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.
00:05:15.440The interviewer, as you heard, says, congratulations on your little bump.
00:05:20.700Okay, that was, like, a nice thing to say.
00:05:23.400Blake Lively could have said thank you.
00:05:25.180Instead, she responds sarcastically, saying congrats on your little bump to this interviewer who is not pregnant.
00:05:32.340Also, 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.
00:05:49.160I think, I think, is trying to respond to the interviewer.
00:05:52.920But then when the interviewer is like, okay, so did you like the costumes?
00:05:57.900I think that's a fun question to be asked.
00:06:00.880And 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.
00:06:12.140And 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.
00:06:30.480And, of course, Blake Lively wouldn't know that, but it doesn't matter.
00:06:35.820It'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.
00:06:47.620Now, she didn't defend what he did, but she basically just said, look, like, I've worked for him.
00:06:53.860And 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.
00:07:02.360It 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.
00:07:14.220All 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.
00:07:27.340It was also brought up by a social media user that Lively defended Harvey Weinstein at the time.
00:07:34.500Again, 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.
00:07:42.500And maybe that's true, but from the allegations, the credible allegations that we have, it does seem like he was a serial abuser.
00:07:51.000It 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.
00:08:11.880So there's just some interesting tidbits there.
00:08:14.600We don't know exactly what the connection is, but that is part of what's being pointed out.
00:08:21.440Now, this is interesting. This is interesting.
00:08:25.720In 2012, other people are bringing this up as something that is problematic.
00:08:30.020This is, like, to me, like, the least problematic thing that she has said.
00:08:33.720But she said this to Elle magazine in 2012, and Elle magazine actually printed this.
00:08:39.180So Blake Lively said, I hope to have a few girls one day.
00:08:43.380If not girls, they'd better be trannies because I have some amazing shoes and bags and stories that need to be appreciated.
00:08:51.000But she's kind of a strange, strange gal.
00:23:39.980And 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.
00:23:54.320And we've kind of already been over his refutations.
00:24:18.880He 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.
00:24:34.360We're talking about the text messages, I guess, between who?
00:25:24.540This 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.
00:25:31.580So 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.
00:25:55.580And Melissa Nathan is saying, look, we're not doing that.
00:26:04.900Justin responds to that saying, how can we say somehow that we are not doing any of this?
00:26:10.040It looks like we are trying to take her down.
00:26:12.940And 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.
00:26:33.460Melissa Nathan is saying, no, Blake Lively is doing that on her end.
00:26:51.120Things I'm worried about is that we are planting these stories, which is not true, obviously.
00:26:56.800And 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.
00:27:09.560And 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.
00:27:21.020It's actually them who are the ones planning and planning the stuff.
00:27:26.240Jamie Heath, again, part of the producer that works with Justin Baldoni said, so glad Blake was praised.
00:27:32.320It would be nice to have a Sony executive praise Justin.
00:27:37.020He's talking about Sony executive that came out and praised Blake Lively.
00:27:40.360And 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.
00:27:53.720And 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.
00:28:04.460That's what these private texts look like.
00:28:06.520And 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.
00:28:19.780If 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.
00:28:37.420Justin 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.
00:28:48.500Justin 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.
00:29:05.340And so he's trying to say that there was altered context here by the New York Times.
00:29:11.260He also says that he, along with his editors in the movie, were slowly cut out from the film's post-production process by Sony.
00:29:19.880Again, this kind of just builds his case that everyone is purposely scheming against him.
00:29:25.400And 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.
00:29:46.640Why 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.
00:29:56.600And 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.
00:30:07.480Then January 2nd, the New York Times and Baldoni's lawyers respond with public statements.
00:30:10.760The New York Times says, nope, we investigated this thoroughly. We are defending our journalism, and they plan to defend themselves against the lawsuit.
00:30:19.020Baldoni's attorney, Brian Friedman, told the Independent at the New York Times, coward, to the wants and whims of Lively and Reynolds.
00:30:28.480And, of course, he is going to say that he is confident that they can win that lawsuit.
00:30:33.980January 7th, Justin Baldoni's attorney appeared on NewsNation to speak out about their case against the New York Times.
00:36:24.140Is 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?
00:36:35.060I 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.
00:36:46.220But 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.
00:37:55.100I'm talking even if you just get to like TikTok influencer level, even if you are just like a conservative
00:38:00.960media 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.
00:38:47.320I 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.
00:38:59.560There is a reason why we as a family try really hard to be as like outside of the media world as possible.
00:39:10.500And I know it's like, what are you talking about?
00:39:15.440Obviously, it's very small potatoes compared to all of this.
00:39:19.000I'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.
00:39:33.980And 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.
00:39:44.740Maintain your integrity and your reputation for honesty and kindness and fairness as much as you possibly can.
00:39:52.860Be fair and honest in all of your dealings with people.
00:40:32.980Put 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.
00:40:45.000But that happens in every sphere of the world.
00:41:03.140People ask me, again, small potatoes comparatively, but like, do you not get so like burnt out or is this hard talking about all this?
00:41:12.680I 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.
00:41:30.980So, again, that is applicable in whatever industry you're in, in whatever sphere you're in, however much influence you have.
00:41:38.620Be focused on the right things because the people that aren't are very dangerous to be around.
00:41:45.060If 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.