The conflict between “With Us” stars Blake Lively and Justin Bardoni has turned into a jobs campaign targeting lawyers and critics.
Lively filed a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint with the California Civil Rights Department last month against her co-star and director Baldoni; his company Wayfarer Studios; and numerous others. Her complaint alleges, among other things, that Baldoni molested her on multiple occasions during intimate scenes — numerous intimate scenes featured in the film, based on Colleen Hoover’s mega-selling novel about a man who A sweet, malleable florist falls in love with a charming but gruff neurosurgeon.
Lively claims she requested a long list of precautions, including that an “intimacy coordinator” be present during their scenes and that Baldoni not “bite and suck on his lips” without her consent. Lively claimed that Baldoni’s team feared the news would go public and make him look bad, so they orchestrated an elaborate attack with the help of a hired gun named Jed Wallace. Her smear campaign. His company, Street Relations, was accused of orchestrating a social media campaign against Lively that allegedly resulted in a ton of negative press about her – according to a brand marketing firm hired by Lively.
The New York Times then published an explosive report titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside the Hollywood Smear Machine,” which was based on thousands of private messages between Baldoni and his team about The apparent “smearing” of Lively after he was accused of inappropriate behavior. (How did The New York Times acquire these treasures? It’s the subject of a separate lawsuit between competing PR firms.)
Separately, the Times published a response from Baldoni’s lawyer, completely denying the accusations: “These accusations are completely false, outrageous and intentionally obscene.”
On New Year’s Eve, Baldoni and others filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, accusing the newspaper of deliberately ignoring the true source of the conflict between Lively and Baldoni: “Lively deliberately and boldly (The film’s distributor, Sony Pictures, used Lively’s cut of the film and gave it to her at the urging of Baldoni and his business partner Jamie Heath. Producer Kudos. A letter attached to Baldoni’s lawsuit said this was done to preserve the peace.
Also on New Year’s Eve, Lively filed a federal lawsuit in New York that repeated many of the allegations in her California indictment.
Baldoni’s attorney told NBC News on Friday that his client plans to sue Lively and reveal “every text message” to prove her account is fake.
Hollywood news website Deadline declared that the saga reveals “how the celebrity PR machine sausage is actually made in the age of influencers and online media.”
At least for now, Lively appears to be winning the PR battle. Baldoni was fired from his agency, WME, which also represents Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds.
As a journalist who occasionally writes about Hollywood, I’m aware of the unholy alliance that exists between journalists and Hollywood’s supporters, which induces them to abandon their own moral compass in exchange for access and information. (You could just as easily substitute the word “politics” for “Hollywood.”)
According to Black’s complaint, crisis communications expert Melissa Nathan wrote that she was friendly with a reporter who writes for People, Fox News, In Touch and Us Weekly , and said reporters were “ready to bring the story of Blake’s weaponization of feminism to the public.”
This struck a nerve. A few years ago I was approached by a well-known publicist who worked for Angelina Jolie during her long divorce from Brad Pitt. Would I be interested in writing a column—based on inside information, of course—about how Jolie has been mistreated by a legal system that disadvantages women? The idea of Jolie—rich, privileged, famous—as a victim strikes me as ridiculous, and I have no interest in being manipulated into weaponizing feminism in her legal battle with Pitt.
But I digress.
For years, Bardoni has positioned herself as an enlightened feminist. In 2017, a month after the #MeToo movement exploded into public consciousness, he gave a TED talk titled “Why I Stopped Trying to Be ‘Man Enough’.”
“Are you brave enough to be vulnerable?” he asked. “Are you sensitive enough? Are you confident enough to listen to the voices of the women in your life?
In December, as he continued to promote the film, he told The Hollywood Reporter that he suffered sexual trauma in college and “nearly collapsed” after filming “With Us” “because it was so painful.” He also revealed that he had recently been diagnosed with ADHD and, according to Lively’s complaint, told his publicist that he could be blamed for what he called sexual misconduct on set.
At the same time, the video—— Oh yes, movies! The film cost $25 million to make and has grossed $351 million at the global box office to date.
It seemed like everyone involved cried all the way to the bank.
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