is called Two Angry Men. It is Harvey Levin,

00:02:25.780 big boss over at TMZ, and this big ass attorney called Mark Garagos that you probably heard about.

00:02:32.640 He was representing Michael Jackson, amongst others. So after listening to this podcast a

00:02:37.560 couple of times now, my big takeaway is that the reason TMZ asked Brian Friedman to come on their

00:02:44.640 show was to pretend that they're not biased. My number one favorite moment from this podcast is

00:02:52.100 when Brian Friedman is putting Harvey Levin on the spot, asking him straight to his face,

00:02:57.800 why did you report falsely last week about the deadline that was missed? He is referring to

00:03:04.100 the breaking story on TMZ, where they said that Justin Baldoni accepted his loss after he missed a

00:03:13.060 deadline to appeal. I spoke about it here on my channel, and this is how it went down in the podcast.

00:03:19.460 That you think mainstream media, it sounds like what you're saying is they haven't given Baldoni a fair

00:03:25.100 shake. I mean, I certainly know on our side, Blake is taking lots of lumps. Yeah, I don't, I haven't

00:03:32.160 seen that. I really haven't seen that. What I've seen is things misconstrued, you know, for example,

00:03:38.980 on TMZ itself. You saw, you know, you saw it on TMZ, you know, they said that deadlines were blown

00:03:46.180 and Justin has walked away from the appeal. He's walked away from his case. He's fine with the

00:03:53.820 fact that the case was dismissed. That was on TMZ. That was not true. We messed that up. I agree with

00:04:01.520 you. Look, we're not going to say something that we know is not true because it's ultimately going

00:04:06.440 to get corrected. We messed that up. Well, you're definitely not going to say that you knew that it

00:04:10.740 was untrue and said it. That's for sure. So Harvey's trying to pretend that he's taking some

00:04:16.080 kind of responsibility here, but he never responds to how they reported on this story. Did they actually

00:04:22.500 read any court documents? Because if they did, they wouldn't have reported on it this way.

00:04:27.660 How did you get the story wrong about the appeal? Well, I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus

00:04:36.960 in my office. So I don't want names. Can I, can I, can I, I'm going to, well, no, I know. And here's

00:04:45.620 the thing. I think it was analyzed wrong. We corrected it, right? There's no, it doesn't,

00:04:52.820 it doesn't serve us to put a story up that we end up correcting. We screwed that up. And I, I just

00:04:59.120 agree with you. I agree. You, you may, you, you may have screwed it up actually, because what you may

00:05:04.280 have done is you may have read deadline. He also claims that they corrected it. They just changed

00:05:09.220 the headline and the intro of the story. They didn't put anywhere that this is a correction of

00:05:15.100 a previous article. And who's going to read that old article from 48 hours ago after it's been

00:05:21.880 corrected? No one. Yes. And no good excuse there from Harvey. Also, he's saying that we haven't been

00:05:28.020 biased in our reporting here, which is so ridiculous because I could count for the last,

00:05:33.780 like two months. They've been reporting three times on fake stories. One was last week when they said

00:05:41.540 that he missed a deadline, which wasn't true. Then they made a big story about this guy who jumped the

00:05:47.380 fence over at Travis Kelsey's home at two o'clock in the morning and got arrested after trying to

00:05:53.800 subpoena Taylor Swift. Also a lie. They never corrected that story. They even asked Justin Baldoni about the

00:06:01.640 incident directly when they met him at the airport. And Justin said, that's just crazy rumors. They

00:06:08.460 didn't even report on it. They didn't make a story about that. On top of that, they made a huge fuss

00:06:14.260 about Travis Kelsey publishing a podcast talking about sisterhood of the traveling pants. And the article

00:06:22.940 said it was a nod at Blake Lively. And they reported on it as if this podcast was just released.

00:06:28.640 They did realize that the recording was old and it was just republished. And they did discuss that

00:06:36.800 in their newsroom, which they streamed live on YouTube. So you could see that they realized,

00:06:43.960 oh, we made a mistake. And how did that happen? And that's why I think it's so suspicious that they're

00:06:49.240 being so sloppy with their reporting when they made so many mistakes already in this case.

00:06:55.000 Brian Friedman also talks about in this podcast, how the media has twisted, how mainstream media

00:07:01.980 has twisted so many things in this case, and how the reporting has not been fair at all. And then

00:07:09.220 Harvey Levin is like, well, you know, publicists calls us all the time, and they're not always telling

00:07:15.020 the truth. And he said that both parties have contacted us. I've been there on the receiving end

00:07:20.020 of the publicists trying to plant stories with us. But there is a big difference here in Baldoni's

00:07:27.400 team contacting TMZ and Blake Lively's team contacting TMZ. Because Blake's team has tried

00:07:34.460 to plant fake stories about Baldoni. Baldoni on his side has tried to defend himself against these fake

00:07:42.960 stories. He has not tried. As far as I know, I've never, ever seen anywhere that Baldoni's team

00:07:50.060 has planted a fake story about Blake Lively. We are in the position where we get

00:07:57.240 contacted by publicists all over the, you know, all over entertainment. And it's just been funny to me

00:08:07.140 that each side has been saying, we're clean, the other side isn't. Both sides have been doing this

00:08:13.760 stuff. And I know it because I've been the recipient of those phone calls.

00:08:19.320 Yeah, you really should go and watch the entire podcast. It's really interesting when they also go

00:08:24.280 into depth about how publicists work, how they're shopping around their stories. And Brian Friedman is

00:08:31.480 asking Harvey, when a publicist is telling you something, what do you do to verify that story?

00:08:36.940 And then also Harvey says that, you know, they're saying they have sources close to the person

00:08:41.900 and they want us to report it on it anyway. And if we say no, they just go to someone else.

00:08:47.220 Basically, he was trying to pretend that they're always checking their sources. So my question then

00:08:52.080 would be, what sources did you check before you publish the story of that guy jumping the fence

00:08:58.360 to subpoena Taylor Swift? Because as we know, the content creators were the ones who actually found out

00:09:05.960 quickly that that story was not true. TMZ and all the other outlets just referred to the reporting

00:09:12.100 in Star, which is not a very reputable media outlet. But they still reported on it. They didn't have

00:09:19.620 any sources for that story. So I'm not buying any of these lame excuses from TMZ for reporting falsely

00:09:27.800 on this story. Brian Friedman also mentions in this podcast, the power that Blake and Ryan has

00:09:34.060 in the industry and amongst the players. And we already know that. And we also know that that is

00:09:40.300 one of the reasons that the mainstream media have been reporting on this in a very biased way.

00:09:46.780 Again, one more thing that Harvey said that really annoyed me. He was comparing this case to Johnny Depp

00:09:52.420 versus Amber Heard. And he said, this is a he said, she said kind of situation, which I strongly

00:09:58.120 disagree with. This is nothing like that case. First of all, we have to remember that the incidents

00:10:05.060 here that Blake is referring to in her CRD complaint that happened on the set, allegedly that he was

00:10:12.260 S-aging her. There were a lot of people who could have witnessed that. There were a lot of people on

00:10:18.900 that set at all times. There were crew members, photographers, cameramen, makeup artists. There

00:10:24.700 were people everywhere in the Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard case. Things happened in their private

00:10:31.300 life. This is not something that happened in someone's private life. Also, Harvey was trying to

00:10:36.780 like reduce this to something like, oh, if the jury hears one side of this story and the other side of

00:10:43.240 the story, it's going to be just like, well, he said this and she said this. And the jury is just

00:10:48.640 going to be like, oh, you're just all guilty. You both were doing that case. You know, you end up

00:10:55.520 getting the verdict because the jury just doesn't want to give money to anybody because both people

00:11:01.480 were playing the game. Yeah, it's so fascinating to me that Harvey is an attorney and also an editor

00:11:08.240 of this huge news site. And this is the way that he reads this lawsuit. Yeah, this entire podcast did

00:11:17.280 not convince me that we can trust anything that we read or see on TMZ because this was just an

00:11:22.960 attempt from TMZ to pretend that they're not biased because I think they've been receiving a lot of

00:11:29.720 criticism. I see every time they post something on Instagram, a lot of people are jumping on

00:11:34.800 criticizing them and they're losing their credibility. And this was a way for them to try

00:11:39.560 and fix that. It did not work. But I'm so happy that Brian Friedman came on and set the record

00:11:45.180 straight here. And he also ended this conversation by saying that he is really looking forward to the

00:11:51.060 trial. And for the first time in over a year, we will actually hear Justin Baldoni's version of events

00:11:56.600 that he's really looking forward to. And he said at this point, they haven't decided about the appeal yet.

00:12:01.800 It all depends on how the trial goes, because most likely they will not have a chance to appeal until

00:12:08.280 after this trial because they have to wait for the judge to rule on Blake Lively's attorney's fees

00:12:15.420 before they do that. Yeah, if you have time, you should really go and watch that entire episode.

00:12:19.820 It's really fascinating. Anyways, as I said in my intro, I did have someone contacting me and said that

00:12:25.900 something happened to their friend involving Ryan Reynolds. So I'm going to read this DM that she

00:12:31.620 sent me. I lived in Vancouver for 12 years before moving to Australia. In the fall of 1999,

00:12:39.560 Ryan and his group of friends tried to gatecrash slash get into a function that was sold out along

00:12:46.160 with being at max capacity for the number of people in the festival. Ryan started yelling at the doorman,

00:12:53.880 swearing at him and saying, do you know who I am? I'm on the TV show Two Guys and a Girl.

00:13:00.640 The doorman wouldn't let them come in. My friend went up to the door to help because most of the staff

00:13:07.340 working there were from a rugby club. Anyhow, lots of pushing and shoving happening. Then Ryan

00:13:14.800 sucker punches my friend in the face, which ended up breaking his nose. Ryan and his friends started to

00:13:23.060 leave were laughing and saying, Ryan knows people around here and don't bother going to the cops.

00:13:30.960 Also at the time, my friend had just lost his mom. Yeah, stories like these keep popping up about

00:13:38.520 Ryan Reynolds. And this story also supports what Rick Fadig was emphasizing yesterday in my interview

00:13:45.780 with him where he said that Ryan's brother is a policeman and that he had a lot of influence

00:13:51.920 in how his whole case was treated by the police. Anyway, people in Hollywood are apparently not very

00:14:00.560 impressed by Blake Lively saying that she lost 161 million in earnings after or over it ends with us

00:14:08.980 the scandal. So the journalist, Rob Schroeder, is quoting some people from the industry saying here

00:14:15.160 she's talented. Sure. Laughs one studio executive saying, but 161 million? Blake's not pulling Marvel

00:14:23.520 money. Ryan's the brand, not her. And he continues here saying that insiders are not buying this.

00:14:30.580 Even her biggest movie didn't gross that much, says one agent. This feels more like ego than economics.

00:14:36.820 Industry chatter suggests the filing robbed Hollywood the wrong way. She's acting like a mogul when she's 1.00

00:14:43.880 a mid-tier at best, says one producer. People are whispering. She thinks she's Beyonce? And then

00:14:50.860 apparently a close friend of Blake Lively is saying that she's embarrassed. This is about pride. And then

00:14:59.100 apparently one rival quipped, if Blake's really worth 161 million, then I'm the next Barbie.

00:15:06.820 Yeah, let's face it. She's never, ever going to see any of that money. And as I said last week,

00:15:12.880 this is just a small amount of what she's actually asking. These are the actual damages she's asking

00:15:18.160 for. And on top of that, she's asking for triple punitive damages. So all of this ends up to be

00:15:24.160 about 650 million dollars. It's such a joke. Okay, so we have to get into this Sidney Sweeney interview.

00:15:30.360 For me as a journalist, when I watch things like this, maybe I cringe more than other people.

00:15:35.000 But this interview, the setup of this interview is what really fascinated me. Because this journalist

00:15:40.860 had a mission when she sat down with Sidney Sweeney. And that was to trap her into feeling

00:15:47.560 guilty about that American Eagle jean commercial. And also to get her to admit that she's a Republican

00:15:54.220 and that she supports Donald Trump. But she messed up big time. I'm not going to talk about the politics

00:16:01.300 here. I stay away from all of that. But I do want to comment on this from a journalistic perspective

00:16:07.040 here. When you look at the body language of this reporter, and her sneaky little smile all the time,

00:16:14.080 and the way she never looks at Sidney while she's asking a question, that is just a recipe for disaster.

00:16:22.220 Is there something that you want to say about the ad itself? The Sidney Sweeney has great genes. Do you

00:16:28.580 have... The ad spoke for itself. You think the ad spoke for itself. Okay. And the criticism of the

00:16:34.500 content, which was basically that maybe specifically in this political climate, like white people

00:16:41.040 shouldn't joke about genetic superiority. Like that was kind of like the criticism, broadly speaking.

00:16:47.540 And since you are talking about this, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that

00:16:51.280 specifically. I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.

00:16:59.440 I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that specifically. I wanted to give you an

00:17:05.960 opportunity to talk about it. Like who are you? I am giving you this opportunity. Like Sidney Sweeney

00:17:12.960 doesn't have an opportunity to talk about this whenever she wants to. She has her social media 0.97

00:17:18.000 account. She can call any outlet and come out with some kind of comments on this. But the way she's

00:17:24.040 trying to spin this is like, I'm doing you a favor by sitting here and asking you these questions.

00:17:29.540 She's not. So it was so clear from the beginning of this GQ interview that the reporter felt like she

00:17:37.000 was more noble and she was more politically correct than Sidney Sweeney. And she wanted to trap her into 0.99

00:17:43.640 saying something that she could spin a headline from. The president tweeted about the jeans ad or

00:17:49.040 truth socialed about the jeans ad. And that just seems to me like a very crazy moment for anyone.

00:17:59.260 And I wondered what that was like. It was surreal. It was surreal. And it would be totally human.

00:18:08.920 I would probably feel like thankful that somebody had my back in public, you know, and conveniently,

00:18:18.700 some very powerful people had my back in public. And I wondered if if you felt that way.

00:18:27.040 And then she's like, oh, the president supported you in a tweet. How did that make you feel?

00:18:32.000 Yeah, it's terrible from a reporter to show your political views in an interview. You're not supposed

00:18:38.180 to do that. You're supposed to be objective here. She can have all those opinions, but don't show it

00:18:43.980 because that makes you really unprofessional. And I bet that after this interview, the reporter was

00:18:48.880 like, yeah, I got her. Like, no, you didn't. You just made a big fool of yourself. And if you read the

00:18:54.460 comments on that video, you can see everyone is like, wow, this was terrible. This reporter is awful.

00:19:01.740 It looks like an HR meeting and not like an interview. Her smirky smile. She's a real Karen.

00:19:09.140 You can put a politician on the spot like that where they had to defend their choices that they made

00:19:14.060 on behalf of the public. But you can't put a celebrity on the spot like that and then think that you're

00:19:20.900 actually going to get a good answer. That will never happen. But watching the tension in that interview

00:19:26.900 between these two women, oh my God, if you need a cringe on a Sunday, go and watch that entire 1.00

00:19:33.440 interview on GQ on YouTube. And there's some news in regards to this crazy, weird, strange,

00:19:41.140 Stranger Things premiere that happened last week. Everyone was like, what is going on here?

00:19:47.100 If you follow this a little bit, Billie Burbey Brown accused her co-star, David Harbour,

00:19:52.400 laughing and hugging.

00:20:21.940 And looking like the best friends ever. So according to Rob Shooter's newsletter,

00:20:27.860 insiders say Netflix was running a full-blown crisis operation. It says here the premiere

00:20:35.700 wasn't just a red carpet, it was a PR intervention. Brown and Harbour appeared side by side at the event

00:20:43.340 as we saw laughing and hugging. A photo op, insiders said, was staged. They knew one smiling image

00:20:50.860 could end weeks of bad headlines, says a publicist. Pre-approved talking points, we're family.

00:20:57.720 Oh my God, I've heard that so many times. Oh, and they said we were just family and it felt so safe and

00:21:04.840 blah, blah, blah. Have you heard that before? Yes. So that was the talking point they were told to say.

00:21:10.280 And statements from the Duffer brothers about safe and happy. That were the words that were supposed to

00:21:16.800 use in the interviews. The message was unity and closure, says the source. Netflix fears the scandal

00:21:23.900 could overshadow the show's finale and derail future spin-offs. There's too much money on the line,

00:21:30.660 says one executive. They had to bury it fast. Yeah, as always, money talks. Also, it says there that

00:21:38.740 Millie Bobby Brown was consulted every step of the way. Nothing was done behind her back. Apparently,

00:21:46.420 Netflix choreographed everything on that carpet, down to all the little details of the arrivals,

00:21:53.460 the routes they were going to walk, the photo ops, to ensure comfort and calm. She's the face of the

00:22:00.200 franchise, says the producer. Her voice mattered. Insider insists that there are no secret feuds,

00:22:06.940 just boundaries, business and professionalism. Yeah, another great example of how the Hollywood

00:22:13.300 machinery works, how the PR crisis management teams are working so hard behind the scenes

00:22:20.200 to try and gaslight the public. Anyway, that's it from you guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode

00:22:26.000 and thanks for watching. And if you haven't subscribed yet, please do hit the notification bell

00:22:31.840 so you never miss an episode of Flawsome Talk. And I'll see you soon. Bye!

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Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - November 11, 2025

The Secret's Out - And It's getting UGLY !!

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