? You are listening to the Daily Roundup here as part of the Reality Steve Podcast. I am your host, Reality Steve. Thank you all for tuning in on this Monday. Two days away from Christmas we will talk about the biggest story going on in entertainment right now. And that is the Blake Lively sexual harassment lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, our co star, who was also the director of It Ends With Us.
I’ve got a lot of thoughts on this. We’re also going to speak about Rachel Rekia going on the almost famous podcast over the weekend. She said a couple of things that are noteworthy and we will discuss those. And then something from SNL this past weekend, that was a first for me in a while, and we will get to all that momentarily, you remember back in August when the movie, it ends with us came out.
I had told you I wanted to go see it because I knew it was very important in the pop culture world. It was from a Colleen Hoover book, which I had never read. I didn’t even know there was a second book, which is, it starts with us, but I knew the movie was coming out. I knew it was going to be a very talked about movie.
And. I knew obviously Blake Lively was in it, and kinda like when I went into Wicked knowing that it was only a prequel to Wizard of Oz, I only knew the basics of It Ends With Us, and I knew this was a movie about Blake Lively who was in an abusive relationship. I did not know about Atlas, I didn’t know anything until I saw the movie.
And then, if you remember back in August, I became obsessed with it for a couple weeks. Did a whole live on it. I had one of you listeners come on and when you viewers come on And ask questions and we discussed it. And I was just, I, cause I really thought it was a, an excellent movie. It was really well done.
I thought the acting and all of it was great. And at the time, especially once I started talking about it more. There was always something going on and it was like, what is happening here? Because, and even when I spoke, I remember I interviewed Molly Mesnick at the time and she was a big fan of the movie and you know, I brought it up to her.
I brought it up on my live and what we were saying was something’s obviously going on here because when the co star of the movie, Justin Baldoni, who plays Ryle in the movie, who is also the director who also owns the rights to the movie, his production company. Wayfarer production owns the rights to the movie.
So when the director of the movie, who was also the co star, isn’t appearing on the red carpet with anybody else from the movie, and isn’t promoting the movie like everyone else is, and. Blake Lively, Colleen Hoover, Ryan Reynolds had all unfollowed Justin Baldoni. I thought it was weird. We all thought, well, I wasn’t the only one thinking this.
We all thought it was really weird, like something is happening here, but we figured it was just gonna die down and we were never gonna find out what that particular something was. Well, what were we wrong? Over the weekend, we have found out that Blake Lively filed a lawsuit against not only Justin Baldoni, but his production company.
And the CEO of the production company. And she filed a lawsuit claiming sexual harassment on set. And I do want to say this.
During all this time back in August, Blake Lively was taking a ton of shit. And at the time, I thought it was unwarranted. I said it at the time, I was like, I don’t know where this is coming from and why there is such hatred for her, and why On my Tik TOK for you page and in my social media channels, I’m starting to see nine, 10 year old interviews of Blake Lively.
It’s like, why is this coming out now? Why are people bringing this to our attention? And at the time I couldn’t have guessed what it was, but come to find out by this lawsuit, not only was Justin Baldoni making Blake very uncomfortable on set. She has also in this lawsuit laid out. An absolutely detailed plan that Justin Baldoni and his production company went through back in August as a smear campaign to make Blake look bad.
And I do want to say this for all those who defended Justin during that time and said, Blake’s always been difficult. She’s a diva and all this stuff. If you have not taken the time to read the 80 page lawsuit, I’m not going to say you’re not allowed to have an opinion. Everybody’s allowed to have an opinion on anything they want, but if you haven’t read the lawsuit, your opinion is just misinformed.
And I think your opinion is probably going to be based in, Oh, you just like Justin more than Blake, because that lawsuit lays out in detail exactly what Justin did to her. On set and how this smear campaign came about to attack her character, all the stuff that you were seeing on social media back in August, that wasn’t a coincidence.
I questioned it at the time. Why am I seeing interview? Blake Lively has done numerous movies since 2016. Why am I now seeing clips of her doing and being off putting in interviews? Why is this, why am I seeing this now? Well, it’s because the PR team that Justin Baldoni. And Wayfair Productions hired, made it a point to start laying the groundwork and started going to Reddit, started going to certain outlets in the media and feeding them stories and making sure Stuff like that was appearing on social media channels.
So I really would, would encourage anybody. Don’t just read the recaps of what pretty much every entertainment site is writing about right now. Yes, they do have the screenshots of things, but you need to read all 80 pages. I did because I didn’t feel comfortable talking about this. Just going off of skimming articles that were covering this story.
I read all 80 pages. It is bad. And Justin Baldoni, the guy who claims to be anti toxic masculinity and has a podcast where he goes against men who are alpha males, it’s all basically just a cover because the things that Blake Lively alleges in this lawsuit, and not only does she allege certain things, one, she has witnesses to back it up.
And then two regarding the smear campaign. I don’t know how she got the things that she did. But she has numerous and I mean numerous texts between Justin’s PR team and the talent agency, which is the name of the agency that they hired to smear Blake Lively in the press. She has the correspondence of Justin talking to his PR team, Justin talking to the talent agency, the talent agency, talking to the PR team, which is what most of the techs are and these women going back and forth, basically saying, Oh my gosh, it’s working.
We got to do this. We got to do that all because in January of earlier this year in January, when it ends with us resumed filming after. The SAG and Writers Guild strike, Blake Lively, who, what were we hearing back in August? Difficult to work with, had a list of demands. Well, you know what those list of demands were?
I’m not going back to work unless this asshole, Justin Baldoni, changes his behavior because he’s been an absolute nightmare to work with. I feel uncomfortable around him on set and I’m going to lay it out there of this needs to change for me to come back to filming in January of 2024. Baldoni’s Team Reddit.
She listed 30 things. It wasn’t just like, hey, you need to be nicer to me on set. No, no, no, no. She listed 30 things. I’m telling you, you got to read all 80 pages. And if going in you have a negative opinion of Blake Lively, and you don’t like her, I’m sure you’re not gonna change your mind. I’m sorry, you’re You’re not being objective.
If that’s the case, if you were Justin Baldoni, if you were team Justin back in August, my guess is because this is just the way things are with people, you’ve heard me say it a thousand times, facts don’t matter to people anymore. It’s their own self truths. If your self truth was I’m team Justin back in August, you could read all 80 pages and still try and gaslight your own self into believing none of that happened.
Do you honestly think that all those emails are fake? She put those in a lawsuit and she just made them up. That’s what I’m saying. I think we will just need to understand. It’s okay to be wrong about things. If you were team Justin back in August, unfortunately, I’m sorry. I think you’re wrong. Go read the 80 page lawsuit and then tell me why, if you still believe Justin and you don’t believe a word Blake says, why, because this is pretty detailed and it looks bad for him.
Like really bad. So, and if I wouldn’t have said that this, I wouldn’t have said this. If this was all he said, she said. And Blake just came out with a lawsuit and said, he did this. He said this, but nobody saw it. Nobody heard it. This is just my word against his, I would have been like, I wouldn’t have dismissed her, but I’ve been like, man, what do I always say in 2024, you got to have receipts.
She brought a shit ton of receipts. I don’t know how she got Justin Baldoni’s phone or whoever’s phone she got. And, and email, obviously they subpoenaed it and boy, Justin’s PR team and the crisis management team that they hired, the talent agent they’re, they’re screwed because there’s literally emails going back and forth talking about their whole plan was to make her look bad.
It is a fascinating story outside of Diddy. This is going to be the biggest entertainment story through the end of the year and into the new year. I mean, it is huge what is happening here. Very rarely do you see an A lister sue her co star for the way she was treated on set. And then unearth this smear campaign that he had against her.
And has proof of it. I mean, this is huge. I also think this is going to, I really do think this is going to open up the doors And you’re going to see a lot more women coming forward now that Blake has done this Blake Lively and a Lister off of a successful movie. It’s not like the movie bombed. It’s not like nobody went and saw it.
This is a movie that did well. Could this woman have easily just shut her mouth, made the sequel, and made even a shit ton of more money? Yeah, but props to her for putting her foot down and saying, no, this isn’t acceptable, how I was treated. And she’s not even just saying that, for those that are saying, why is she saying this now?
Go read the 80 page lawsuit. In January, when they, before they finished filming, before they finished filming the movie, they still had a month left of filming. She said, I’m not going back until these needs are met. And it’s not like I need to have my own trailer and I need to, no, it wasn’t anything like that.
It was all about Justin and the CEO of Wayfair Productions. Attitude and their treatment of her, not just her, but other women on set, and she listed everything that they did, and she said, these things need to change. I don’t know if she could have ever gotten out of filming the second half of the movie, that last month of filming, however much, they had a month left, so I don’t know how much they were into the movie.
I don’t know if she ever could have gotten out of it, and just said, if these aren’t met, I’m not doing the movie, because they had already filmed most of it. Man, it is a fascinating, fascinating read. Don’t just read recaps on websites. Find the PDF file and read all of it. And then tell me if you were Team Justin back in August, if you are still Team Justin, and you think anything that was alleged in that, you think it’s, none of it is true.
I really find that hard to believe once you read the 80 pages. This is, this is a huge story. We’ll talk a little bit about more about it tomorrow. Cause there’s other things I want to touch on with it, but that’s the gist of it. I would just implore anybody interested in this story. I would implore you to read the whole lawsuit and it’s not full of legal.
Mumbo jumbo, you know, sometimes when we’re dealing with the Clayton and Laura Owens case, I read that stuff and I’m like, this is going over my head. I have no idea what they’re talking about here. This isn’t a lawsuit where a bunch of other cases are brought up and you have to go research. So this is all Blake’s recollection of everything that happened to her on set and all the things that they have found since then of.
Communications between Justin Baldoni’s PR team, Justin himself, and the crisis management team that they hired to basically start a smear campaign against Blake and the things that they were saying in those emails, it’s just, I mean, the only thing you could say in return is, well, you better hope those emails aren’t true, but I don’t think Blake Lively, an A lister, is filing an 80 page lawsuit And just makes up a bunch of stuff in it.
It’s a fascinating read. The whole thing is, is crazy because now it’s just like, obviously, obviously everyone was hoping for a sequel. It starts with us. We know that is the second book in that series. I can’t imagine they’re making a second movie now. She ain’t going to get on set with him again. And if you recast Ryle, I just don’t think that works.
I just don’t think people would be, I just don’t think people want to see rile cat recast. It’s almost like, well, the second movie is not getting made now. That would be my guess. But again, we’ll talk more about it tomorrow. Please go check that out. Rachel Rekia went on the almost famous podcast over the weekend.
And there’s a couple of things in there. I thought were relevant. Number one, she shot down the Blake Moines dating rumors again. She said, look, we just like two different. I’m like, I’m into more effeminate guys and he’s basically just such an alpha male. We are just two different, but he’s one of my great friends.
I don’t, everybody wants us to date. I understand that, but it’s just not happening. We’re just friends. So it was just her reiterating that. But the second thing that she said that was interesting was she said that a guy that was on her season where she was the co bachelorette with Gabby has DM’d her since then showing his interest.
And she said, I got a DM from one of these guys who rejected my rose. He unsent the message, but I have a screenshot of it. She’s like, Hey, if you’re going to send a message like that, which she’s also kind of apologizing in a way, say it with your full chest because he deleted it already. She said, he starts off.
Yo, what’s up, Rachel. So random. I know I was literally just thinking about my time at the batch house and all the regrets I have from not seeing things through, I definitely had to reach out because it’s something on my mind and it’s something I’ve thought about for a couple of years, what could have been and how fun things.
Could have be so I’m just reaching out to see if you’d be down to chill and grab a drink or two and vibe out Look, I know I’m getting old gonna be 50 next year. But is this what the youngins say to each other now? Let’s get a drink and vibe out. That sounds so lame. I’m glad that she’s not giving this guy a shot
She said I’m like you didn’t give me a shot So I will not be giving you a shot now, but you know what? We could have been something. She said that this guy who follows her on Instagram chose to go home during week two, even though that she wanted him there. Now, you know, me, I watch these shows and cover them every season.
I could tell you, you know, I know the names of the top eight or eight top 10. If I saw the name of the person, I could picture their face. So I had to go on Wikipedia and look at who was eliminated in week two of Gabby and Rachel season. Those guys were Brandon Hall, Colin Farrell, John Anderson, Justin Budfulski, Matt LeBah, and Ryan Moola.
Also Chris Austin. I’ll tell you something right now. If Brandon, Colin, John, Justin, Matt, Ryan, and Chris came to my front door right now and punched me in the face when I opened up the door, I wouldn’t have a fucking clue who these guys were, and that’s not just any It’s not a shot at them, it’s just that this was, what, three seasons ago?
Four seasons ago? I’m supposed to remember seven guys who got eliminated in episode two? The names kind of sound familiar, but the faces don’t jump out to me at all. So it’s one of those seven guys, and if you dug deeper you could probably figure out she did say in the article
he follows her on Instagram and he chose to go home during week two. So we could probably narrow it down to which guy it was. It’s not that important. She’s not going to date him. I just think it’s funny that A, he DM’d her, basically kind of apologizing and wanting a second chance. And B, he wants to vibe out with her.
Do you want to go vibe out? Is that a, what? What does that mean? I, I, I think I’d have more respect for the guy if he DM’d her and said let’s Netflix and chill. Like, maybe because I know what that means and I don’t know what vibing out with somebody means. Why don’t you just ask her out? I know he did say, let’s go get drinks, but he said, let’s go get drinks and vibe out.
I’m sorry. I maybe I’m the dumb one here and I’m totally out of touch because I’m almost 50, but I don’t think I’d be caught dead saying that to somebody anyway. I thought that was interesting that Rachel went on the podcast. And I don’t want to say she threw that guy under the bus. She didn’t name him by name.
Yes, we’ve narrowed it down to seven guys, and you can probably, if you went back and watched that episode, you can probably figure out who it was. But it’s not like she said, this guy sent me a dick pic, or this guy is a creep. Say guy slid into my DM that I eliminated on my season and now he wants a second chance.
And I’m just like, no, I don’t think that’s bad. And if this guy thinks it’s bad and he’s pissed at Rachel for sharing it, then maybe, I don’t know, don’t send the DM in the first place. I have no problem with Rachel telling that story because it’s not bad. It doesn’t make him look bad. Unless you think telling a woman to vibe out with you is bad, but it really doesn’t make him look bad.
She’s kind of like, yeah, I reached out to me from my season. I got eliminated in week two and just kind of wanted to want to hang out. And I was like, you had your chance. Oh. And finally, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Saturday night live and when they brought back church lady. And I’m just like, yeah, I never got that skit.
I didn’t think it was funny then in the eighties. Don’t think it’s funny now. Well, there SNL does twice a year. That is. For me, the funniest thing that happens on that show. And that is the Christmas episode before Christmas break. And the last episode of the season on weekend update with Colin Jost and Michael Che in the last segment, they do a bit where they write jokes for the other person that the other person has to read off the cue cards, but the person has not seen those jokes until live on Saturday night, they don’t show them during rehearsal, which is filmed for 90 minutes before they actually show us the 90 minutes that airs on TV.
And so Colin Jost reads jokes from. And written by Michael Che. And they are always, if you’ve seen this bit, they are always racist jokes that make Colin Jost look racist. And then the jokes that Colin Jost writes that Michael Chey has to read usually has to do with him having sex with white women. It’s usually the way, it has something to do sexually with his sex life or who he’s hooked up with, stuff like that.
I can honestly say that this past weekend’s one that they did, Was I watch weekend update? I watch Saturday Night Live every week and I chuckle at sketches this Reading of the jokes literally had me laughing. I was actually lol, you know people I say lol They’re not actually laughing out loud at your text you write lol to somebody Are you really laughing out loud behind your with your phone in your hand?
No, you’re just telling them. Hey, that was funny I was laughing out loud watching this sketch. That’s how good it was because Michael Che number one Basically wrote that Colin Jost was going to have to read the jokes in, quote, black voice. So Colin Jost had to, quote, come up with something in his head that he believed was how a black man talks.
And then the jokes were I mean, they were of course racist and it made Colin jokes sound racist. But the other thing was because Martin short hosted and he became part of the five timers club, they brought back a lot of the five time hosts on that show. And one of them was Scarlett Johansson, who is Colin Joe’s wife.
So she was backstage and she was there watching this live. So Michael Che made sure the jokes, two of the jokes included her and me retelling them, isn’t going to do it justice. Either you saw it and you thought it was funny because. The other thing that’s funny about it is it made Colin Joe’s break and it made Michael Che break.
Like they couldn’t even get through the jokes without laughing hysterically themselves, which in turn usually makes the viewer laugh because when they’re having fun with it, it’s like, okay, we can laugh at this. Colin Joe’s is not a racist, but when he’s reading jokes written for him by Michael Che and Michael Che wants to make him sound racist, that’s funny.
And when he’s laughing during it. Not to mention the two of the three jokes were about his wife. It was, it was probably the funniest thing I’ve seen on SNL in five years. But like I said, retelling the jokes won’t do it justice. Google weekend update, Jost, Che. It’ll, it’ll be the first thing that comes up.
All the entertainment sites are covering. It was that funny. I just, I just, it was, even when I think about it, it’s funny. But yeah, one of the, one of the best bits they do. And now it’s like, I don’t know how they’re going to top each other at the end of this season, you know, in may and 20 in may of 2025, when this season signs off and the last weekend update in may of 2025, when they write jokes for each other again, I don’t know how Michael Che is going to top this.
Having Colin Jost read racist jokes and jokes about his wife in a quote, black person’s voice. I don’t know how you taught that, but we’ll have to wait until May and find out. Anyway, thank you all for listening. I really appreciate it. Follow me on Apple podcasts also rate in review, but you got to hit play.
It’s the only way it counts as a download sports daily is up in an hour from now. You’ll check that out. Thank you very much for listening. I really appreciate it, and I will talk to you tomorrow. Team.
