Trigger warning for sexual harassment, bullying, and emotional abuse. 

This post was co-written by Lainey and Sarah 

One of the biggest stories in entertainment this year happened back in the summer around the release of the movie It Ends With Us, adapted from Colleen Hoover’s book of the same name. The film did well at the box office, but it wasn’t a celebration for Blake Lively, because social media, particularly TikTok, turned hard against her. She and Jennifer Lopez probably top the list of TikTok’s Most Hated for 2024. 

 

By contrast the movie’s director and co-star, Justin Baldoni, came out like a hero, a hero to women and a hero to victims of intimate partner violence. Just last week he was presented with the Voices of Solidarity Award from Vital Voices for modelling non-toxic masculinity. 

Justin Baldoni's Instagram post after his Voices of Solidarity Award from Vital Voices

In that post, Justin writes: 

“Looking at the landscape of our world, it’s hard to accept an award when it’s so evident that there is still so much more work to do. My hope is that we can teach our boys, while they are still young, that vulnerability is strength, sensitivity is a super power, and empathy makes them powerful. That they should love and embrace their masculinity—that being a boy and a man is amazing and nothing to apologize for. And to value all the beautiful and complicated parts of them that make them human. I believe with all my heart that once our boys learn to be safe spaces for themselves, our world will finally be a safe space for everyone.”

It's f-cked up that he talks about “safe spaces”, because the It Ends With Us set definitely was NOT a safe space, not for Blake Lively and allegedly not for several other women who were working on the project. It’s also f-cked up that the signs were there – and, still, social media, and most people who were talking about this at the time, conveniently ignored them, the biggest being that all the front-facing women who were involved with the film, like author Colleen Hoover, Jenny Slate, Isabela Ferrer, and other members of the cast, wouldn’t have anything to do with Justin. Which we posted about here on August 13 and continued to mention repeatedly in our coverage of the situation. Because, frankly, even back then we thought it was sus that this man had made it his entire personality to be “man enough” to call out toxic masculinity and present himself as an ally to women, build a business around it, and none of the women that worked with him wanted any part.

 

And then he went and hired a crisis management team with experience working with the likes of Johnny Depp, Harvey Weinstein, and Brad Pitt. This is what we wrote in our post from August 14

Our post from August 14

The answers to those questions are now emerging as Blake has filed a complaint against Justin, his producing partner Jayme Heath, their production company, their publicist, and Melissa Nathan and her crisis management firm, The Agency Group (TAG), among others, alleging…

-sexual harassment

-retaliation

-failure to investigate/prevent, and/or remedy harassment 

-aiding and abetting harassment and retaliation

-breach of contract

-intentional infliction of emotional distress 

-negligence 

… and more. 

You can read the full complaint here, which we have, and/or you can read the New York Times report on the story here, co-reported by Megan Twohey who, of course, was involved in the NYT’s investigation into Harvey Weinstein. Megan Twohey is not a TikTok “celebrity analyst” whose reports are viewed millions of times and shared by thousands. 

 

And that’s just one f-cking problem in this crazy mess – because it was the analysts on TikTok and other social media platforms who, either advertently or inadvertently, participated in what Blake’s lawyers are alleging was a sinister strategy to take her down to protect and promote Justin. 

From what? 

His own actions. 

In the complaint, which we recommend you read for yourself, Blake’s legal team details multiple instances of sexual harassment – here’s one: 

“On another occasion, Mr. Baldoni and Ms. Lively were filming a slow dance scene for a montage in which no sound was recorded. Mr. Baldoni chose to let the camera roll and have them perform the scene, but did not act in character as Ryle; instead, he spoke to Ms. Lively out of character as himself. At one point, he leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, “it smells so good." None of this was remotely in character, or based on any dialogue in the script, and nothing needed to be said because, again, there was no sound—Mr. Baldoni was caressing Ms. Lively with his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with their roles. When Ms. Lively later objected to this behavior, Mr. Baldoni's response was, “I'm not even attracted to you."

And it wasn’t just Justin. His producing partner, Jayme Heath, was also allegedly creeping around that set and would insist on coming into Blake’s trailer while she was undressing and, according to the complaint, openly leered at her bare breasts. 

 

During filming for the birth scene, in which Blake’s character is “mostly nude”, her genitalia covered only by a “small piece of fabric”, it was a whole series of disasters – because not only did Justin not close the set and offer other protections, at the last minute he actually asked his “best friend”, who is NOT AN ACTOR, to play the obstetrician which required the non-actor to be positioned close to Blake’s genitalia.

You will note, however, that media reports back in August that were coming out about the speculated conflict between Blake and Justin minimised the harassment. There were mentions about how he lingered too long during a kiss scene, which totally glosses over the fact that he basically groped her with his mouth in the slow dance sequence described above without her consent and on another occasion decided to improvise biting and sucking on her lower lip in another kissing scene that was not previously rehearsed, or agreed upon, and he made her do it over and over again. 

All of this, it turns out, was part of the plan hatched by Justin’s crisis management team, led by Melissa Nathan, to deliberately place a few unflattering details about Justin with certain media outlets, without the specifics, as vague as possible, but then offset them with suggestions about Blake and Ryan Reynolds steamrolling Justin, which then comes out as a wash, a he-said-she-said situation deliberately intended to make the whole situation that much more murky and confusing. 

Once that chaos was established, Melissa Nathan then is alleged to have deployed social media targeting tactics, amplifying posts and accounts that were buying into the anti-Blake messaging, eventually creating the overwhelming pile-on that ended up burying Blake. That, by the way, was the goal. To BURY her. 

To support the complaint, Blake’s legal team subpoenaed an incriminating batch of texts and emails between Justin’s team, his publicist, Jennifer Abel, and Melissa Nathan that establishes what they allege was a coordinated and sophisticated digital attack on Blake. One of those pieces of correspondence includes Jennifer Abel telling Melissa Nathan that Justin “wants to feel like [Blake] can be buried”. And Melissa responding that “you know we can bury anyone”. 

 

Oh, we know. Or, at least, we should know. Because we’ve seen it happen, most prominently to Amber Heard. And remember, Melissa Nathan, before she started her own firm, worked with Matthew Hiltzik who led the crisis management plan for Johnny Depp. Again, we pointed this out back in August, and we keep going back to this because the connect-the-dots were allllllll there at the time, a caution to gossips out there to not jump on the Blake hate train because there was something much more nefarious at play. 

The problem is that, well, TikTok wasn’t paying attention. Crisis management experts like Melissa Nathan rely on the naivete and declining lack of information hygiene that’s rampant on social media when they’re performing character assassination. Also misogyny, of course. Melissa pretty much acknowledged this herself in one of the subpoenaed messages when she writes to Jennifer Abel, Justin’s publicist, that:

Melissa Nathan's text to Jennifer Abel

It worked, in part, due to a basic lack of understanding about power and fame. Because Blake was so much more famous than Justin going into the release of the movie, and because she’s married to someone who is just as famous, and who had recently come off major success with Deadpool & Wolverine, many people assumed that the power was in Blake’s favour, and she was throwing it around. 

We addressed this in our post from August 13 – here’s that section of the piece: 

Our post from August 13, 2024

As noted in Blake’s complaint, Justin and his production company had the rights to the book and were the bosses on the project. She was not in charge. Further, he clearly had the support of the film’s distributor, Sony (Blake may be more famous, but as the rights holder, Baldoni is the studio’s business partner, she’s a contract worker on one film), and a billionaire investor who per the complaint was prepared to spend a fortune to “ruin” Blake and her family: 

Excerpt from Blake's filing

So, as we wrote then, Blake and Ryan were not the Goliaths here. But they were perceived to be by amateur gossips on social media who didn’t pick up on those details or didn’t give them the weight that they deserved. That oversight was then further pushed down the timeline by all the criticism of Blake and her floral wardrobe and the way she was promoting the movie – an online fixation that Melissa Nathan and Justin’s attack team allegedly further exploited through their digital warfare. 

Blake’s legal team addresses the issue of her promotional performance, too, in the complaint, providing documentation that the way Blake was promoting the movie was the way the entire cast was instructed to promote it according to the marketing and publicity program that Justin’s production company, Wayfarer, fully approved. Examples are given in the complaint that Justin himself was adhering to the guidelines of the marketing plan early on in the promotional process. 

 

It was only later, when he realised that Blake and Ryan had unfollowed him on socials, that he got paranoid, and then pivoted to a different press strategy where he decided to present himself as a crusader for survivors of intimate partner violence. Blake is alleging that he used this pivot initially as a protective barrier in case the truth came out about his inappropriate behaviour, but then it became a weapon he and his crisis team used against Blake. As in – while she’s wearing pretty flower outfits, I’m out here doing the real work and addressing the real issues. It worked, he was lionised for it, and the complaint alleges that he was lionised for using survivors to protect himself and then, later, using women who’ve experienced intimate partner violence to intentionally destroy a woman who he’d sexually harassed. This is some ultimate villain sh-t. 

And still, back in the summer and even still now, people are obsessed with this issue, with the clothes and light, bright, and blooming answers on the press tour. As we wrote in August, her promotion performance may have been clumsy but the preoccupation with and criticism of it is and was incongruent with the much more harmful activities that were being completely overshadowed by the fixation. 

The fact that this is still being cited by those who are now aware of the complaint and of the heinous behaviour that Justin is being accused is a reflection of the profound impact of misogyny on us as a collective and why DARVO has been so effective. And saying that “what he did was awful but she still sh-t the bed when she was promoting the movie” furthers a false equivalency and also totally misses the message. 

Because we now know that Blake Lively was a victim of sexual harassment while playing a survivor of abuse. And if we are to support women in their recovery no matter what that recovery looks like, should we be  policing what she wears and what she says while she’s contractually obligated to promote the very project where she experienced the harm? 

Will that be the one of the takeaways in the days ahead as this story continues to develop? Or will people continue to express himpathy for Justin, who will no doubt come out with his own version of events? Already his lawyer has released a statement denying the accusations. It’s also mentioned in Blake’s complaint that one of his countertactics in the summer was to highlight his neurodivergence and attribute his problematic conduct to the fact that he’s socially awkward and has been diagnosed with ADHD. (Scapegoating neurodivergence to excuse such behavior isn’t helpful to the neurodiverse community, either. This man is throwing EVERYONE under the bus to avoid taking responsibility for his actions). This a message that he sent his publicist in June about how he wanted to make an “offensive” move against anything that could possibly come up against him by making sure people know that it’s the way his brain works:

Justin Baldoni's text to Jennifer Abel

Himpathy is strong and it is insidious, and according to Blake, Justin Baldoni is manipulative enough to understand its effectiveness. In her complaint, she describes an incident in which he came to her, crying, in her trailer, because people online didn’t like the way she looked from the set photos, allegedly with the intention of dressing her character in a way that was more attractive, with more sex appeal.

Justin and his team set the up the ideal conditions for himpathy, should he need it. And it’s not like we haven’t all been conditioned in himpathy for centuries, if not more. He’ll need it now, because his agency, WME, has dumped him, but that’s just today. This might just be a temporary reality. Johnny Depp, after all, is just fine. And in January there’s a monster going back into the White House. 

But there are more immediate Hollywood takeaways here, specifically related to promotion and publicity. Blake Lively is exposing part of the Hollywood machine – the favours that are traded between publicists, crisis managers, and certain media outlets; the underhanded ways that some studios and stars advance their own agendas; in this case the disturbing way they point the trigger at their colleagues. 

Last year, during coverage of the Hollywood strikes, we addressed how the studios, aka the producers, were trying to discredit the unions, representing the people they didn’t want to pay, by placing certain stories in select media outlets. That was largely unsuccessful, because they underestimated the public mood in the moment and its support of labour. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t try. 

It works better, however, when the target is a woman. Women like Amber Heard, Angelina Jolie, Meghan Markle, all of whom, by the way, have had the same kind of coverage in the same publications cited in Blake Lively’s complaint. Placing stories, sending out “leaks” and “tips” – celebrities have been doing this for decades. But with media literacy getting more and more compromised, as an entire generation has been raised on chasing social media easter eggs and mistaking theories for truth, these Hollywood maneuvers have become that much more menacing and dangerous. 

Will this example lead to much more discerning takes on social media, a closer examination of celebrity situations and conflicts and the application of more integrity and nuance before commenting? I mean, I hope so. But at the same time, I keep going back to that message exchanged between Jennifer Abel, Justin Baldoni’s publicist, and Melissa Nathan, the crisis management expert…

“It’s actually sad because it just shows you [how] people really want to hate on women.” 

…while engaged in a strategy to “bury” a woman. They knew, and they allegedly did it anyway. So while Melissa Nathan’s business might itself be in crisis right now, the fact of the matter is what they did worked. And that will be the takeaway for some people who might one day need those services. Unless of course Blake’s complaint becomes some kind of rally cry for decency and kindness in the industry, an overhaul led by the women in the industry to stop the underhanded backstabbing f-ckery that’s endemic in show business. It’s that time of year where we’re supposed to be optimistic about such things. But then again, that’s what #MeToo was for and… well… 

Here at LaineyGossip, one of our mottos is that gossip says more about who we are than who we’re gossiping about. It’s a mirror reflecting back to us our boundaries, our standards, our beliefs; it’s a lens through which we can interrogate those boundaries, standards, and beliefs. TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, social media has made gossip much more complicated, and the gossip mirror so much more distorted. Blake Lively’s December Surprise has the potential to be a correction if the people who are engaging in celebrity gossip are willing to look a little closer, to really understand how they can wittingly, or unwittingly, be productive and unproductive participants in it. Maybe that can be our gossip new year’s resolution for 2025.