Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 09, 2025


Ep 1120 ｜ 'We Can Bury Anyone'： Inside the Alleged Smear Campaigns of Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni (Part Two)

Topics
Blake Lively's behavior and responses in interviews
Hosted by
Allie Beth Stuckey
Mentioned
Blake Lively Justin Baldoni Code Allie Ryan Reynolds Melissa Nathan Wayfarer Jamie Heath Megan Kelly Jace Case Harvey Weinstein Colleen Hoover Brian Friedman Woody Allen Robert Downey Jr. WeHeart Nutrition America Ferreira Jake Hamilton Alexis Bledel Christy Hall Leslie Sloan and 3 more
Ep 1119 ｜ Is Blake Lively a Mean Girl？ Justin Baldoni Drama Explained (Part One) Ep 1121 ｜ Jinger Duggar Vuolo on Escaping People-Pleasing & Setting Biblical Boundaries

Episode Stats


Length

42 minutes

Words per minute

163.47

Word count

6,870

Sentence count

494

Harmful content

Misogyny

27

sentences flagged

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Who is telling the truth in the Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively drama? We re going to dig into some competing pieces of evidence, as well as conclude with some lessons that all of us can learn no matter what industry we are in, especially as Christians.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.640 Who is telling the truth in this Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively drama?
00:00:06.220 We are going to dig into some competing pieces of evidence today, as well as conclude with
00:00:14.100 some lessons that I think all of us can learn no matter what industry we are in, especially
00:00:20.300 as Christians.
00:00:21.700 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:00:24.280 Go to goodranchers.com, code Allie.
00:00:26.240 That's goodranchers.com, code Allie.
00:00:30.000 Okay, we are going to pick up right where we left off yesterday.
00:00:43.680 Here we go.
00:00:44.780 During the press tour, Lively also used the red carpet to keep the public thinking about
00:00:49.360 her husband's new film, the hyper-violent and profane Marvel blockbuster Deadpool and Wolverine.
00:00:54.180 I've not seen any of those.
00:00:55.600 I don't even know what a Marvel film is.
00:00:58.200 While giving Reynolds, not screenwriter Christy Hall or author Colleen Hoover, credit for
00:01:03.540 writing the It Ends With Us iconic rooftop scene.
00:01:10.700 That's interesting.
00:01:12.380 I didn't know that.
00:01:13.840 Did Ryan Reynolds, he wrote the script for that?
00:01:16.580 Yeah.
00:01:17.000 She did an interview and she said, I'm not supposed to be talking about this.
00:01:20.620 But Ryan came in and he rewrote that scene where basically where the two main characters
00:01:26.520 meet.
00:01:27.640 And apparently, apparently, this is just rumors, but he, Ryan Reynolds inserted himself, rewrote
00:01:35.600 the scene because he wanted to.
00:01:37.600 And Justin Baldani wasn't told about it.
00:01:40.440 Those are just rumors.
00:01:41.360 We don't have proof of that.
00:01:42.440 But that's supposedly what people think happened.
00:01:45.080 I don't know.
00:01:46.220 I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know if the movie scene is different than the book
00:01:51.540 scene.
00:01:51.800 But there is the rooftop scene in the book.
00:01:54.160 So it's not like it was all Ryan Reynolds' idea.
00:01:57.420 And so again, around this time when there was a lot of bad press about Blake Lively and
00:02:02.980 how she was marketing this and Baldani was kind of seeming like the sincere feminist
00:02:07.300 hero, also past interviews were circulating that made Blake Lively look really bad.
00:02:14.120 And this is an interview that she did with an independent journalist, Jake Hamilton.
00:02:18.020 It actually, I said it was previous.
00:02:19.460 It was actually happened in August.
00:02:21.600 But a lot of people were like, this is weird.
00:02:25.040 So if someone understands the themes of this movie, comes across you in public and they want
00:02:31.620 to really talk to you, what's the best way for them to be able to talk to you about this?
00:02:35.380 How would you recommend they go about it?
00:02:36.440 Like asking for like my address or my phone number or like my location share.
00:02:41.620 I could just location share you and then we could, I'm just social security number.
00:02:48.240 I'm a Virgo.
00:02:49.080 I'm like, are we talking logistics?
00:02:51.000 Are we talking emotionally?
00:02:53.520 I hated that so much.
00:02:56.000 I actually hated that.
00:02:57.660 She hit on so many things that I did not like.
00:03:01.380 Talking about your Zodiac sign for absolutely no reason.
00:03:06.520 And then also just responding sarcastically to a serious question.
00:03:10.120 I mean, this interview was asking, this interviewer was saying, okay, this is a serious subject
00:03:14.540 of domestic violence.
00:03:15.500 If a fan comes up to you and wants to talk to you about that, like what would be the best
00:03:18.120 way to do it?
00:03:19.000 Which is a little bit of like an odd question.
00:03:22.140 But first of all, how she's sitting shows me she doesn't care about this interview at all.
00:03:26.940 She doesn't want to be there.
00:03:28.080 That's what her demeanor comes across as.
00:03:29.840 I don't know how she was really feeling.
00:03:31.660 And then she gives a completely, not only sarcastic answer, but totally nonsensical.
00:03:36.180 Like I, this is how it comes across.
00:03:38.260 I do not care about what people, but I don't care about the subject here.
00:03:44.720 I don't care about its underlying meaning.
00:03:47.360 And I don't really want people to come up and talk to me.
00:03:49.800 I thought it was just a very, very odd and rude answer.
00:03:55.940 And this, I guess, is what started people circulating the past interviews of Blake Lively.
00:04:02.580 So it could have been some strategic releasing of past interviews to make her look bad. 0.94
00:04:08.640 But it could have also just been that she genuinely gave a bad interview in August.
00:04:14.140 And that made people on the internet start thinking about past interviews that she's done where she exhibited very similar behavior. 0.98
00:04:22.800 So it might not have been orchestrated.
00:04:24.460 It could have just been organic because she did that weird thing. 0.99
00:04:27.460 So, for example, here is SOP 4.
00:04:31.460 First of all, congrats on your little bump.
00:04:34.440 Congrats on your little bump. 0.99
00:04:36.160 What about my bump?
00:04:37.600 We've got two nice ones.
00:04:42.040 And these, they are kind of bumps, aren't they?
00:04:45.040 No, not bumps.
00:04:46.860 The lovely lady lumps. 1.00
00:04:48.160 Check it out.
00:04:48.880 Thank you.
00:04:49.540 Thank you.
00:04:50.260 You like the movie?
00:04:51.420 Are you a Woody Allen fan?
00:04:52.500 I love most of his movies.
00:04:53.920 And this one was so, like, visually amazing.
00:04:56.920 Yeah, it's gorgeous.
00:04:58.120 Did you guys love wearing those kind of clothes that you...
00:05:01.320 Yeah.
00:05:02.120 Yeah.
00:05:02.420 And, you know, working in digital...
00:05:03.580 Everyone wants to talk about the clothes, but I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes.
00:05:07.600 All right.
00:05:08.600 So this was in 2016, an interview about her movie, Cafe Society.
00:05:13.520 She's a little bit pregnant there. 1.00
00:05:15.440 The interviewer, as you heard, says, congratulations on your little bump.
00:05:20.700 Okay, that was, like, a nice thing to say.
00:05:23.400 Blake Lively could have said thank you.
00:05:25.180 Instead, she responds sarcastically, saying congrats on your little bump to this interviewer who is not pregnant. 1.00
00:05:32.340 Also, like, doesn't have any kind of belly bump there, but clearly, like, Blake Lively is making a snide remark and then just doesn't seem interested at all in the question that is being asked the other lady who is being interviewed.
00:05:49.160 I think, I think, is trying to respond to the interviewer.
00:05:52.920 But then when the interviewer is like, okay, so did you like the costumes?
00:05:57.900 I think that's a fun question to be asked.
00:06:00.880 And Blake Lively pretends like she doesn't care about the costumes at all and is like, I wonder if you would ask men about the costumes.
00:06:08.940 I'm sorry. 0.99
00:06:09.840 Like, that is really stupid. 0.92
00:06:12.140 And also, just to note, I didn't see this a second ago, but according to The Independent, this interviewer who was asked by Blake Lively, how was your little bump, whatever, or congrats on your little bump, she not only wasn't pregnant, she was, at the time, struggling with infertility. 0.99
00:06:30.480 And, of course, Blake Lively wouldn't know that, but it doesn't matter.
00:06:34.080 What she said was very rude.
00:06:35.820 It's also worth noting that during this same press tour for Woody Allen's Cafe Society, Lively defended Woody Allen, who had just been, he had been recently accused at this time of sexual abuse by his stepdaughter.
00:06:47.620 Now, she didn't defend what he did, but she basically just said, look, like, I've worked for him.
00:06:52.340 I've had a good experience with him.
00:06:53.860 And went on to say, even emphasize that, actually, I think that he has been very empowering to women, which is, I don't know, a strange thing to say.
00:07:02.360 It seems like there are a lot of other things that she could have said, even if she didn't want to step into this, and maybe her publicist didn't prepare her, or maybe she just didn't want to talk about it at all.
00:07:14.220 All right. So there are all these montages out there of Blake Lively seemingly being a bully to interviewers and just being very sarcastic and rude when she is asked questions.
00:07:27.340 It was also brought up by a social media user that Lively defended Harvey Weinstein at the time.
00:07:34.500 Again, didn't defend what he did and didn't even say that none of those things happened, but just said, look, that wasn't my experience with him.
00:07:42.500 And maybe that's true, but from the allegations, the credible allegations that we have, it does seem like he was a serial abuser.
00:07:51.000 It is interesting to note, though, that Leslie Sloan's PR company, so this was Lively's publicist in the middle of all of this conflict, that her PR company was actually, like, received money from Harvey Weinstein in 2014 when the PR company started.
00:08:11.880 So there's just some interesting tidbits there.
00:08:14.600 We don't know exactly what the connection is, but that is part of what's being pointed out.
00:08:21.440 Now, this is interesting. This is interesting.
00:08:25.720 In 2012, other people are bringing this up as something that is problematic.
00:08:30.020 This is, like, to me, like, the least problematic thing that she has said.
00:08:33.720 But she said this to Elle magazine in 2012, and Elle magazine actually printed this.
00:08:39.180 So Blake Lively said, I hope to have a few girls one day. 0.99
00:08:43.380 If not girls, they'd better be trannies because I have some amazing shoes and bags and stories that need to be appreciated. 1.00
00:08:51.000 But she's kind of a strange, strange gal. 0.96
00:08:54.700 Strange, strange thing to say.
00:08:56.920 Strange thing to say.
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00:09:43.300 All right, so moving back into what is actually happening right now, a little bit of a timeline update.
00:09:53.160 December 9th, 2024, Justin Baldoni was awarded a 2024 Voices of Solidarity Award from Vital Voices,
00:10:01.060 a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending sexual and domestic violence.
00:10:05.320 December 21st, 2024, Blake Lively filed a legal complaint to the California Civil Rights Department,
00:10:11.600 making a series of allegations against Justin Baldoni, including exhibited behavior,
00:10:17.800 including that he exhibited behavior that caused her, quote-unquote, severe emotional distress
00:10:22.520 and alleges sexual harassment.
00:10:26.440 All right, so this CRD complaint, this California Civil Rights Department complaint,
00:10:32.080 is seen as, like, step one in the process to sue.
00:10:35.940 Baldoni's attorney said that strategically this is just a dodge to avoid discovery,
00:10:41.260 meaning that there's no evidence threshold or requirement when you file this kind of complaint.
00:10:48.060 Now, to be fair, it doesn't mean that she doesn't have evidence,
00:10:50.980 but that's what Baldoni's lawyers are saying.
00:10:53.240 That's why she did what she did. 0.99
00:10:55.640 So in this particular complaint, this is different than the lawsuit that has now been filed in New York
00:11:00.280 that we'll get to, but the complaint says, alleges,
00:11:05.260 that he caused a hostile work environment, that he showed unwanted sexual advances.
00:11:11.940 She's married, he's married, and obviously she said that she didn't want these things,
00:11:16.860 so that made her very uncomfortable,
00:11:20.120 including improvised kissing and lip-biting during scenes.
00:11:25.140 So not off-camera, but on-camera.
00:11:28.160 Lively claims that Baldoni made invasive and inappropriate comments about her weight.
00:11:32.120 She claims his producing partner, Jamie Heath, had shown her pornography.
00:11:38.000 Now, Baldoni refutes that, and I just want to note this right here,
00:11:42.480 in case we don't get to all of his refutations later,
00:11:45.100 but Baldoni's lawsuit says that Jamie Heath showed a video of his wife during a home birth
00:11:52.100 to Blake Lively, that this was not pornography,
00:11:55.780 and he says this is what she's referencing when she says,
00:11:59.080 oh, he showed me porn of his wife. 0.50
00:12:01.220 No, he's saying that this was a home birth. 0.91
00:12:03.960 I showed this to her because there is a birth scene that she needed to prepare for.
00:12:09.860 I don't know.
00:12:10.820 I think that whole thing is odd.
00:12:12.040 Like, she's also given birth, and was she like,
00:12:15.920 no, I do not want to see your wife giving birth, 1.00
00:12:19.040 and he was like, you must.
00:12:20.800 You must.
00:12:21.720 Here she is pushing out this baby. 0.98
00:12:23.880 So just, like, very odd.
00:12:25.800 Also, either way, it wouldn't be pornography,
00:12:28.260 but maybe she was referencing something else.
00:12:30.560 That's what we don't know.
00:12:32.220 It's very messy.
00:12:33.520 Lively accuses Baldoni and Wayfarer of failing to implement safety protocols
00:12:38.960 for intimate scenes and COVID.
00:12:40.980 So Lively says that there was not an intimacy coordinator.
00:12:44.460 In the state of California, it is, you have to.
00:12:47.100 Legally, you have to have an intimacy coordinator that,
00:12:50.220 I just learned this today, by the way,
00:12:52.180 that it is their job to work with the actors that are having an intimate scene
00:12:58.300 to make sure that, like, they're not actually having sex,
00:13:01.860 that everyone is comfortable,
00:13:03.420 they sign a consent form, and all of that.
00:13:05.460 It's basically to have, like, a third party to make sure that everything is,
00:13:10.140 quote-unquote, above board.
00:13:11.660 And it's a CYA for the company, too, just to have, like, that third person.
00:13:15.860 So it doesn't turn into just, like, a he said, she said kind of thing,
00:13:19.280 which is interesting now that I'm thinking about it,
00:13:22.220 because Blake is accusing him of doing all of these extra things
00:13:27.920 during these sex scenes and romantic scenes.
00:13:30.980 But the intimacy partner would be able to say,
00:13:34.280 no, that did happen, or no, that didn't happen,
00:13:36.160 except for Blake Lively is saying in this complaint
00:13:39.020 that they did not have an intimacy coordinator.
00:13:41.780 And Justin Baldoni has said,
00:13:43.520 uh, actually, we did have an intimacy coordinator,
00:13:46.400 and you did not want to meet with her.
00:13:48.440 And he showed some text showing that,
00:13:51.000 that, hey, I wanted you to meet with this intimacy coordinator.
00:13:54.660 We've got, like, I think we have screenshots of that.
00:13:56.960 I don't know if we have screenshots of the text.
00:13:58.500 I know I'm kind of a little out of order.
00:14:00.980 And she didn't want to meet with the intimacy coordinator.
00:14:04.860 These are according to screenshots.
00:14:06.320 And this is all we have within,
00:14:08.320 when he's trying to go out there and defend himself.
00:14:11.080 And the producer that he sent this screenshot to is like,
00:14:14.060 okay, well, whatever.
00:14:16.320 If she doesn't want to meet with the intimacy coordinator,
00:14:18.880 then whatever.
00:14:19.760 Again, we don't know all of the context here.
00:14:22.620 And a lot of this is alleging that Blake and Ryan Reynolds have a lot of power
00:14:28.920 and had a lot of power on set,
00:14:31.720 and that Justin really didn't get to make a lot of decisions,
00:14:34.960 even though he was the director.
00:14:37.080 And she is basically saying,
00:14:40.140 no, they made this a very difficult work environment,
00:14:44.400 and I was just trying to do my job,
00:14:47.160 and they need accountability.
00:14:49.540 So it's, again, just extremely messy,
00:14:52.880 both of them accusing the other of being inappropriate,
00:14:55.780 of being impossible to work with.
00:14:59.900 Baldoni is saying,
00:15:01.360 you know, I tried to do things above board,
00:15:03.960 and she didn't want any part of it.
00:15:05.800 She, he is alleging,
00:15:07.600 acted like she was too good for everything
00:15:09.420 and wouldn't even follow all of these accountability,
00:15:13.540 safety, protocol measures that I tried to put in place.
00:15:16.700 Blake Lively also says that there were some invasive actions,
00:15:20.220 that Baldoni entered her trailer,
00:15:21.960 uninvited when she was undressed and breastfeeding.
00:15:25.660 He says, no, that's not exactly what happened.
00:15:29.180 He shows a screenshot of a text
00:15:31.760 where they are texting back and forth.
00:15:33.400 I think we have that screenshot too,
00:15:35.160 where she says, look, I'm pumping in my trailer.
00:15:37.580 You can come in whenever.
00:15:39.420 And he says, okay, I'll head that way.
00:15:43.400 She says, take your time.
00:15:44.720 He says, I'm here.
00:15:47.360 I'll, you know, meet you.
00:15:49.580 And she said, sorry, I'm just seeing this.
00:15:52.820 And so he's trying to say, no, I never walked in.
00:15:55.640 Look, here are texts showing
00:15:56.960 that I was texting her about it beforehand.
00:15:59.560 It doesn't prove anything either way,
00:16:02.500 because that could have been one conversation.
00:16:04.900 There could have been another time when he walked in.
00:16:07.780 She could be lying.
00:16:09.420 It's really hard to know.
00:16:10.800 Both of them are releasing texts and messages
00:16:13.980 and retellings of the story
00:16:16.680 with whatever details they want to leave in
00:16:21.180 or they want to leave out.
00:16:23.700 And so all will probably be revealed in time.
00:16:27.620 She is also claiming that there was retaliation
00:16:31.580 that he tried to lodge.
00:16:34.580 Lively claims that Baldoni and his team retaliated
00:16:37.280 to her claims of sexual harassment
00:16:39.220 by orchestrating a smear campaign to discredit her.
00:16:42.220 So before she had lodged the official public complaint,
00:16:46.400 she had allegedly, she says, internally complained
00:16:49.320 about the sexual harassment and everything,
00:16:51.180 that Justin Baldoni was aware of that.
00:16:53.020 And she claims that because she had sounded the alarm
00:16:56.700 about some of these complaints,
00:16:58.260 the problems that she was having,
00:17:00.700 sexual harassment and all of that,
00:17:02.560 that Justin Baldoni retaliated using his PR team,
00:17:06.140 that he was really behind all of this bad press about her
00:17:10.660 and bad press about the tone-deaf marketing
00:17:15.400 and the past interviews and things like that,
00:17:18.160 that all of that was his orchestration.
00:17:22.440 Lively claims in this complaint that Baldoni
00:17:24.400 has been harmed her reputation,
00:17:25.900 her career, and emotional well-being.
00:17:27.860 The lawsuit also states that there was a January 2024 meeting,
00:17:31.420 so I referenced that earlier,
00:17:33.400 where she was like,
00:17:34.560 hey, you're creating a hostile work environment,
00:17:37.440 don't mention my weight,
00:17:40.340 no more mention of Baldoni's alleged
00:17:42.540 previous pornography addiction.
00:17:44.460 So she's saying Baldoni was talking about this on set,
00:17:47.240 made her uncomfortable.
00:17:48.860 She said no further mentions of cast and crew's genitalia,
00:17:52.340 no more inquiries about Blake's weight.
00:17:55.560 And so she says that he was saying a bunch of weird stuff
00:17:58.620 that made this a very inappropriately sexually charged set
00:18:02.480 and that she gave these internal complaints
00:18:04.800 in a meeting a year ago.
00:18:08.640 And so I think that does kind of give some substance
00:18:11.940 to the accusations that she is giving now. 0.91
00:18:15.160 December 21st, 2024,
00:18:17.420 Justin Baldoni's lawyer, Brian Friedman,
00:18:20.260 entertainment lawyer,
00:18:21.260 he's represented people like Megyn Kelly,
00:18:23.000 Robert Downey Jr.,
00:18:24.460 responded to the sexual harassment allegations against Baldoni,
00:18:27.940 says these claims are completely false,
00:18:29.560 outrageous, intentionally salacious,
00:18:31.160 with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative
00:18:34.100 in the media.
00:18:35.780 That's according to NBC.
00:18:38.440 December 22nd, 2024,
00:18:40.940 the New York Times published their investigation into all of this,
00:18:44.340 which was heavily in Blake Lively's favor.
00:18:47.740 The Times published private messages between Baldoni and his PR managers,
00:18:51.560 which appeared to show them discussing how they would bury anyone
00:18:55.040 using social media narratives that they didn't agree with.
00:18:59.240 Baldoni's PR team shared a strategy document
00:19:01.860 with Baldoni suggesting media talking points.
00:19:04.500 And Baldoni, to his credit,
00:19:06.900 like in a text thread with his publicist said,
00:19:09.880 oh, I don't really like these talking points.
00:19:11.460 I don't think that these are good.
00:19:14.160 But Nathan,
00:19:16.980 Nathan,
00:19:17.720 Melissa Nathan,
00:19:18.500 his publicist,
00:19:19.700 said,
00:19:21.000 okay,
00:19:22.400 so relayed Baldoni's frustration
00:19:24.100 that I just described to the PR team writing,
00:19:26.500 I think you guys need to be tough and show the strength
00:19:29.080 of what you guys can do in these scenarios.
00:19:31.560 He wants to feel like she can be buried.
00:19:35.500 Now, to be fair to Justin Baldoni,
00:19:37.020 those are his publicist words.
00:19:38.340 Those are not necessarily his words.
00:19:39.760 We don't know if he said anything like that.
00:19:42.900 But she did go on to say,
00:19:45.300 you know,
00:19:46.680 we can bury anyone.
00:19:50.240 All right.
00:19:50.480 So that's what the New York Times is saying.
00:19:52.000 Look,
00:19:52.300 this was basically a smear campaign.
00:19:54.660 The New York Times article in Lively's lawsuit
00:19:56.580 resulted in a strong shift in public opinion
00:19:58.980 against Baldoni.
00:20:00.280 Baldoni was dropped by his agent
00:20:02.100 hours after Lively's initial complaint.
00:20:05.880 And then Hollywood started publicly backing Lively,
00:20:09.760 a sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-stars,
00:20:11.680 America Ferreira,
00:20:12.540 Amber Tamblyn,
00:20:13.380 Alexis Bledel put out a joint statement saying,
00:20:16.560 we're her friends and sisters.
00:20:17.840 We stand in solidarity against,
00:20:20.800 we stand in solidarity with her.
00:20:22.440 Colleen Hoover wrote in a December 21st Instagram post,
00:20:25.520 Blake Lively,
00:20:26.140 you have been nothing but honest,
00:20:27.540 kind,
00:20:27.760 supportive,
00:20:28.100 and patient since the day we met.
00:20:30.040 Thank you for being exactly the human that you are.
00:20:32.620 Never change.
00:20:33.900 Never wilt.
00:20:35.180 Okay.
00:20:36.180 So she seems to be the one,
00:20:37.960 or she seems to also be a person that is supporting Lively
00:20:40.880 over Baldoni.
00:20:42.440 December 23rd,
00:20:43.400 2024,
00:20:44.280 Baldoni's lawyer responded to Lively's lawsuit in a statement
00:20:46.820 claiming that the public backlash against Lively
00:20:48.620 is due to her own actions,
00:20:50.540 not due to a smear campaign,
00:20:52.560 defended the crisis PR company hired by Baldoni,
00:20:55.540 saying it's a normal move to hire people like them
00:20:57.880 when two extremely powerful people,
00:21:00.260 Lively and Reynolds,
00:21:01.220 are threatening you.
00:21:02.400 Baldoni's award for being an ally to women
00:21:05.220 was rescinded on December 24th.
00:21:09.540 They put out a statement on Instagram saying,
00:21:12.320 yeah,
00:21:12.520 we can't do this.
00:21:13.460 This is bad,
00:21:15.080 abhorrent conduct,
00:21:16.460 or the allegations against him are bad.
00:21:20.680 And then December 24th,
00:21:22.360 Baldoni's former publicist,
00:21:23.680 Steph Jones of Jones Work PR,
00:21:25.920 also sues him and his company called Wayfarer,
00:21:29.280 not Wayfarer,
00:21:30.060 Wayfarer,
00:21:30.900 and his current publicity team.
00:21:33.460 There are different allegations that she has against him.
00:21:38.040 It's not really relevant to the whole Blake Lively thing,
00:21:40.720 but it does seem that she is kind of saying,
00:21:44.680 okay,
00:21:44.840 I'm on Blake Lively's side on all of this,
00:21:47.600 or at least she wants to be,
00:21:49.180 who knows,
00:21:49.640 again,
00:21:49.840 if this is just strategic for her,
00:21:51.500 if this is like a pile on,
00:21:52.740 if this is her own separate revenge,
00:21:54.380 if this is all orchestrated together,
00:21:55.940 we don't really know.
00:21:57.640 So this is how Baldoni was,
00:21:59.780 how he was spending his Christmas Eve.
00:22:03.220 As we're watching the devastation in California right now with the wildfires,
00:22:10.720 we are also seeing some of the threats that winter storms pose across the country.
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00:22:17.400 difficult reminder that we need an emergency medical supply kit on hand for ourselves,
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00:23:11.780 Okay.
00:23:12.440 So happy new year from Justin Baldoni.
00:23:14.580 He announces that he is going to sue the New York Times on January 1st.
00:23:21.000 So just a few days ago,
00:23:22.040 he says,
00:23:22.440 I'm suing you New York Times for $250 million.
00:23:25.720 He is not suing Blake Lively yet.
00:23:28.160 He is suing the New York Times.
00:23:30.360 He's saying this is misrepresentation.
00:23:32.740 This amounts to defamation.
00:23:36.200 He also says,
00:23:37.360 you portray me in a false light.
00:23:39.980 And this is where he starts refuting publicly a lot of the claims that Blake Lively made in her original complaint that was the basis or at least the starting point for the New York Times' report.
00:23:54.320 And we've kind of already been over his refutations.
00:23:57.240 And so I won't repeat that.
00:24:00.240 He also says that this is the orchestration of a smear campaign.
00:24:05.400 So that's what he's being accused of by Blake Lively.
00:24:07.920 He's saying,
00:24:08.540 no,
00:24:09.280 Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively and the New York Times are actually the part or are actually the ones orchestrating a smear campaign.
00:24:17.240 Not me.
00:24:18.880 He argues in his lawsuit against the New York Times that the New York Times and Lively left out other text message contacts that showed they were discussing her failed marketing strategy and the impact that her own actions had on her reputation. 0.97
00:24:34.360 We're talking about the text messages, I guess, between who?
00:24:39.720 Between his PR team and him?
00:24:42.360 Yep.
00:24:42.440 Okay.
00:24:43.460 And the text he released, his PR team repeatedly marvels at how organically the public turns against Lively.
00:24:50.560 So this is Melissa Nathan.
00:24:52.600 This is his publicist.
00:24:54.720 And so this is what Justin Baldoni says that the New York Times did not include.
00:24:58.160 And he is alleging they did it maliciously.
00:25:00.680 And that would be part of the qualification of actual defamation.
00:25:04.600 So Melissa Nathan says,
00:25:06.740 Good morning.
00:25:07.640 Sharing with you a perfect example of why we don't use bots.
00:25:10.900 I wouldn't even worry to think they've hired a team as, A, nothing to find.
00:25:17.900 B, they hired an awful team, which I've sent to our guide to track and pull.
00:25:23.140 So we have evidence of it.
00:25:24.540 This below should answer everyone's question on what a bot team looks like when every single comment suddenly skews in her favor in a nonsensical way.
00:25:31.580 So what Melissa Nathan seems to be saying there, she seems to be accusing Blake Lively's team of hiring or Blake Lively of hiring some kind of team that has employed an army of bots to leave positive comments about her on her Instagram post to skew public opinion against Justin Baldoni.
00:25:55.580 And Melissa Nathan is saying, look, we're not doing that.
00:25:59.280 This is what it looks like.
00:26:00.660 It looks really contrived.
00:26:03.740 It looks really bad.
00:26:04.900 Justin responds to that saying, how can we say somehow that we are not doing any of this?
00:26:10.040 It looks like we are trying to take her down.
00:26:12.940 And there's some missing context here, but he seems to be responding to the fact that organically the internet has turned against Blake Lively and he doesn't want it, it seems like, to look like it's bots, that he is doing that.
00:26:33.460 Melissa Nathan is saying, no, Blake Lively is doing that on her end.
00:26:36.680 That's not what we are doing.
00:26:38.220 We haven't had to do any bots.
00:26:40.160 We haven't had to use, like, these kinds of tools to turn public opinion against her. 0.95
00:26:46.160 That is just happening.
00:26:48.960 Justin says, OK, please monitor.
00:26:51.120 Things I'm worried about is that we are planting these stories, which is not true, obviously.
00:26:56.800 And then someone else, another publicist says, chiming in, people saying that there are bots and this is a PR play on your side is a minority voice compared to the thousands and thousands who are calling it what it is and reacting to Blake's own actions.
00:27:09.560 And so they are claiming in their private text messages, which were private until Justin Baldoni published them after the New York Times report saying, no, we are not planning anything.
00:27:21.020 It's actually them who are the ones planning and planning the stuff.
00:27:26.240 Jamie Heath, again, part of the producer that works with Justin Baldoni said, so glad Blake was praised.
00:27:31.340 Let her get a win. 1.00
00:27:32.320 It would be nice to have a Sony executive praise Justin.
00:27:37.020 He's talking about Sony executive that came out and praised Blake Lively.
00:27:40.360 And so it sounds like they were afraid that things were looking too bad for Blake Lively in August and that they didn't want it to look like they were orchestrating a smear campaign.
00:27:53.720 And so if these are genuine texts, it does this, I think, plays in his favor that he was not the one orchestrating a smear campaign.
00:28:03.520 That's what he's alleging.
00:28:04.460 That's what these private texts look like.
00:28:06.520 And if the New York Times purposely left these texts out, if they had access to them and they did not put them out there, then I do wonder if he has a case to make when it comes to defamation.
00:28:19.780 If they maliciously removed or did not include these text messages that make it look like they were not orchestrating a smear campaign, because that would have gone against their seemingly foregone conclusion that he was orchestrating a smear campaign.
00:28:37.420 Justin Baldoni also points out that some of the texts that were included in the New York Times piece purposely left out some contacts as two of his publicists were talking.
00:28:48.500 Justin Baldoni is trying to show that actually one of the texts that the New York Times says proves that this was a smear campaign was actually sarcastic and that it shows that this was not a smear campaign going on.
00:29:05.340 And so he's trying to say that there was altered context here by the New York Times.
00:29:11.260 He also says that he, along with his editors in the movie, were slowly cut out from the film's post-production process by Sony.
00:29:19.880 Again, this kind of just builds his case that everyone is purposely scheming against him.
00:29:25.400 And then on January 1st, also the same day that he announces his lawsuit against the New York Times, Blake Lively officially sues Baldoni in New York federal court, accusing him and his PR team of organizing a sophisticated scheme to undermine her reputation in retaliation for speaking up about alleged misconduct on set.
00:29:46.640 Why is she doing that? Why is she doing it in New York? It avoids California's anti-slap laws, so strategic lawsuit against public participation laws. 1.00
00:29:56.600 And it also, also federal lawsuits can't be televised. So that was a lesson learned from the Depp v. Heard trial, which was famously televised.
00:30:07.480 Then January 2nd, the New York Times and Baldoni's lawyers respond with public statements.
00:30:10.760 The New York Times says, nope, we investigated this thoroughly. We are defending our journalism, and they plan to defend themselves against the lawsuit.
00:30:19.020 Baldoni's attorney, Brian Friedman, told the Independent at the New York Times, coward, to the wants and whims of Lively and Reynolds.
00:30:28.480 And, of course, he is going to say that he is confident that they can win that lawsuit.
00:30:33.980 January 7th, Justin Baldoni's attorney appeared on NewsNation to speak out about their case against the New York Times.
00:30:40.180 Here's what he said, SOP 5.
00:30:42.320 I'm blaming the New York Times for participating with Blake Lively's publicists and engaging in this campaign,
00:30:50.120 where they actually were part of facilitating the complaint getting filed with the CRD, which is the Civil Rights Division,
00:30:59.480 and knew the complaint was getting filed, encouraged them to file the complaint, had a copy of the complaint before it was filed.
00:31:06.520 And once it was filed, they went with a story.
00:31:09.180 Those messages were cherry-picked and used out of context.
00:31:13.620 Was there a follow-up phone call?
00:31:15.440 Was there please tell us more?
00:31:17.200 What do you mean by cherry-picked and taken out of context?
00:31:19.600 There was no investigative journalism done whatsoever.
00:31:22.900 It was a complete reckless disregard for the truth.
00:31:26.060 Okay, he also says, Justin Baldoni's lawyer also says, in an interview with Megyn Kelly,
00:31:34.520 yeah, we're not going to stop at the New York Times.
00:31:36.420 We are going to sue Blake Lively into oblivion.
00:31:39.440 Here's thought six.
00:31:40.300 Are you going to sue Blake Lively, too?
00:31:43.580 Into oblivion, Megyn.
00:31:46.560 Wait till you see this lawsuit. 0.89
00:31:48.080 Oh, boy.
00:31:50.160 For what?
00:31:55.720 I'm just going to tell you, you're going to have to wait and see.
00:31:58.660 It's coming up soon.
00:32:00.000 But it's all going to be based on evidence.
00:32:01.860 It's not going to be just a lawsuit.
00:32:03.200 It's going to be the kind of lawsuit that is full of evidence, admissions, documents,
00:32:12.280 which prove exactly what she did and how she bullied her way through the process to take
00:32:19.280 over the movie and used her PR people to try and destroy Justin. 1.00
00:32:26.520 Yuck, yuck. 0.99
00:32:28.000 This is so messy.
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00:33:36.740 All right.
00:33:37.400 There are some theories out there that we were going to try to get into about, you know,
00:33:42.380 who is doing what, but I don't have time for all of that.
00:33:45.620 I need to wrap this up with just the lesson that I have in all of this.
00:33:49.220 One, I think it's interesting to see where Me Too is and how it has evolved and how it's
00:33:56.560 really used on both sides of any conflict as a cover for people's own indiscretions and
00:34:03.080 also just like as a mallet to beat the other side over the head and to get as much money
00:34:09.100 as possible.
00:34:09.760 I'm not saying for sure that those are the motivations or the sole motivations of either
00:34:14.380 side of this particular conflict.
00:34:17.240 But when you look at all of them and the like the accusations that are against both of them,
00:34:24.000 you do have to wonder how sincere they are when they say that they are championing women.
00:34:28.720 Oh, one thing we didn't get into before I before I get into my lesson, I do just want to say
00:34:34.280 this is a piece of advice for everyone out there.
00:34:37.200 Apparently, he really did ask Blake Lively how much she weighed on set, right?
00:34:42.300 Yep.
00:34:42.800 I'm not saying that's worth a lawsuit.
00:34:45.380 Actually, I think it's worth Guantanamo.
00:34:48.300 I think you should be I think you should be in jail, but I don't think it's worth a lawsuit.
00:34:54.740 OK, so what did he do?
00:34:56.700 He had to like lift her up in one scene.
00:34:59.040 Yeah, there's a scene where he needed to lift her up. 0.97
00:35:00.840 So apparently he asked her how much she weighed to because he was afraid of for his back.
00:35:06.980 I guess he had a back injury. 0.98
00:35:08.680 That's so I'm sorry, but that is so gay. 1.00
00:35:11.920 Like like what your one rep max is 135 and you thought that she was maybe going to be 137. 0.79
00:35:18.860 And if so, you needed a stunt double.
00:35:21.280 Come on.
00:35:22.220 I know because you can probably kind of estimate how much someone weighs.
00:35:25.320 Can probably estimate.
00:35:26.240 And the difference is probably marginal, right?
00:35:28.480 Yeah.
00:35:28.740 So and if you can't if you can't lift 140, but I don't know how much.
00:35:33.460 Sorry, if I'm offending by the number, just throwing a number out there.
00:35:37.320 If you can't, then like you need to work out.
00:35:39.680 And I feel like that was a question for someone else and not Blake Lively herself.
00:35:45.080 And apparently Ryan Reynolds berated berated him after that.
00:35:48.980 Yes.
00:35:49.420 Apparently he like violently berated him after according to to Justin.
00:35:55.100 Yeah.
00:35:55.480 Well, he didn't deny it, though. 1.00
00:35:57.780 No, Justin did not deny it, which is a point against him that maybe he's kind of a jerk. 0.98
00:36:04.080 I'm not saying that he deserves all of this because we don't know. 0.98
00:36:07.120 But like, come on.
00:36:09.160 You don't ask someone that. 0.96
00:36:10.600 It's so silly. 0.95
00:36:11.900 There are. 0.79
00:36:12.220 And there are also some other questions about him that I have because a lot of people are on his side right now.
00:36:16.480 But I'm like, well, it is true that all of the cast turned against him.
00:36:20.760 None of them follow him.
00:36:22.020 I still have questions about that.
00:36:23.400 Why?
00:36:24.140 Is it because there's truthfulness to it or is it because Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are really powerful and people are kind of looking at where the cards are falling?
00:36:33.340 Yeah.
00:36:33.820 I don't know.
00:36:34.360 We just don't know.
00:36:35.060 I do think that the fact that she apparently had a meeting about all of this before she lodged a formal complaint is does help her out.
00:36:46.220 But I think the text messages that were not included by the New York Times that seem to show that Justin Baldoni did not want to do a smear campaign against her help him out.
00:36:58.540 Yes.
00:36:59.340 But I this is my perspective at the moment with what we know.
00:37:04.300 I think that this was just a power play.
00:37:07.680 I think in the movie she wanted more control over things than she was given.
00:37:12.820 And I think he pushed back on that.
00:37:14.940 And I think all of this ugliness resulted from that.
00:37:18.100 I'm not saying none of what she's saying happened.
00:37:20.640 He probably is kind of weird in some ways.
00:37:23.140 Yeah.
00:37:23.380 But male feminists typically are. 1.00
00:37:25.480 Yeah.
00:37:26.060 Yeah.
00:37:26.500 But we do know that she did get final edit of the movie.
00:37:30.460 They did cut him out of basically doing what a director does and gave all of that control to her.
00:37:35.920 And so I think I think some of that was orchestrated.
00:37:39.820 I don't know.
00:37:40.720 It's really ugly.
00:37:42.260 It's really ugly. 0.54
00:37:43.020 Here's what I would say.
00:37:43.760 Here's the lesson to draw one of the lessons to draw from all of this.
00:37:48.840 Never pursue fame or money for the sake of fame or money.
00:37:53.340 OK.
00:37:53.760 It is an ugly world.
00:37:55.100 I'm talking even if you just get to like TikTok influencer level, even if you are just like a conservative
00:38:00.960 media personality, the people out there who want fame, who want power for the sake of power, who want money and influence for the sake of money and influence, they will do anything to get it.
00:38:13.380 They will lie about you.
00:38:14.640 They will lie to your face.
00:38:17.280 They will lie behind your back.
00:38:18.400 They will betray you.
00:38:19.080 They will backstab you for roles and positions that are in the grand scheme of things really small.
00:38:26.180 And it is it can be a really ugly world, especially if you get into the rat race. 1.00
00:38:34.820 There is a reason why I do not go to any of those hobnobbing events, why I do not care to network.
00:38:45.500 I do not care to rub elbows.
00:38:47.320 I do not care about being in this click or that or being in any kind of inner circle or accepted by the people in the high rungs of anything.
00:38:59.560 There is a reason why we as a family try really hard to be as like outside of the media world as possible.
00:39:10.500 And I know it's like, what are you talking about?
00:39:12.280 You are a podcaster.
00:39:13.520 It's not the same at all.
00:39:14.580 And it's it's not.
00:39:15.440 Obviously, it's very small potatoes compared to all of this.
00:39:19.000 I'm just trying to say anywhere you go, no matter how small or how big of a deal it is, people who have naked ambition are really dangerous.
00:39:33.980 And what you need to do, if any of you are ever in a situation, big or small pond, is you just do what God has called you to do as honestly as you can.
00:39:44.740 Maintain your integrity and your reputation for honesty and kindness and fairness as much as you possibly can.
00:39:52.860 Be fair and honest in all of your dealings with people.
00:39:56.480 Try to do right by people.
00:39:58.760 Try to give people the benefit of the doubt and never participate in any of the gossip or the rumor mills.
00:40:07.100 Don't even listen to it.
00:40:08.520 You don't even want that kind of liability.
00:40:11.800 Never pursue fame, money or power for the sake of those things.
00:40:15.580 If God in his providence decides to give you any of that influence or give you any wealth, then that is in accordance to him.
00:40:23.040 He gives and he takes away.
00:40:24.740 Blessed be the name of the Lord.
00:40:26.080 But you simply do the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God.
00:40:30.580 Keep your eyes on him.
00:40:32.980 Put your blinders on whatever you have to do, because this might be a big example of just the ugliness that happens in the power struggles in Hollywood.
00:40:45.000 But that happens in every sphere of the world.
00:40:48.540 It happens among housewives. 1.00
00:40:50.180 It happens among PTA moms. 1.00
00:40:52.260 It doesn't matter.
00:40:53.000 You do what is right in accordance with God's word and let him protect you as much as you possibly can.
00:41:01.080 There is a lot of peace in that.
00:41:03.140 People ask me, again, small potatoes comparatively, but like, do you not get so like burnt out or is this hard talking about all this?
00:41:12.680 I think, well, one, I feel like God has called me to do this, but also like it is very refreshing being very rooted in your own family and your own community and not being in any kind of rat race for things that ultimately don't matter.
00:41:30.980 So, again, that is applicable in whatever industry you're in, in whatever sphere you're in, however much influence you have.
00:41:38.620 Be focused on the right things because the people that aren't are very dangerous to be around.
00:41:45.060 If you are someone who makes hires, if you are someone who has any influence over the direction of a company, be very, very careful with who you put on payroll.
00:41:56.320 That is a lesson for all of us.
00:41:58.380 All right.
00:41:58.820 That's all we got time for today.
00:42:00.520 We will be back tomorrow.
00:42:01.460 We will be back tomorrow.