You are listening to the Daily Roundup here as part of the Reality Steve Podcast. I am Reality Steve. Welcome to 2025. Got a great Wednesday show to start off the new year for you. And what a way to start off the new year. More lawsuits involving Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. They each file a lawsuit yesterday.
Cheryl Burke is in the news. She’s decided to end her very popular podcast. At least for the time being, I’m going to get to a reader email, and I’m finally going to get around to that story that people. com ran last week. And it was one of their deals where they just go on Reddit. They find what somebody posted and turn it into a front page story without any vetting or even knowing if it’s true.
And this story is just so irrelevant. I’ll get to it.
So as I said in the open, great way to start out 2025, Justin Baldoni files a 250 million lawsuit against the New York Times. He didn’t file it, and he didn’t sue Blake Lively. He sued the New York times for their story about the alleged smear campaign that they accused him of against Blake Lively, 87 page lawsuit was filed in LA superior court.
And it’s about the story that the New York times ran called. We can bury anyone inside a Hollywood smear machine. There are 10 plaintiffs that are on this. It’s him, other producers from Wayfarer, Jamie Heath and Steve Sarawitz, as well as those two publicists whose emails and texts were all over Blake’s complaint, Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan.
And the lawsuit basically states their reliance on cherry picked and altered communications of stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead. The lawsuit also states that the news outlet relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self serving narrative, lifting it nearly verbatim while disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives.
But the Times did not care. Given the breadth of the article and the coordinated drop, it is readily apparent that the Times had been quietly working in concert with Lively’s team for weeks or months. So that just seems like an assumption, because that didn’t say, we know they’ve been working. It says, it’s readily apparent.
Well, I don’t know if that proves anything to say readily apparent. The New York Times shot back and said, The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of a thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article to date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr.
Baldoni, the other subjects of the article and the representatives have not pointed to a single error. We published their full statement in response to the allegations in the article as well. So, as I said, at the end of 2024, and we’ll start out with it at the beginning of 2025, this isn’t going away anytime soon.
It’s going to get ugly. Maybe there will be a settlement at some point. And these people just go their separate ways. I have no idea, but it’s not ending anytime soon because Justin Baldoni and his team file a 250 million lawsuit against the New York Times for running the story. And then hours later, TMZ breaks, Blake Lively, new lawsuit versus Baldoni alleges emotional distress and mental anguish.
And it basically, it mirrors the complaint that she filed, but this was filed in federal court in New York. And this complaint lists the demands that were addressed because of his, Baldoni’s conduct. And Blake Lively. Attorneys said after the lawsuit was filed earlier today, Miss Lively filed a federal complaint against Wayfarer Studios and others in the Southern District of New York.
Miss Lively previously sent her California Civil Rights Department complaint in response to the retaliatory campaign Wayfarer launched against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns. Unfortunately, Ms. Lively’s decision to speak out has resulted in further retaliation and attacks.
As alleged in Ms. Lively’s federal complaint, Wayfair and its associates have violated federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safeties. Now, the defendants will answer for their conduct in federal court. Ms. Lively has brought this litigation in New York, where much of the rebel event actually happened.
Relevant activities described in the complaint took place, but we reserve the right to pursue further action in other venues and jurisdictions as appropriate under the law. Yeah. A lot of legal speak there, but. Again, this isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. There’s probably more stuff they’re going to get out.
And we knew during Blake’s complaint, well, clearly his lawyers and his team isn’t going to be like, yep, that’s what we did. We started a smear campaign again. Course they’re not going to admit it. And they’re going to say, no, no, no, no. She did it to us. She started the smear campaign. So even with, I 87 page complaint by.
Wayfarer and the nine people that sued the New York Times for 250 million dollars. I will Because it’s only fair. I told you to read the 80 page complaint by Blake of what went on on set. And all the texts and emails between Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan that you needed to read. Well, I want to see what they say in return.
I know that they are saying that some of the things that were in there were taken out of context. There was a text exchange in Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit. That says the times article said that Baldoni repeatedly entered Lively’s makeup trailer uninvited when she was undressed, including when she was breastfeeding in his lawsuit against the New York times.
His complaint shows alleged text messages from Lively that read, I’m just pumping in my trailer. If you want to work out our lines, Justin Baldoni responded, copy eating with crew, and we’ll head that way, which the lawsuit claims Baldoni did not enter uninvited. Okay. That’s fine. That’s if that’s true, that’s one instance.
What if Blake was talking about another instance? You film a movie for what? Two, three months. There could have been other times where he came in uninvited. Maybe after that time where she said, Hey, you want to come in? I’m pumping in my trailer. If you want to work out our lines. And he said, sure, I’ll be there.
Maybe after that time. He never checked and he just decided to go in. I don’t know that part of the lawsuit that his lawyer is saying like, see, she was fine with him going into her trailer when she was breastfeeding. That didn’t prove anything to me. That proves one time they had a text conversation about it and she told him to come in when she was pumping.
That doesn’t mean he’s allowed to every time, and that’s what we don’t know. Like, there’s stuff I, we just don’t know yet. There’s so many things that we don’t know. And, but, it was just a hell of a way to end 2024 and begin 2025. These two just firing off lawsuits. Justin Baldoni wants 250 million from the New York Times, and Blake basically turned her complaint into a lawsuit, but she did file it in New York where filming happened.
So I’m telling you, this is going to be a story that goes on for months and we’re going to be covering it anytime something new breaks. So just be prepared. Cheryl Burke, who has been a two time guest on this podcast, announced yesterday that she has putting her sex lies and spray tans podcast on pause for the foreseeable future.
She said, after an incredible journey, I’ve made the bittersweet decision to say farewell for now to this podcast. This chapter has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life, filled with growth, meaningful conversations, and powerful connections. She said, I have a bittersweet announcement.
Just want to say to you guys that as I sit down to share this message, my heart is honestly filled with so much gratitude. It’s been such an emotional, I guess, few weeks or few days since making the decision to pause this podcast. This has been an incredible journey. Obviously. It was a very popular podcast.
A lot of her guests ended up being front page stories on people. com usweekly. com. She had a lot of great guests who were very, very candid in their answers. And when I had her on back in September, I even said to her like, Hey. This is a very popular podcast. I didn’t say like, I had no idea she was going to end it.
I didn’t think she would. I wouldn’t, but she alluded to the fact in her podcast, when she announced that this podcast is ending, she did allude to the fact that she’s got a lot of new things on the horizon for 2025. Maybe this podcast, the sex lies and spray tans podcast will come back in the fall when we have our next dance with the star season, she said, but she didn’t want to promise anything.
It looks like she’s got some stuff coming up. And the one thing that makes me. Question and not question anything about this, but when someone decides to pause a podcast or basically cancel it, especially someone like her, who’s got a very popular podcast, to me, that means that she’s definitely got something bigger that’s going to take up a lot of her time, like another reality show or any sort of show.
I, you know, something like, I, you know, the first thing that popped in my head was, is she going on survivor in 2025? That’s what she went. But. I was like, probably not. Cheryl doesn’t strike me as somebody that would want to go on survivor, but something like that popped into my head where. You’ve got a great successful podcast that the entertainment sites love to aggregate and love to run stories on.
So it would definitely take something big coming up. I don’t think that she paused her podcast to do private dance teaching. You know, I do think there’s probably something in their entertainment world that she is getting into that is going to take up a lot of her time, whether it’s a show, a reality show, a scripted show, something like that.
I don’t think it’s something behind the scenes because she did tell her listeners like, Hey, Big things happening in 25, 25. I can’t wait, you know, to tell you all about it. Maybe there was a part of the podcast where she did start taking a lot of heat from the dancing with the stars family because everybody thought that she was so negative.
And she said, look, anybody who’s misinterpreted this podcast or questioned my love for the show that shaped me, I encourage you to listen to the episodes. My heart has always been in the right place. I’ve seen so many of your comments affirming that I will never forget where I came from and my love for that chapter of my life will never waver.
So it’s possible. Who knows that may be the criticism that she was just a negative Nelly. And so many people were. Tired of her constantly coming down on the show and calling out the judges. Maybe that got to her. And maybe that is part of the reason why she didn’t want to do it anymore. I guess we’ll never know unless she answers that directly.
She kind of answered it there. Just saying like, no, it didn’t have anything to do with that. It sounds like it’s because she’s got something rather big coming up in 2025 that I’m sure we’ll all hear about in the upcoming months.
