How Blake Lively Ended Her Own Career | Episode 2

It has become nearly impossible for one narrative to reign supreme through mainstream and legacy media alone. Corporations no longer own our voices.
They no longer own truth or our information or our evidence. Welcome back to episode two of The Red Cooper Show.
I am so excited about this episode. Like seriously, for the last six weeks, I have been watching this unfold.
I have been tearing out my hair wanting to talk about the story. I have had you people DMing me, messaging me, tagging me and things being like, Brett, just like go live and talk about this.
But I know that it is a big enough story. So I wanted to do it in a proper format and make this one of the first episodes.
But obviously we must talk about part two and now part three, four, five, six, and seven, of the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni scandal. And if you are interested in ad-free episodes and exclusive content, check out the link in the description below for my new subscriber-only platform, Cooper Confidential.
Go check that out. There's lots of information in the description and on the website.
Hope you guys enjoy. All right, let's get into it.
So to start off, I just want to do a recap in case you are not caught up on this drama or we need to have our memories jogged. Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni did a movie together and it is called It Ends With Us.
It is based off of a book by Colleen Hoover, which is a kind of a controversial author. Some people say that it's a stretch to even call her an author if you have read some of her books, but whatever.
You can have your own opinions on that, but the book is called It Ends With Us. And Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively play the leads, but Justin Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, produced the film.
He directed it. He starred in it, and then Blake Lively came in as the star and then kind of took over production on the film.
At least that is what we saw back at the end of this summer as everything was starting. So the reason why we kind of understood that things were not as they seemed, that there was trouble in paradise, is that Blake Lively and the cast of It Ends With Us all mass unfollowed Justin Baldoni as the film was about to premiere.
And it was very suspect because Justin Baldoni was the one who first got the option for this book. He had been driving the production literally for years before they even started filming.
He was very, very close to the project and he was nowhere to be found on the press tour. He was the male lead, was the love interest of Blake Lively and was in no interviews, was not walking the red carpet and people got super confused.
But they thought that maybe there was a reason for it because this film is about domestic violence. And so they thought, okay, well, maybe they're trying to separate these characters and they want us to already get into the mindset of this being an abusive relationship, of them being at odds.
So people thought, okay, maybe that's the reason why. But then it just kept going and nobody acknowledged it.
And it got weirder because they noticed that she had unfollowed him and then we started to see a stark contrast with how Justin was promoting the film independently because he wasn't included in anything else with how Blake Lively and the rest of cast was promoting the movie and Blake Lively was doing all of these big colorful floral events she was also simultaneously promoting her new hair Caroline she was making this like a chick flick rom-com cutesy movie she telling everybody like, wear your florals to go see the movie because her character owns a flower shop. Meanwhile, Justin Baldoni took every single interview to talk about domestic violence and to talk about protecting women and the importance of telling these types of stories with, you know, very, you know, sincere care.
And so then people started to wonder, okay, well, what if they got into a big argument about how the film was going to be released? And Justin did not want to be part of this floral, happy, fun, girly chick flick, and Blake Lively, you know, got everybody to turn against him. So we all thought, okay, maybe it's just in post-production.
Oh no, guys, it goes so much deeper. So then a couple weeks after all of that, I really am giving you the full recap.
A couple weeks after that, we started to see some leaks, and it seemed like Blake Lively's camp had dropped some allegations that Blake Lively had not been very kind to her on the set of It Ends With Us, and that he had fat shamed her because he asked about her weight. But the thing is, Justin Baldoni has a very severe back injury, and there was a scene where he had to lift her up, so he had asked her how much she weighed, so that he could then go to his trainer and make sure that he could safely and properly lift her since he could barely do anything with his back.
So we learned that that was a bunch of hocus pocus and was just ridiculous and then people started seeing Blake Lively's attitude in interviews and not only was she being flippant about the story and talking about florals and silly things and promoting her hair care and being like oh my god look at my hair it's so amazing whatever look what I'm wearing but they started just to see that she was not kind to interviewers like she was very cold she was very sarcastic one of the interviewers asked her if a audience member of a viewer is very impacted by this story has a personal experience like should they come up to you and talk to you like how should they approach that because this is a very you know personal story that's going to impact a lot of. And Blake Lively took that question and we can roll the clip, but she basically was like, um, don't talk to me.
Like, what do you want me to do? Give you my number? Like, whatever. Asking for like my address or my phone number or like my location share.
Oh, I could just location share you and then we could. And just blew off this very serious and understandable question considering the subject matter of the film and then it just kept going people kept bringing up old interviews of her like from gossip girl days when she would speak over Leighton Meester and make fun of her they brought up another interview which went mega viral where a interviewer brought up that Blake Lively had recently announced that she was pregnant she was like oh my goodness your cute little bump and Blake Lively immediately snapped went oh look at your little bump and the woman was not pregnant She had actually, I believe, had just suffered a miscarriage or had just realized that she was pregnant.
And she was like, oh my goodness, your cute little bump. And Blake Lively immediately snapped and went, oh, look at your little bump.
And the woman was not pregnant. She had actually, I believe, had just suffered a miscarriage or had just realized that she could not have children in the future.
That just blew up. So basically, we knew that there was tension.
Things did not seem right. This premiere did not go how people expected.
And as it snowballed, people just turned against Blake Lively and their impression of her and impression of her relationship with Ryan Reynolds was completely shattered. She went from being this sparkly, happy personality who is best friends with Taylor Swift and has this perfect ideal relationship with Hollywood hunk, Ryan Reynolds, and they have the cutest kids, to actually she might be a diva and an egomaniac and somehow it has just been hidden from us for years.
The movie came out and by all metrics it was a success. They made lots of money so she should have been happy but she could not get over the fact that her reputation had been destroyed.
Now in my opinion I think people would have moved on because listen people have the attention span of a pee they move on to a new controversy within 24 hours. I think that she could have come back maybe after a year, made some amends, tried to be

better at interviews, just tried to move forward and not address it. And she probably would have been fine, especially because she is married to Ryan Reynolds, who literally everybody adores.
But she did not do that. She could not stand that people did not like her and that they had uncovered the alleged truth about her personality.
so she spent the last four months curating a lawsuit against Justin Baldoni to take him down. And that is what was dropped on Christmas Eve while I was sitting here with no show.
And I was like, please let me talk about this if that is what we're doing today. So in this first lawsuit, in this complaint that she released on Christmas Eve, she wanted to clear her name.
So she filed this lawsuit against Justin Baldoni and against his PR team. And she alleges that there was a hostile work environment, that he had sexually harassed her, and that when she had asked him to stop and brought these complaints to the public, meaning on set, he had retaliated by organizing a PR war against her to destroy her image during the premiere and all of the promotion of It Ends With Us.
Now, she took this directly to the New York Times. She had a journalist release text messages and lay out this entire thing.
The article was called We Can Bury Anyone Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine. Private messages detail an alleged campaign to tarnish Blake Lively after she accused Justin Baldotti of misconduct on the set of It Ends With Us.
And in this lawsuit, she claims that he fat shamed her, which we had heard about, you know, six months ago, that he busted into her trailer repeatedly while she was breastfeeding when she did not want that. She alleges that he was constantly sexual and made her and other women listen to him talking about his former porn addiction.
She says that he tried to force sex scenes into the project that she was not comfortable with,

allegedly made women on set watch videos of his naked wife giving birth, which was pornographic,

as Blake and her team put it. She alleged that he did not want to hire an intimacy coordinator,

and so it was very uncomfortable on set. She also alleges that there was a whole team meeting to

address all of these concerns and that they actually laid them all out in a document,

which they did put in the New York Times article saying, hey, here are all of our concerns. This

Thank you. also alleges that there was a whole team meeting to address all of these concerns and that they actually laid them all out in a document which they did put in the New York Times article saying hey here are all of our concerns this is what you're doing busting into my trailer so that they talked to Justin about all of that that he agreed to change the work environment but that it just continued and that is why he retaliated with this coordinated PR smear campaign aka what happened after the premiere of It Ends With Us.
Now, these allegations were certainly damning. Like, I read them and I was like, ooh, that is obviously not a good look.
But also, it's not out of the ordinary for Hollywood. Like, anyone who has worked in media or entertainment or Hollywood has probably had experiences kind of like that, has probably had their boundaries crossed, has probably been talked to inappropriately by someone and made uncomfortable.
But what stood out to me the most about this and really kind of made my head tilt is that in the chance that all of this was right, that she was true about all these allegations with Justin, it seemed extra sinister if you have followed Justin's career at all. Because this man is an ally.
He is a feminist. He has a super famous TED talk that talks about like dismantling masculinity and trying to be a better man.
He literally has an entire podcast that talks about gender roles and feminism. He has a man bun.
That is his entire brand is being this non-toxically masculine feminist ally. Like just listen to the description of his podcast.
The podcast is called Man Enough, and it explores what it means to be a man today and how rigid gender roles have affected all people. The show creates a safe environment for a range of perspectives to meet and stay at the table, exploring how the messages of masculinity show up in relationships, body, image, privilege, fatherhood, sex, success, mental health, and so much more.
Instead of polarizing and demonizing men and masculinity, it invites all humans to participate and thrive in the world. So you guys kind of get the tone.
This is the kind of person that we're dealing with. And why I'm bringing this up is because, unfortunately, so many people, specifically men, who present themselves as these, you know, feminist allies and being so pro-woman and having this, you know, holier-than-thou attitude about the world are actually just creeps.
And they are using those attitudes to cover up their bad behaviors. And Blake's team, the New York Times, positioned Justin Baldoni just like that.
And I'll admit, it got me. I was like, oh, that is not good if these are correct.
Again, because of how he has presented his entire brand for the last, you know, 10 plus years. And for a moment, over those couple of days on Christmas, I'm sure that Blake felt like everything was right in the world because people were on her side.
They were like, oh, this does not look great. Apparently, we screwed with the wrong person.
We fell for this coordinated PR campaign. I am sure she felt like she was on top of the world.
But that was because they had only seen her side of the story. It was like they were checking the news without checking Ground News first.
Guys, my partners over at Ground News understand the problem with legacy media and the fact that they are often bought and paid for, that they only share one side of the story, and that they often prioritize cheap wins over journalistic integrity. And that is why Ground News was born.
They cut through the noise with an unbiased perspective and show every side of the story and how it's being covered, prioritizing transparency over everything. Their technology allows users to compare how different sides of the corporate media are reporting on a story all the way down to how independent creators like me are reporting on a story, making sure that you truly see every side of the news.
And from my perspective, they make sure that I stay on top of the stories that I'm covering so that I can bring you the latest and most honest updates. Like with this story, they were able to quickly show me who was covering Blake Lively's lawsuit, where people were leaning, and they were able to break through the noise to quickly break down what was in Blake's filing and what was in that New York Times article.
But it doesn't stop there. Their blind spot feed brings you the stories that have gotten little to no coverage on one side of the political aisle, making sure that you always stay informed instead of letting big tech or their algorithms decide what they want you to see.
So if you are ready to truly break free from media bias and stay informed with transparent news consumption, now is the time to join Ground News. And when you go to groundnews.com slash Brett or scan this QR code that's on the screen right now, you can subscribe to the same premium platform that I use every single day, but for nearly half the price.
Again, that is groundnews.com slash Brett to break free from media bias and hold the media accountable for only $5 a month. And yes, I know what you are all thinking.
I agree. Ground News is probably Blake Lively's biggest nightmare.
Those feelings of ecstasy, I'm sure only lasted a few days because just a week later, I believe it was December 31st, the day before New Year's, Justin filed a lawsuit against her team and also filed a suit against the New York Times for defaming him and deceivingly editing the text that they included in their original article. The text between him and his PR team saying that they were trying to bury or destroy her.
And guys, that lawsuit broke the entire thing open. And from there, it just snowballed and more and more was coming out.
Like Justin Baldoni's lawyer immediately hopped on a press tour. He went on Megyn Kelly show and basically said, we have all the evidence.
We are going to destroy you, Blake Lively, because all of this is false. Just listen to what he said.
Are you going to sue Blake Lively too? Into oblivion, Megan. Wait till you see this lawsuit.
It's all going to be based on evidence. It's not going to be just a lawsuit.
Blake Lively will be sued and we're carefully considering other people that will be sued also. And just so you know, spoiler alert, they were all sued.
It all came out. It was literally insane.
And I love the fact that in that video, keeps going, it will be based on evidence. It will be based on truth.
Because what they are alleging is that Blake Lively seemed in the New York Times tampered with evidence to paint the story in a certain light in Blake Lively's benefit. And so over the next couple of days, through this lawsuit against the New York Times, they released even more text messages, the unedited version of the text messages.
They released audio recordings of Justin Baldoni talking to his family, talking to his team, saying that on the night of the It Ends With Us premiere, he was put in the basement. And again, this is the movie that he optioned, that he had been working on, I think it was for six plus years, that he had poured his heart and soul into the director and the producer of this film.
They did not even want him to attend the premiere, but said, okay, sure, I guess you can, but you have to wait in the basement. And we have photos of that, of his friends and his family, all in the basement, sitting on cases of water, while Blake Lively goes up gallivanting around in her sequined floral dress, talking about her Blake Lively Target exclusive hair care line.
That is what was happening while he was in the basement. And very quickly, the internet started to turn around.
As quickly as they got on Blake's side, they left the Blake train. And then, this was one of my favorite parts, people on TikTok started coming out with first-hand accounts.
These are PAs from the set. These are extras who watched all of this go down, who saw the tension, who saw Blake Lively and Justin screaming at each other, who saw Blake take over in the middle of scenes and direct.
They saw her ignore the extras. Meanwhile, Justin Baldoni was coming up and talking to the extras saying, hey, I'm so sorry that you had to see that.
I know that the scene is tough. Asking them about their experiences, drastically different.
And then guys, where it really started to get juicy for me and I really got excited and this just went even deeper, is when people started to connect the dots about Nice Pool. Because another thing that social media users noticed during the whole press tour and premiere of It Ends With Us was the fact that Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman were randomly in all of these interviews and on all of the press stops.
And obviously, Blake Lively is married to Ryan Reynolds, so it would make sense that her husband is there. But why is Hugh Jackman there? Well, because around the same time that It Ends With Us is coming out, Deadpool and Wolverine is coming out, which obviously is Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.
And I think that maybe Blake was trying to orchestrate some kind of Oppenheimer Barbie weekend where these movies convulge, but obviously that did not work in the slightest. People were very, very confused, but it seemed like Ryan and Hugh were kind of helping ice out Justin Baldoni.
And then people went back and watched Deadpool and Wolverine, and they noticed a character who seems very, very similar to Justin Baldoni, and that would be Nice Pool. So in the film, there's this character.
He has a man bun. He is this ultra feminist ally, soft-spoken, talking about his faith and how much he loves women.
And people are saying that Ryan Reynolds put that in the film to mock Justin Baldoni because they were filming around the same time that It Ends With Us was filming. And as the cherry on top, nice pool gets killed.
And he gets killed by lady pool, who is played by Blake blake lively you can literally see her blonde ponytail and better yet he gets killed in front of a flower shop remember blake lively wear your florals everyone because her character is a florist who works at this floral shop all of the signs are there so suddenly people are connecting the dots and they're going oh my god so they were literally were literally making fun of him on screen. They were trying to push him out of his own production.
They hated him. They're literally bullying him on screen.
And that just shows the power of social media because they brought up all of these points. And then Justin and his team added that into a second lawsuit.
Well, now actually we're on the third lawsuit of this entire scandal, but the second lawsuit from Justin's team. And guys, what was happening on social media was seriously a machine that could not be stopped.
Like it was faster moving. It was more ferocious than what we saw this summer when Blake's reputation was first destroyed.
And all of that is super interesting to me because this kind of social media momentum, this, you know, internet sleuthing that is happening throughout the scandal is actually relatively new in the world of PR and entertainment strategy and marketing. So I wanted to hear somebody else's opinion about this.
So I called a friend of mine, Jared Zepransky, who is a PR expert who works in entertainment, and I wanted to hear his take. So listen to what he said about social media drastically changing the scope of his work.
In the past where we saw the initial piece come out in the New York Times, back in the day, that just would have been it. And even like that's just, you know, everyone's mother and everyone's auntie and everyone's cousin would have seen it.
And that would have been it. Now you have social networks, just the public convening on a platform like X to do their own research and to draw their own conclusions.
For myself and all of us in the industry, it's made things a little bit more difficult but also easier because you don't only have to get a hold of that one editor or that one journalist. And I think also what social media has done, it's kind of lifted the veil on the unhealthy dynamics and the complicated dynamics of film production and TV production.
Because no matter what, you put a bunch of creatives in a room, someone's going to have a different opinion. And a lot of people stay in their lane, they know their role, and they'll go through with it.
But the more powerful you get, the larger of a public figure you are, the more control you feel you have. And as I'm sure you can imagine, this kind of social media pressure can obviously help make somebody's job in PR a lot easier because the social media users are doing the legwork for you and they're moving the story forward and they're keeping you in the right direction.
But for Blake's case, I mean, it's not helping her at all. And so now her PR team is having to fight against literally millions and millions of people who are picking up on everything.
I mean you guys are literally incredible. People on social media, you do not miss a single thing.
You have millions of collective minds that remember everything, that have clipped everything, that are scouring photos and videos. And even the world's most powerful and largest PR team can't actually fight that and that is what we're seeing.
In the new age of media, nothing gets buried. You know, in the past, if a story came out and there was some sort of retraction or some sort of, you know, edit, that would often go unnoticed.
But now things will get brought up again. That's the main thing for people to know, especially just in the public eye.
everything is forever. And so while all of that was happening on social media, Justin Baldoni's team was able to kind of sit back and relax because people were on their side, well, not actually relaxing, because they were pulling all of their facts together for this third lawsuit.
And so they came out just last week with yet another bombshell suit, this time $400 million directly against Blake and her team. This is not against the New York Times.
This is a totally different lawsuit. This one is directly against Blake Lively.
And guys, this lawyer is incredible. Like, it is worth going and reading this lawsuit because the story that he paints, the way that he writes, it is gripping.
He knew that the public was going to see this, and he wrote it for us, which I very much appreciated. And so basically, TLDR, the internet was right, as the internet often is.
It's crazy how that works, that all the clues people saw, all the things that were caught on camera. I don't think Blake considered the fact that a majority of this movie was shot in New York City, like on the streets of New York City.
So they had people, literally from like two and a half half to three years ago watching them film. They have random people filming interactions between Blake and Justin.
All of that is online and it refutes so many of her different claims. So all of that is in this lawsuit.
The lawsuit covers the tensions over the creative direction over the film, how Blake Lively strong-armed her way in and basically elbowed her way into a producer role that Justin Justin literally had to go to the union and say, hey, yeah, Blake really wants a producer credit. She's basically taking over the film, so we need to give her one.
They reiterated yet again that no, Justin Baldoni did not fat shame Blake Lively, but that yes, he had the back injury that we have been talking about for basically six months at this point and wanted to make sure he could lift her. And in the lawsuit, they added that after he asked that very harmless question, we can all agree that that is a very harmless question, that he got invited over to Blake and Ryan's home and got berated by Ryan Reynolds for having the gall to ask that question of his wife and that that was so offensive and so hurtful to her.
But also, we know that it wasn't hurtful because also in the lawsuit, they included text messages between Justin and Blake where they were literally talking about body image issues. Just listen to this.
So Justin, this is in 2023. He texts Blake and says, I want you to know that you will look amazing.
Anything you are insecure about, we will talk through and get creative together and make sure that you are comfortable. I just don't want you to stress about your body.
It is the last thing you need. As soon as I have a rough schedule that is even remotely accurate, I'll share it and I'll make sure that the team keeps this in mind as well.
And then he puts a heart emoji. And the reason why she was allegedly so sensitive about her body was because she had just had her fourth baby.
She was breastfeeding. She felt like she hadn't bounced back yet.
And so Justin is being sensitive about this in this text message. And Blake Lively responds and is grateful.
She says, this is my job here and I meet my responsibilities with extreme work ethic. Also, one thing that you'll see if you read this lawsuit is that Blake Lively has way too much time on her hands because her text messages are literally insane.
She also at one point compares herself to Khaleesi from Game of Thrones and says, I have dragons who will fight for me, basically talking about Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift and insinuating that Justin Baldoni should not fight her because she has more powerful people that will go against him. Obviously, now that we're seeing that she is suing him.
Anyway, the texts were just insane and very egotistical. But to finish what I'm talking about here, she responds relatively kindly.
And she's saying, we all win when we are firing at our highest capabilities. And you and I both are and will continue to.
I just need as much time as possible because I just had my fourth baby. I understand that you'll never personally know all the nuances of the challenges unless you live this physical moment in time.
I'm in with this physical road ahead. So having your understanding and support to help me pull this off is critical and very, very appreciated.
She appreciates all of his support, not just in my experience now, but also healing from experiences past. So thank you.
So actually, Justin Maldoni is being so kind and so wonderful that not only is he helping Blake Lively through this hard experience and her body image issues, but he's actually helping her heal, which is definitely not what we heard in her first complaint. Now moving on from that little part of the story, I just wanted you guys to get finality of that since we've been talking about that literally since like August, I think.
In the lawsuit, they also talk about how Blake made Justin and made his team hire additional producers that she would supervise to monitor the production because she didn't trust him. So she had to have personal approved producers to supervise him.
The director of the film, again, the producer of the film, who optioned the film six years ago. They also revealed in the lawsuit that it was her that refused the intimacy coordinator, not him, and that she actually took control and was the one instructing him on how to be sexual and how to be romantic in all of these intimate scenes, which again, because people were watching the filming of this movie on the streets of New York, was caught on camera.
We literally have her going up to him and saying, this is how you need to grab me. This is how you need to kiss me.
And it was even brought up in press interviews. Here we go.
I just want to be clear that you should not be the intimacy coordinator. You should definitely hire intimacy coordinators, which we did have.
No, you didn't. She's literally nervously laughing, going, ha ha, you should definitely have one.
Blake, you were the one who refused it. Okay, we'll'll let her continue you were teaching Justin how to pull you in where have you seen this I actually just saw it too it was on Instagram yesterday now the person speaking who is off screen is Colleen Hoover the author of the book and Blake Lively is trying to cover all of this up and go oh no where did that happen no I definitely didn't do that and she's going no Blake I saw that video.
That was so funny. You were being the intimacy coordinator and you can watch Blake's face going, oh shit.
Oh my God. People are going to know.
And guess what? We have even more evidence than those two videos. There are texts covering this.
In one exchange, Justin is talking to a production member on set and he texts them a screenshot of a conversation that he had with Blake where he says, hey, Blake, just hired an intimacy coordinator who I love. I will set up a time for you to meet or FaceTime them for next week.
And she says, I feel good. I can meet with them when we start.
Thank you, though. And then he sends this exchange to the production member and said, just FYI, wanted to tell you about this.
She seems like she doesn't want to meet the intimacy coordinator until we start, which may mess up the workflow, but I can still meet with her, of course. And then the female producer responds and says, that's fine if she doesn't want to meet her now.
You'll just have to walk her through what you and blank, the intimacy coordinator, are thinking. But she never actually met or wanted to use the intimacy coordinator.
She just kept pushing it off. Also, she never actually signed her employment agreement.
She also kept pushing that off, probably because she wanted to strong arm her way in and not just be an actress, but end up being the producer. Now, another thing that was included in this lawsuit that corroborates what people were saying on social media a few months ago was Ryan Reynolds' involvement and the fact that during the writer's strike, when nobody was writing, Ryan actually stepped in without just knowing, without anybody knowing, and rewrote scenes and added scenes that they would later film.
And Justin did not know until he saw a cut of the film. Also, at the end of production, Blake did not like Justin Baldoni's cut of the film.
And his cut was far more serious, darker, focused a lot more on domestic violence. She didn't like that.
Florals, fun, silly, girly, chick flick, promoting her hair Caroline, best friends with Taylor Swift, all of those vibes. She wanted that.
So she hired her own post-production team, and she had them do their own edit of the film, and then they showed these two versions to different audiences. People far more preferred Justin Baldoni's version, but they ended up going with Blake's.
And what is even crazier to me is that they would not even let Justin and his team, the original team, see the new version of the film,

even if it was just to see what had been cut out or what had been changed.

They were not allowed to look at the film

that they had poured blood, sweat, and tears in for years

because she and Ryan Reynolds literally took over.

Here is a text conversation about that.

Justin Baldoni says to his editors,

just curious if you guys have peaked at her cut and if anything has changed. And the editor says, I have just been told that we are not permitted to look.
And he says, haha, wow, when did that happen? Editor one says, as per Sony. So now Sony is involved.
They're complicit because they are on the side of Blake and Ryan. So editor one says, as per Sony, editor two said, this evening through redacted.
Justin says, wow, okay then. The editors and the director aren't even allowed to look at an actress's cut.
Got it. Well, here we go.
We will just keep taking the high road. Now, the other thing that we have confirmed in Justin's lawsuit is that actually he did not burst into her trailer while she was breastfeeding repeatedly, but that actually she was inviting him into her trailer while she was breastfeeding.
Here's a text conversation about that from June 3rd, 2023. She said, I'm just pumping in my trailer if you want to work out our lines.
And Justin Baldoni said, copy, eating with crew and we'll head that way. She said, take your time.
He said, I'm here. I'll meet you in hair and makeup.
So Justin, he has all the evidence. He is refuting every single one of these claims.
And more importantly, he and his team, as you can see, are being totally transparent. I mean, these are just, you know, five or six examples of things that they've brought up and clear text message exchanges that refute everything that she put out to the press.
They dropped everything. Totally uncensored, totally unedited, and last week they actually announced that they're even creating an entire website where they will publish every single email and text exchange to prove that he is innocent, that none of this happened.
I mean, that's literally unprecedented. And that is because they know the power of social media.
They know the power of the public courtroom. Because this is what is driving people in Justin Baldoni's favor.
Because they actually have truth. They actually have the evidence.
And this is where I see the stark differences between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni and how they are handling all of this because Blake is being so tactful and so specific. You know, she's dropping edited texts and specific stories that might be a little bit true but do lack all context.
Like, yes, he came into my trailer while I was breastfeeding, but actually I invited him in because I wanted to work on lines and we didn't have an intimacy coordinator, but actually it was because I never wanted to meet with one. She's also cozying up to journalists to get the story out that she wants.
She is leaking these stories to people. She is getting them to ask these tailored questions, to omit things from text messages.
And she believed that that would be enough to run Justin Baldoni into the ground. And unfortunately, that is a very widely used tactic, especially in these smear campaigns.
But with this new age of social media and internet sleuths, that just does not work like it used to. And you see Justin, on the other hand, is literally leaving it all out on the field.
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Now, I wanted to hear my friend Jared's take on this and what it means for each of these sides and what it means for their careers going forward. And I thought he had a really interesting take.
Just listen. Remove Blake from her husband and her best friend.
I think her career's over. But we can't do that because she is married to Ryan Reynolds.
She is best friends with Taylor Swift. She does have the most powerful people around her.
Very powerful publicist as well. But it will change the trajectory of her career.
I think a lot of people will be hesitant to work with her. Not only from the shitstorm that came from it, but all the talk of her wanting to take creative control over a project that really wasn't hers to take over.
For Justin, I think this just elevates him. I think a lot of people who may not have known him or his work before now do.
He's not a character without flaws, so he's been very public about his flaws in the past. He has had his issues with addiction of many kinds, but I think his authenticity will lend itself to more people wanting to work with him.
Now, I also think that it's a fascinating strategy that over the last six months, until that Christmas Eve lawsuit, that Justin took the high road. He stayed silent.
While he was being pushed around, literally being pushed out of his own production and into the basement with his family and friends, he literally held off his PR team, even though Blake Lively doesn't want you to believe that, and just let it happen. Trusting that at some point the truth would come out and that that would prevail.
He probably believed, you know, rightfully so, considering what we know about Blake Lively now, that she would not be able to be silent. That she and her ego would hate so much that her reputation had been destroyed, that her actions had been exposed, that she would want to fight, that she would not be able to stand the fact that she had been run into the ground and she would come back with some kind of fight and then he would be ready to drop the hammer.
He basically sat silently for the last, you know, five or six months, honestly, for the last couple of years while he was working with her, let her wind herself up and then shoot herself in the foot because of her own ego, as Gerard echoed in our interview. For Justin, if he really has all the receipts for this, it's in his best interest to just wait for the process to uh to to go through in terms of blake it just seems because there's a lot it just seems like they've really it's kind of like mean girl ish the way that they've gone about this there's a lot of arrogance involved now to wrap all of this up at this point we really don't know where this case is going obviously we have all of these lawsuits they lawsuits.
They're muddling through it. You know, Justin is pushing for a public trial that would literally be televised in front of a jury, a la Amber Heard, Johnny Depp.
That would be in California. But interestingly, Blake Lively specifically filed in New York City with a type of lawsuit that cannot be televised because I think that she wanted to wrap this up quietly.
I think that she expected that he would go down without a fight, that the media would absolutely destroy him, that he would be irredeemed, that he would want to settle and make this all go away. But obviously that did not happen and selfishly I'm really really hoping that this is televised.
I really hope it happens in California because I think that we would all thoroughly enjoy that. But right now Blake's only rebuttal has been to once again talk to these same mainstream journalists and say that Justin is now following the abuser handbook.
Hollywood Reporter wrote about this last week and said, Blake Lively on Justin Baldoni's lawsuit, another chapter in the abuser handbook. Okay, what handbook? The handbook of evidence and honesty and a man trying to clear his name and protect his family, like you should be doing.
You should be trying to clear your name instead of just dropping random lines of journalism. Like get a grip, Blake Lively, and also get to work because if any of what he's saying is inaccurate, you should be working very hard to combat that because right now, I mean, the evidence is pretty hard to fight.
And I honestly, like, I think that it is going to be incredibly difficult for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds to redeem themselves, and I think that they know that. I mean, like, literally look at a recent photo of Ryan Reynolds.
Here he is at the premiere of It Ends With Us with Blake Lively. They look like they won.
She's shining. She's so happy.
And here he is last week at another event. This man looks like he has seen better days.
This man looks like he thinks he is about to lose his entire fortune because of his wife's antics and his wife's ego. So maybe that should be a lesson to everyone.
Be careful about who you marry. Now, other than this just being incredibly juicy drama that I have wanted to talk about for six weeks, there are a few big takeaways that I think speak to bigger cultural issues.
So first of all, this is just yet another example of women weaponizing Me Too for their own gain. I mean, that really is the handbook that we're seeing if we want to talk about handbooks, Blake Lively.
And all this does is take credibility away from the women who have actually experienced harassment like this. And again, like I said at the beginning, unfortunately, this is kind of normal in Hollywood.
Like it takes credibility away from those of us who were touched and talked to inappropriately by writers and producers as children. You guys have heard that story.
I talked about that on Jordan's podcast about a year ago. I've had experiences like that.
Those of us who have been sexualized by weird entertainment creeps, she belittles all of that. She makes it into a mockery.
She makes it into something that she can use for a PR win. It also belittles the men and women who experienced far more than just uncomfortable situations at work.
The men and women who were assaulted and raped and finally got the courage to speak up. So shame on you, Blake Lively.
I mean, shame on anybody who does that because the only reason, in my opinion, that you brought that up is because you thought the feminists would just rally behind you, that we were still in 2015 and we would, you know, believe all women. And also, what I'm thinking here is that she brought this up because most likely, Justin has a morality clause in his contract with Sony that gives him the ability to work on this project or whether it would be in his option with Colleen Hoover.
So if she is able to expose him as being some kind of creep and get people to turn on him and if he wasn't going to fight, if he was just going to roll over and let himself be destroyed, if he couldn't refute any of these claims, they probably would have been able to get him kicked off of this franchise. And right now, I that he owns the rights to the books later on in the series so he could make those movies.
They could get him kicked off of his own franchise, and she and Ryan Reynolds could completely take control. That, other than just the PR win, is probably why she chose this tactic, but it was obviously very misguided because this man is not going down without a fight.
He is fighting for his reputation. He is fighting for his family.
He's also fighting for his work and for this franchise that he has poured, you know, again, blood, sweat, and tears and millions and millions of dollars into. And that really is what all of this is about.
And we actually, interestingly, have seen this all before with Ryan Reynolds. Now, if you guys remember, there was an original Deadpool director.
He actually walked away from the franchise, walked away from the entire project because he could not stomach working for Ryan Reynolds, who wanted to control the entire production. Listen to this.
This is from Men's Health back in 2019. Deadpool director Tim Miller says that he left the franchise because of Ryan Reynolds.
Quote, it became clear that Ryan wanted to be in control. Quote, it became clear that Ryan wanted to be in control of the franchise.
You can work that way as a director quite successfully, but I can't. I don't mind having a debate, but if I can't win, I don't want to play.
And I don't think you can negotiate every creative decision. There's too many to make.
So Ryan's the face of the franchise. He was the most important component of that by far.
So if he decides he wants to control it, then he's going to control it. And I think that last line is the most important.
If he decides he's going to control it, then he's going to control it. Because of his fame, because of his money, because of his power.
And I think that that is exactly what happened here. Blake Lively stepped in, didn't like what Jessam was doing with the film.
She wanted to be in control. She wanted to drive this.
She wanted to do her florals and make her chick flick. So she and Ryan Reynolds elbowed their way in, took over the entire production, rewrote scenes, re-edited the film, changed the entire marketing strategy, and are now hoping to kick Justin Maldoni off of his own thing.
But unfortunately for Blake Lively, it is not the Me Too era anymore. It is not 2015, 2014 anymore.
People have woken up to the manipulation and the weaponization of Me Too. We think far more critically about these allegations these days.
We take them a lot more seriously on the women's side than we did 10 years ago, especially after the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial. And we do that because of people like you.
And it's unfortunate that we have to do that, that we have to question people and question these allegations. But I am so glad that people's BS radar and media literacy has grown so much in the last 10 years.
I think that that is a huge testament to our growth as a society and us breaking free of this insane mob group thing that I think literally poisoned us as a culture for so many years. And a lot of that is thanks to social media.
And that's why I have such a love-hate relationship with social media, because it is a time suck. I think that it muddles our brains.
It has made our attention span so slow, but it also has given us power. It has also made access to information so much faster and so much more honest, which I really think is the last big point here that I want to make.
This is why this story matters on a more global scale, because the way that we digest information and digest scandals just like this has completely changed. It is no longer 100% driven by a couple mainstream media headlines.
That is what Jared was talking about when he said that his industry has been completely turned upside down because of social media. You're not just going to a couple of journalists and hoping that the New York Times and Washington Post, you know, picks up your story and drives the narrative.
But now you have to win over social media. You have to hope that they will be in your favor and you can't really control it.
It is a monster in and of itself. It is millions and millions of social media users who remember everything and save everything and have time on their hands to do sleuthing that the mainstream media will not do, who are tired of the lies and the manipulation that they have been fed for years, whether it be in politics or pop culture or other stories like this.
I mean, this literally ties into what Elon was saying about us being the media now. Us, yes, as in podcasters and creators, but more importantly, you guys, as in the active viewers and the active participants in culture and pop culture

who literally consume everything and do your due diligence to literally pick everything apart in search of truth,

as Elon has been encouraging all of us to do. Just listen.

Citizen journalism is the future, you know, and that's where you get to hear from actual experts in the field,

people who are experts in any given industry, that transparency is how you know that it's true and it's real and it's honest. And through platforms like X and like TikTok, which in my opinion have been the two most important social media sites for getting this information about this specific story out there, you now have a way to post this information, to share your stories, to share your firsthand accounts or the videos that you took or the information that you found online.
You have a way to post that, to

amplify that, to share that on a world stage in a way that can literally change the course of

someone's life, that can change the course of a PR smear campaign in ways that literally sway

presidential elections, as we saw in 2024, in ways that can change public perceptions or change the

course of someone's life who is being targeted and harassed by a bitter foe, which in my opinion is what is happening to Justin Baldoni here. I mean, first it was Johnny Depp.
We saw what social media did for him. Now we have 2.0.
And I have one last little thing to add here because it felt very serendipitous, but over the weekend as I was traveling, I was listening to an old John Mayer song. I was very in my feelings.
I was listening to some emo music. And you guys probably know it, but his song, Waiting on the World to Change, came out.
And for the first time, I think I actually heard his lyrics and they really stuck out to me. You should go listen to the song now after watching this episode.
But like halfway through the song, he sings, when they own the television, what you get is what you get. Because when they own the information, they can bend it all they want, which is why he's waiting on the world to change because he believes that that is not fair.
And guess what? In my opinion, I mean, after going through the story, after everything that we saw with Trump, after everything that we saw with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, it has changed. It has become nearly impossible for one narrative to reign supreme through mainstream and legacy media alone.
Corporations no longer own our voices.

They no longer own truth or our information or our evidence.

And while yes, obviously,

this makes the world a little more chaotic,

this makes stories more noisy and more complicated,

this needed to happen.

This break, this disruption,

we have been waiting on this for a long time,

and every day it is protecting truth and changing lives.