On the Blake vs. Justin Lawsuit

Our own internalized misogyny, and how the ramifications of 'dead internet theory' is truly horrifying

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Oh man, I really wasn’t expecting to write a Substack piece in the bizarro space of time that spans from Dec. 20^th until Jan 2^nd, but here we are. Blake Lively launched a suit alleging among other things sexual harassment, retaliation, and emotional distress against the company that produced It Ends With Us Wayfarer Studios, co-founders Justin Baldoni and Steve Sarowitz, CEO Jamey Heath, and Melissa Nathan, Jennifer Abel, and Jed Wallace who ran crisis PR. For background and a good overview of the lawsuit, the best piece is the excellent investigative reporting done by Megan Twohey, Mike McIntire, and Julia Tate for the NYT’s ‘We Can Bury Anyone: Inside A Hollywood Smear Machine.’

If you’re getting your insight from the lawsuit through the ever-questionable TMZ or reading comments on news and Instagram stories, I strongly encourage you to reserve judgement until you’ve read the NYT’s article. As someone who has long not been a fan of Blake’s, I decided to hold off on writing this piece until the news had a chance to breathe. I’m very over writers wanting to capitalize on breaking news by putting something out in the immediate aftermath. I recognized as soon as this news broke that my general feelings of not liking Blake, plus internalized misogyny (we all have this!) would skew my perception of the lawsuit. So, I decided to read the entire 80 page suit in full, linking it here for you to read if that’s your jam. The NYT piece is great, but if you’re still skeptical around context, Blake’s lawyers did a bang-up job of providing clarity. Of course, there are always two sides to a story, and so far Baldoni’s lawyers have strongly refuted any wrongdoing and threatened legal action of their own.

When I wrote ‘What the hell is going on with the It Ends With Us press tour’ back in August, I ended it with the below:

That is to say, we rarely ever know what’s really happening, but rely on our perception to make sense of how we process gossip. Which, to me, adds a layer of intrigue that Baldoni is overwhelmingly ahead in the court of public opinion (open up any social media account comments and you’re hit over the head with this). Is it a crime that Blake is making this press tour an almost frothy Barbie 2.0? No. Is it confusing that pretty much the entire cast firmly seems to be Team Blake, without so much as acknowledging Justin, yet public favour seems very much in Justin’s camp? Yes, very much so! Almost always, and especially in a post ‘me too’ era, we band around women when they’ve been mistreated by bad men. Culture wise, I’m far more interested in why we collectively seem to be doing the opposite here…So, we may never know for sure what happened behind the scenes of ‘It Ends With Us,’ but we should examine our reaction to it and what that says about us (including yours truly).

I’ll admit, my knee-jerk reaction to this lawsuit was honestly… wtf Blake, why now!? I can’t remember what link was first sent to me, but it wasn’t the NYT piece which is a far more holistic look at the lawsuit than anything else I’ve read. I had a bunch of questions that I saw echoed online, which took reading the full lawsuit to completely process. So, let’s examine this through the lens of our internalized misogyny that made the Blake-as-villain narrative so easy to believe.

Okay but seriously, why now? The press tour ended in the summer and the movie was a resounding hit, grossing over $350 million worldwide vs. its budget of $25 million. If she had a real issue, why wouldn’t she have filed this lawsuit right away?

Guys, ask any lawyer or person that works in law, and they will tell you that the courts aren’t exactly known for their speed. As shown throughout the lawsuit and summarized in the NYT piece, Blake’s lawyers were ready. All those subpoena’s they had to obtain, plus the time it takes to go through phone and email records take time. This seems lighting fast, helped for sure, by the access she has to excellent representation. As far as the Christmas drop of it all… a Friday news dump four days before Christmas when people are on holidays and not paying attention feels kinda’ generous to me.

The timing is confusing! If it was really that bad, why did she continue to work with him?

Ummm… have you never had a boss or co-worker you were forced to work with to complete a project? But fine, let’s examine how this played out:

Production begins in May 2023, then is shut down mid June 2023 for the WGA and subsequent SAG-AFTRA strike, which ended in September 2023 and November 2023 respectively. Before returning to filming, Blake’s legal team presented Wayfarer with a document in November, outlining changes to production to make it safer, as well as requested a meeting to discuss and agree to the changes. While Wayfarer maintains they disagreed with the perspective of the allegations, they agreed to implement safeguards outlined and discussed further in a Jan 4^th 2024 meeting, some of the most egregious of which are highlighted below. For their part, Baldoni and Heath didn’t refute any of the claims being made during that meeting. With the timing of the strike, it sounds like Blake and Justin only worked together about a month into production, which is wild considering all the points that had to be addressed; including but not limited to:

• Not entering Blake’s trailer while she’s nude or breastfeeding

• Not showing Blake and her staff videos of naked women (in regards to producer Jamey Heath showing them videos of his wife giving birth)

• Letting Blake and her staff know if there has been a COVID outbreak (there was one she was unaware of, and both her and her infant contracted COVID)

• Not asking Blake about her sexual preferences, or whether she has watched porn(!)

• Adding scenes to the script which weren’t agreed upon by Blake that are sexual in nature, including scenes where Blake climaxes or engages in simulated intercourse

• Improvising intimate scenes without Blake’s consent (like Justin sucking on Blakes lip, or caressing her neck which wasn’t in the script)

• Justin to cease speaking to Blake about his ability to communicate with her recently deceased father (seriously, wtf)

• All actors working with Blake in intimate scenes must be classified, working actors (in respect to Justin casting a non-actor friend as the OBGYN, in which just a thin piece of cloth separated him from Blake’s genitalia).

I’m adding the full, mutually agreed-upon list of protections below and encourage you to read through each point. If this is a he-said/she-said, I have a really hard time believing the specificity of the claims were made up, and that Baldoni’s team wouldn’t push back if that were the case.

Okay fine. That all sounds pretty bad. But still… the suit recognizes that the bad behaviour improved when they resumed production in January until it ended in February. Why bother suing?

One of the stipulations of the November 2023 document titled ‘Protections for Return to Production,’ (later expanded to the above in the Jan 4^th meeting), included clause 10;

“There shall be no retaliation of any kind against Artist for raising concerns about the conduct described in this letter or for these requirements. Any changes in attitude, sarcasm, marginalization or other negative behavior, either on set or otherwise, including during publicity and promotional work, as a result of these requests is retaliatory and unacceptable, and will be met with immediate action.”

Essentially, Blake was punished for going to HR, much like many non-famous people! Stars, they’re just like us. Seriously, ask your friends and family of their experience with HR, and whether they feel it’s setup to help them, or help the stakeholders/business.

How is it retaliation when she made herself look bad with the ‘congrats on your little bump!’ comment, fat-shaming that poor, nice journalist. And her other problematic interviews, plus rumours of not getting along with her co-stars on Gossip Girl (team Blair for life!) She buried herself with that, and TikTok/other social media sites ran with it for what it was – mean girl behaviour.

You’re right, she’s been rude to reporters, got married on a plantation, and included a piece glorifying the slave-ridden Antebellum era called The Allure of Antebellum on her defunct lifestyle website, ‘Preserve.’ I’m not excusing this behaviour, as it’s always bothered me. Part of the reason Blake Lively has always grated on me was because I didn’t see much criticism her way; she was, and is continued to be positioned as a sort of Hollywood Golden Girl (like her Vogue profile that called her one of the last remaining movie stars). That being said, the backlash she was on the receiving end of felt disproportionate, not to mention the timing. This information was always out there, why now?

Her lawsuit outlines that astroturfing [a coordinated effort to post opinions/comments that seemingly come from the public but are from a political group or company] took place to destroy her reputation, and became clear once emails and texts were subpoenaed from Baldoni’s PR team including Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan (a good reminder that your work texts and emails legally belong to your work; not you personally)! Jennifer Abel has since posted on a private Facebook page (she’s in PR so she KNOWS it’ll be screenshotted and widely shared, which it was), has defended herself, saying they were prepared but didn’t need to implement the crisis PR for which they were hired. Sure, Jan.

In fact, they were so stealth at their job that it turns out the early criticism of Justin fat-shaming Blake (asking her trainer how much she weighed to protect his bad back), came from HIS camp! Aaaaaand there was no scene in the movie that even required him to lift her! So to everyone speculating on the merits of the lawsuit given the fat-shaming story came out before any of the heavier sexual harassment, the PR campaign was designed to make you think exactly that. I’m not going to re-hash the full texts as the NYT piece does that, and they’re pretty damning. For those who think this lawsuit is simply Blake and Ryan’s way of getting Wayfarer to sell them the rights to the sequel, this was also part of the crisis PR strategy! They are good at their jobs, I’ll give them that.

If you think this is Blake bulldozing Justin, that is very much by design

In regards to the criticism that Blake is a bad person for not getting along with co-stars, I’ll remind everyone that Topher Grace (who was largely viewed as being an outcast of ‘That 70’s Show’ for not cozying up to the cast), was vindicated after Danny Masterson was convicted of rape and all those letters poured in for his support (looking at you, Mila and Ashton). Coincidentally or not, Ed Westwick, who played Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl, was also convicted of 3 counts of sexual assault (tossed due to lack of evidence because we still make it impossible for these cases to be tried). Maybe… she’s not the problem?

But… isn’t that the job of Crisis PR?

I don’t know, is it? PR certainly shapes a narrative and pitches to the press, but according to the suit, astroturfing goes well beyond the standard practice of crisis PR. If it’s not illegal (I can’t seem to find a clear answer on this), then it certainly lends itself to the ‘dead internet theory’ which posits that the majority of internet traffic, posts and users are AI-generated or bots (think about the ramifications of that, especially as it relates to politics- shit!)

Okay but nobody made her make those dumb ‘wear your florals and bring your girlfriends’ comments during promotion like she was on her very own Eras tour. This isn’t ‘Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants!’

Actually they did make her. The marketing plan was pre-approved by Wayfarer, and involved a more positive and uplifting message of the movie. In early press, Justin conformed to this, then decided to shift gears to focus on DV to spin positive publicity for himself, and create a plausible reason as to why the cast of the film unfollowed him on Instagram (they’re not serious people!)

The Marketing Strategy via Wayfarer

I didn’t know anything about Justin prior to this film; I never watched ‘Jane the Virgin’ nor was I aware of his podcast ‘Man Enough,’ which was positioned to take a critical look at toxic masculinity and reconsider how men can help champion women. In the lawsuit, his own publicist cited online commentary criticizing a show he created called ‘My Last Days,’ which chronicled the lives of those living with terminal illness. A friend of someone followed on the show wrote that Justin “weaponized therapeutic language, presenting himself as thoughtful and supportive, yet his actions reveal a very different reality.” Once the show aired, she claims Justin took his profits and vanished. His podcast co-host Liz Plank, also distanced herself from him during the promotion of It Ends With Us, and put out a statement today that she has quit the podcast. When Blake objected to sex scenes she found unnecessary, Justin countered they were critical in showing the movie through the lens of the female gaze, that’s some real weaponization of feminism.

Well.. don’t you think Blake and Ryan are using their collective Hollywood star power to curry favour and bury him in legal fees? It’s hardly a fair fight. The cast might have sided with her for this reason.

Noooooooo. In this scenario, Justin is the big shot. He’s Blake’s boss. Not only the director of the film, but also the co-founder of the studio producing it. The lawsuit cites several instances of other cast formally complaining about Justin to HR (creepy behaviour), but retracts their names as they are probably, rightfully, scared for their careers. So it wasn’t just Blake, and they didn’t rally around her because it was a good career move, but because they witnessed bad behaviour and had issues of their own.

Blake and Ryan are riche af for sure, but Justin’s business partner also named in the suit, Steve Sarowitz, is an actual billionaire who certainly has the resources to fight back, and then some.

Blake will be just fine though, she has all the privilege in the world and multiple businesses. She even timed the release of her hair-care line, Blake Brown Beauty, with promotion of the movie, and is now blaming its poor sales on the backlash.

The movie did great, but imagine being a big part of a success story at work, and having to hide out in the aftermath because everyone hates you. That sucks! It turns out Blake was slated to host the premier episode of SNL in September, and backed out because she was so distraught. Social media feeds for Betty Buzz and Blake Brown Beauty went dark for months and had to limit comments because of the hate (take a look at Blake’s personal Instagram comments even post-lawsuit to see how unhinged people are). According to the suit, the timing of her hair launch was set a year prior, and wasn’t decided by her as she has stakeholders she answers to. Similarly, the ill-advised Betty Buzz cross promotion with a movie about domestic violence was a bad move, but likely wasn’t fully her call. Even if it was, not sure she needs to be dragged over the coals for it permanently. The fall-out from all this was that she couldn’t get out of bed some days, and cites severe emotional distress on her and her family (I believe it, the internet collectively seemed to hate her). She might be fine long-term, but still has to relive the trauma through a costly and emotional legal battle, and it’s still to be determined whether she wins or loses in the court of public opinion (which is probably what part of this lawsuit is about—justice).

Can we learn anything from this moving forward?

Beyond recognizing that even someone as privileged and rich as Blake Lively can’t go to HR without shit hitting the fan, I hope this is a collective awakening of how easily we are manipulated online. In the case of Blake Lively and Amber Heard, astroturfing was employed to forever destroy their reputations and credibility. When it comes to politics, science, news, health… I shudder at the ramifications.

I hope people are able to separate liking a woman, from believing her. In this case, all the signs pointed to Justin being shady (literally everyone avoided him and publicly sided with Blake, we just didn’t know why!). Yet the online sentiment by far rallied around Justin. For a woman to be believed, she has the unfair burden of being the perfect victim. The reason astroturfing worked is because, well, society still mostly hates women (sorry).

Not Justin’s PR team admitting it’ll work because the world hates women