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 Tuesday, Christmas Eve. For those who celebrate, I’m going to talk more about the Blake Lively Justin Baldoni lawsuit. Some people have come out in support of Blake Lively yesterday.
Co stars from the movie, the studio has come out in support of her. I And everything’s going South for Justin Baldoni. Yesterday lost his representation, lost an award, and he lost his podcast. Not very good for him. Got some other thoughts on this whole case. I also have a confession to make in regards to the holiday that we’re in right now.
And I do have a note about Taylor Swift. That I want to get to just at the end, very briefly, because it dawned on me this past weekend, we will get to all that momentarily. So, as I said at the top, there’s a lot that has gone on just in the last 24 hours. Look, this Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni story isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Like this is going to be a story. That’s going to last for a while. I hope a lot of you had a chance to go online and read the 80 page complaint that Blake filed. If not, it’s not going anywhere, so you’ll be able to read it. Just Google, you’ll be able to find it. And I said in the open that the studio Sony studios has come out and supported Blake Lively.
So has SAG and AFTRA. So the studio. Sony came out and said, we have previously expressed our support for Blake in connection with her work on and for the film. We fully and firmly reiterate that support today. Further, we strongly condemn any reputation, reputational attacks on her. Any such attacks have no place in our business or in a civil society.
Before that, the Screen Actors Guild, SAG, and AFTRA, which is the American Federation for Television and Radio Artists, also spoke out against the, quote, startling and troubling allegations, and noted that they applaud Lively’s, quote, courage in speaking out on issues of retaliation and harassment, and for requests to have an intimacy coordinator for all scenes with nudity or sexual content.
This is an important step that helps ensure a safe set. Employees have every right to raise issues of concern or file complaints. Retaliation for reporting misconduct or inappropriate behavior is illegal and wrong. We all have the right to be treated with dignity and respect on the job and do work in an environment free of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
So very noble of the studio to come out and support her. That’s one thing, but to have somebody on set, the first person on set to come out and speak on her behalf, And that person happens to be Atlas Corrigan, her co star, Brandon Skliener, who is male. Clearly not taking Justin Baldoni’s side. He didn’t release any sort of statement, but what he did do was post on his Instagram story yesterday a screenshot of the first page of the complaint included a link to read the 80 page complaint that says, For the love of God, read this.
So Brandon Skleener, I think this is the biggest support for Blake so far. Yes. I expected the studio too, but now you’ve got someone on set who was there, who witnessed everything now supporting Blake publicly, meaning he ain’t supporting Justin and he clearly knows what he saw and what went on. If this does go to trial, clearly bland Brandon Skleener will be called to testify, but for him to say, for the love of God, read this.
I’m sure he’s telling people to read it because he knows what he saw on set is now out there publicly and he also tagged Blake in it with a heart next to it. So, I think that’s probably the biggest support right now that she has been able to get. Now, will others speak out? Will Hasan Minhaj speak out?
Will Jenny Slate speak out? Speak out. Those are the two other biggest co stars. Will the people who played young Ryle and young Lily speak out? I don’t know, but the fact that Atlas Corrigan did, and everybody loves Brandon Sleaner, especially after watching that movie, I think that is huge for Blake. On the other end of the spectrum, Justin Baldoni did not have a good day.
He was dropped by his agency, William Morris Endeavor. He also lost an award that he got. Two weeks ago, the Voices of Solidarity Award honors remarkable men who have shown courage and compassion in advocating on behalf of women and girls. He received an award from them on December 9th. On Saturday, December 21st, this is in a statement that they released, we learned through news reports about a lawsuit brought by Blake Lively against Mr.
Baldoni, his publicist, and others that is disturbing and alleges abhorrent conduct. The communications among Mr. Baldoni and his publicists included in the lawsuit and the PR effort they indicate are alone contrary to the values of vital voices And the spirit of the award. We have notified Mr. Baldoni that we have rescinded this award.
Okay. Did he lose anything else? Yes. He lost his podcast. He’s been hosting a podcast called what’s it called?
Man Enough. He co hosts it with the production company president, his production company, Wayfarer Studios, Jamie Heath, the other guy that is named quite a few times in this lawsuit by Blake Lively for being and acting inappropriate. And Liz Blank. Well, Liz blank says, yeah, I’m out. And she released a statement saying she’s a journalist and author.
She says, I’m writing to you today to let you know that I have had my representatives inform way fairer than I am no longer will be co hosting the man enough podcast. Thank you for trusting me with your hearts and your stories for holding space for mine and for making this show what it was. I will miss you, the listeners so much.
I love what this community created together with every fiber of my being. And that’s because of you. As this chapter closes for me, I remain committed to the values we’ve built together. Thank you for being here, for trusting me, and for being by my side for the last four years. We all deserve better, and I know that together we can create it.
I will have more to share soon as I continue to process everything that has happened. In the meantime, I will continue to support everyone who calls out injustice and holds people that are standing in their way accountable. So yeah, not a great day for Justin to say the least, but this is what we talk about when we talk about holding people accountable, like he has a production company that owns the rights to the movie and he’s not getting any support.
Yes. You can say, well, Steve, aren’t you going to read what Justin Baldoni’s lawyer said yesterday? Sure. Let’s read that. His lawyer. Brian Friedman, the same guy that Chris Harrison hired and the same guy that a lot of people who are under fire in Hollywood hire says that the PR company that they hired tag, which is the agency group tag PR operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources, I’m assuming he’s saying that Justin Baldoni was experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people being Blake and Ryan.
I’m guessing that’s who he’s talking about, but he doesn’t go into detail on what those threats were. Is he saying that, well, Blake and Ryan were threatening him to, you know, I don’t know, drop out of the movie or something like what were they threatening him with? And they were probably threatening him with this movie.
Isn’t going to continue or something along those lines because of what she said in that January, 2024, come to Jesus meeting that she had with everybody and said, I’m not coming back to work unless these parameters are put in place. So that’s Not really sure what he’s getting at here. Very generic lawyer speak there.
And he said the standard scenario planning tag PR drafted proved unnecessary as audiences found lively zone actions, interviews, and marketing during the promotional tour to tasteful and responded organically to that. Which the media themselves picked up on. It’s ironic that the New York Times, through their effort to uncover an insidious PR effort, played directly into the hands of Lively’s own dubious PR tactics, by publishing leaked personal text exchanges that lack critical context.
The very same tactics she’s accusing the firm of implementing. End quote. Okay, look. If he’s just gonna sit here and say, well you’re accusing us of manipulating the media, well you’re doing the same thing. It’s just, it’s just. It just seems like a simple retort where nothing that he said proved anything.
When Blake did file a complaint, it wasn’t 80 pages of, Hey, this is what I experienced on set. Nobody saw it. Nobody heard it. It’s just my word against his, like she provided stuff. She provided receipts, exactly what you need in this day and age. If you’re going to come across and you’re going to come sue somebody and you’re going to claim sexual harassment, this is what she provided.
Now, the other thing in all this. Is I find it interesting that Brian Freeman says all this, it’s just like, Oh, she’s accusing us of PR tactics. She’s doing the same thing. It’s like, look, she might be doing the same thing, but it’s because of what your client did to her on set. Allegedly she’s laid it all out there.
Hey, this is the work environment I was under because of your client and his president, his CEO of Wayfair Productions. That’s what I’m responding to. So, Freedman is throwing out a bunch of lawyer speak. Clearly he’s going to defend his client. Of course he’s going to. He’s not going to say like, Oh shit, yeah, Blake’s damn right about my client.
We’re in big trouble. Of course he’s not going to say that. You know, we know this. He’s going to defend his client. But he didn’t defend him with anything definitive. He’s saying that the audiences found Lively’s own actions, interviews, and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful and responded organically to that.
And he says that the text exchanges that were in the complaint lack critical context. Well then, what is that context? We clearly read it. I mean, I don’t know how you could take those out of context. I don’t know if I need any more explaining. These are two PR people basically patting themselves on the back for the campaign.
The smear campaign they’re running against Blake. What do you mean we need more context to these? They’re saying it to each other. And Oh yeah. The founder of the company, the agency group tag, this PR crisis place that they hired the PR executive. On that. Her name is Melissa Nathan. The other woman is Entertainment Publicist and strategist Jennifer Abel.
Those are the text messages and the emails that we see the most between what Melissa and Jennifer were saying to each other, trying to spin the narrative. Well. Well, well, do you know who Melissa Na. Melissa Nathan is related to. Sarah Nathan, who’s the editor at the New York Post. And who was running hit pieces on Blake Lively during all this, the New York post page six, which is part of the New York post, a tabloid owned by the New York post ran a headline, Blake Lively approved final cut of it ends with us amid feud with co star director, Justin Baldoni and multiple other negative stories.
These were reportedly done by Sarah Nathan, the sister of the woman in charge of the crisis PR company, the agency group. You see what I’m getting at here? I mean, it’s not hard to follow what’s happening here. And Sarah Nathan has also worked for the sun daily mail, daily mail. com. Are those places just absolutely known for their journalistic integrity?
No, they’re not again. All the information is out there. If your team, Justin, and you were with team Justin from the get go, like I said, I, I know it’s probably going to be hard for you to swallow your pride and admit, Oh crap, maybe I was wrong about this. And maybe I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.
I’m not saying that Blake Lively couldn’t be a diva on set. Being a diva on set does not mean you deserved to be harassed by your coworker and his boss. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. And if you think that Blake Lively is the only diva in Hollywood I would think most A listers are probably difficult to work with.
Most. Not every single one of them. But most. So, I, again, would implore a lot of you to read the 80 page complaint. Because I think it explains a lot more. And I’m not going to sit here and read the text messages between Melissa, Nathan, and Jennifer Abel. You can do that by reading the complaint. It is, it is really, really fascinating stuff.
And I think it is. Kind of ironic, like I said, when these stories were being peddled about Blake being a diva. They were being peddled because this crisis PR team knew that Blake Lively had put a contract in place before agreeing to go film for the last month of the movie. She put a contract in place that said, work conditions need to change.
So, the whole time they filmed the back half of that movie, and from the time they finished filming until the time that this movie got released in August, It was very well known between Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds and Justin Baldoni and the producers of that show There was not any love lost between these two.
So she always had this in place This isn’t something that she thought of last week and decided to throw a lawsuit together from January of this year She said I am NOT going back to work until these Parameters are put in place on set because he’s been inappropriate The first half that we filmed. And so they did Justin Baldoni and his production team agreed to this.
So they knew it was out there. They knew she always had something on him, but yet she still went through. How difficult must that have been for her to go through with the promotion of this movie? And it’s why, at the time, everyone was like, something is off. He’s not on any of the promotions, he’s not on the red carpet, he’s the director and the co star of the movie, and everybody else is showing up on the red carpet.
Colleen Hoover is there, and Jenny Slade is there, and Hasan Minhaj is there, and Brandon Sleenor is there, and Blake Lively is there. But yet the director and the co star of the movie was never there, and never promoting it with everybody else, and everybody else had also unfollowed him on social media.
So while we knew at that time, something was up, we probably never thought we were getting answers and now we finally have like, it’s all starting to fit right now and yes, back in August, there were people that were team Justin saying, yeah, he didn’t want to be there because she bullied him on set. And Ryan Reynolds wrote the rooftop scene and it was changed because she was trying to strong arm.
And that all ends up being a total lie. That’s not how it went down. And I know how people are going to have a hard time believing that because they were probably going very hard for Justin back in August and September when this was all going down. Unfortunately, if you read the complaint and you read all 80 pages, you’ll realize, Oh shit, maybe I wasn’t right about that.
And maybe I need to support women a little bit more for what she had to endure on set. So I would just say, take some time to read it. Like I said, this isn’t going anywhere. I mean, we’re going to hear so many more things about this stuff’s going to get dropped. I think maybe some co stars will speak out, you know, Brandon did speak out on his Instagram story, but all he did was link to the complaint and said, for the love of God, read this.
I mean, that’s a pretty strong statement in of itself, but I’m saying him saying This is what I witnessed. This is what I saw. If he verbally says or write something out there that Justin was inappropriate on set. I mean, that’s not going to look good for him at all. It’s as bad as it already looks for Justin.
It’ll look worse once co stars actually do speak up about this. And Brandon has gotten the ball rolling by doing that. And I thought that was huge on Blake’s behalf.
