Blake Lively

I’m neutral. I don’t know either of them & I dare to guess there’s blame on both sides. I bailed out of the movie PDQ it was so boring. I would say I hope this doesn’t end Baldoni’s career. I don’t see a need to crucify him.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

If he's guilty of the charges then his career should be over as this allegedly occurred during the production of a movie. I hope this goes to trial so we can know the truth of the matter.

Yeah, to be clear, this isn't a "he said"/"she said" thing. Not sure if everyone read the evidence but they have, like, text messages and stuff, among other things. At least some of what she's claiming is just true, full-stop.

It's a real problem how many people come into issues like this with a general posture and/or gut feeling about these kinds of cases, or a desire to counterbalance general societal leanings, rather than simply and plainly looking at the specific facts in a given case.

The guy's career as a director is over.

So just so I understand where you are coming from here. You feel like if someone makes false allegations it's okay as long as they also make true allegations?

What are the specific facts about Lively's accusations that justify her actions? If I cut you off in traffic that doesn't give you the right to follow me back to my home and set my house on fire.

If he showed her a birth video and she came out and said he showed me porn, I could say he's weird and he has boundary issues. But I would also say that she's deliberately manipulating sexual harassment issues. Taking advantage of a crime for personal gain that's the heart of the other side here.

This is less He said she said and more...she did what.

Nope. Didn't say it, or imply it. I said this:

At least some of what she's claiming is just true, full-stop.

This means exactly what it says. No more or less.

The specific thing I had in mind when I said it is the stuff where Baldoni hired someone to create fake social media accounts to smear her online preemptively, and gaslit everyone about it. Something which you somehow failed to include in your post, even though it shows one party in the dispute lying repeatedly and directly, and doing something extremely underhanded. Pretty incredible omission, really, which makes me wonder whether it was excluded because it didn't fit the preferred narrative, or if this is just another case of not reading the article before issuing an opinion.

Which of those actions have been established, rather than just claimed by someone desperately trying to save their career? You can be credulous or incredulous, but you can't be selectively credulous. Please note: random YouTube videos are not sources.

And the fact that we're already seeing lots of chaff about how it was "his" movie, which has literally nothing to do with the content of the accusations themselves, is exactly the kind of argument-shaped non-sequitur that usually accompanies working backwards from a desired conclusion.

I think this case demonstrates something that is underappreciated that is really important about the law, and that is this: It's not about the truth. It's about the narrative. What we see here is that Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are talking about, in some cases, the same events, but the way they are being framed and interpreted are completely opposite to each other. I think this case may settle before it gets to trial, so we may not know what actually happened here, because we won't get the chance to see all of the evidence presented in court. But, if we did, I think what we'd learn is that, in all likelihood, both of them likely behaved badly, or at the very least, in ways that didn't serve the larger purpose of what they were there to do, which is to make "It Ends With Us" the absolute best movie that it could possibly be. It does seem like Justin Baldoni acted inappropriately, and the reason that I say that is that many of the cast and crew didn't want to be seen with him at the premiere, and they didn't have good things to say about him. It's not just Blake Lively that doesn't like Justin Baldoni. So, I think if we are fairly trying to evaluate partial evidence without being able to fully ascertain the truth because we don't have the full picture, that seems relevant to me. It also seems relevant to me that Blake Lively sought and obtained assurances from Baldoni that he would not do, or would stop, certain behaviors on set, which lends credence that they were, in some form, happening, or that there were concerns about those things happening in the future. If they were not, why would he agree to those conditions and support that false narrative? Additionally, if so many people that worked on the film are not on his side, and are supporting her, that seems to support him potentially not creating a set where the cast and crew could do their best work, and him having made their jobs harder than they needed to be.

At the same time, it also appears true that Blake Lively and her attorneys intentionally omitted information that was relevant that could help to better understand the context of what occurred, in order to present him in the worst light possible, when the actual facts may be more nuanced than that, and that she did so with the express purpose of damaging his reputation and advancing her own. It also seems inarguable, at least to me, that some of her actions really had nothing to do with sexual harassment and more to do with a power play. These include things like creating her own edit of the film, requesting, or demanding, depending on your point of view, that the studio release her version of the film, even when his version, according to what he has said, tested higher with audiences. A star of a film, and even a nominal producer, who likely was made a producer not due to her contributions in that capacity, but in order to provide her with an additional revenue stream if the film did well, who became a producer after she joined and who really wasn't involved in the development of the film before that, has no inherent authority to wrest control away from the director and create her own version of the film. That is the role of the director and editor on the crew, not the star. It may come out that she was more involved in a production capacity than Baldoni is alleging, and that she wasn't a nominal producer, as Baldoni is stating, but that is very common in the industry. This behavior also really doesn't relate to whether she was harassed, treated inappropriately on the set, or was the victim of a hostile work environment created by Baldoni. Having her husband, Ryan Reynolds, who was not involved in the production, rewrite scenes, again, does not have anything to do with sexual harassment or Justin Baldoni's actions in her complaint. So, from this type of behavior, and these are just a few of his many allegations, it is reasonable to conclude that Blake Lively's behavior was not stellar either, and that she may be potentially using these allegations to further damage Baldoni and advance herself, regardless of what may or may not have happened on the set of "It Ends With Us".

It is also likely true, however, that Baldoni and his lawyers are also doing something similar on their side as well, not presenting all of the facts, and not presenting them in an objective way, but using the facts that support their narrative, the version of the story that they want people to believe.

I hope we get to find out what really happened here, because I think there is value in knowing that for future film productions and the industry as a whole, in order to potentially learn how to prevent these types of firestorms from happening in the future. I don't know what happened. Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni both appear to have some evidence to support what they are each saying, but what I am fairly confident in is that both likely didn't behave in as professional manner as they could and should have on the set, and that these lawsuits are likely strategically designed to advance their respective narratives.

Lawyers are supposed to put their clients in the best possible light, so I don't factor any of that in, for or against either of them.

The main problem as I see it is that most of the "he said" stuff directed towards Lively is, as you correctly point out, unrelated to the claims of harassment. I guess the idea is that she leveled the accusations to get him to capitulate to all this, to remake the film the way she wanted? Seems like a massive stretch and a huge, needless personal risk, but okay. I'm not really hearing people say this directly, though, presumably because it's one of those things that seems less plausible when you just state it plainly, so all we get are really heavy insinuations.

Also, I don't think much of the "his film tested better" stuff, for a few reasons. For one, unless there are specifics I'm not seeing, this is just being stated as a binary, right? As in, we have no idea if it's one screening or 100, and we don't know if it tested higher by a significant margin, or a meaninglessly small margin? Regardless, this is utterly dwarfed by the fact that the version they actually went with was a huge financial success relative to its budget. Does this prove that the choice was reasonable, and not down to some kind of threat? No, but for the purpose of determining whether that happened, it's 10x more significant than the screening thing.

And herein is one of the primary reasons I chose not to practice law, because it's not about what's right, the truth, justice, or ethics. It's about what's in the best interest of the client who is paying you.

I think this is unknowable, but I don't think this is quite right. I think the more likely scenario for the allegations in this lawsuit is that she's doing this because she wants him to divest ownership of the story so they can recast his role and make sequels to it. Colleen Hoover has already written another book in the series, "It Starts With Us", and I think she'd like to make that movie. This was a very profitable film and she clearly cares about this story.

I think the problem here is that she made her own edit of the film, not whether hers or his tested better. I agree with you. The act itself was grossly inappropriate, in my opinion, and shows that she did not always act in good faith on the set of the film, which could also arguably carry over to these allegations as well. If someone would do something like that, it is reasonable to doubt the veracity of other things she is saying and the interpretations she is providing for them, and her true motivations for alleging them.

What is also true is that it's very possible that Blake Lively is not a great person, not a very nice person, not a very professional person, at least not based on her behavior here, AND that she was sexually harassed and a victim of a hostile work environment. That's what we don't know. Just because someone is perhaps not a stellar human being, it does not justify them being mistreated in the way she is alleging was done to her, and her legal claims would still be valid, if proven in court.

I mean, that's undeniably true, but it is also true that many lawyers out there (I'm friends with some of them) do all kinds of work on behalf of underprivileged clients and/or on behalf of non-profits that work on behalf of disadvantaged communities/individuals

The smear campaign by Baldoni and the public relations firm he hired, as detailed below...seems like it would be solid grounds for a libel defamation of character, civil suit in court.

I'm sure AKA knows this; he didn't say anything to the contrary, and even if I did not already know him to be a thoughtful person his posts in this thread alone contain levels of nuance a lot subtler than this already.

I think people deserve a little common sense leeway in discussion, free of small corrections or relatively obvious addendums, even when they're generalizing or being a little hyperbolic...and he wasn't doing either of those things, anyway.

Yep, she might be a huge PITA to work with. I have no idea, and it makes little difference. If anything my null hypothesis on any celebrity is that they're probably below the 50th percentile in terms of basic human virtues, if forced to guess. But there's also no reason to guess, and no real corrective mechanism for guessing better over time.

But it never fails: when a discrete allegation comes out, people will immediately start talking about unrelated stuff like this. Or worse, who "seems" genuine or fake. Amazing how much faith people have in their own ability to ascertain truth through pure vibes. I'd say it's on par with phrenology, but that at least that has some defined rules.

I did not assume he didn't know this or think he had said anything to the contrary, quite the contrary: the most natural assumption is that he already knows this.

I did not think he was over generalizing or being hyperbolic. He spoke about a personal choice, which regardless of whether or not one agrees with him, one is obligated to respect.

Anyway, I am happy to explain why I felt it was a comment that was worth making, not because I thought anything needed "correcting" or because I was in disagreement with what had been said, but I won't take up any more space than necessary because I would much prefer that any further posts from me, if there are any, be more directly connected to the topic being discussed.

Ok, I feel like I'm being prodded to elaborate just a tad, and I feel it is probably the best thing to avoid even bigger misunderstandings down the line.

I've really tried very, very hard to avoid commenting on this whole thread because the whole thing is, you know, kind of a sensitive thing, and sometimes you have to phrase things very, very carefully to avoid any kind of a misunderstanding.

Make no mistake, I do believe some outrageous things have been done and I believe this will be confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt once the legal process follows its course.

The comment that I made was made with the best of intentions and it certainly did not occur to me that it could possibly be taken the wrong way, so I will reiterate: it was not an assumption that the comment which made me speak up was done out of any kind of ignorance whatsoever. Not at all.

But it is a comment that, depending on who reads it, could very easily lead other people to view the whole profession as, well, made up by way too many despicable individuals. And I'm sure there are - plenty of them. But, for those people who may be afraid to ever consider legal help for any problem or situation they may face personally, I just wanted to chip in very briefly and just remind folks (those who might need to hear this) that a lot of the problems that some people may face in their day-to-day lives, well, at least some of them, there may be an agency or a non-profit or a local lawyer who takes pro-bono cases, who may be able to help them an do so at absolutely no cost to them.

I am not going to go into my whole life story, because it is very long and very complicated, but I can definitely say that a law office which took me on as a client on a pro-bono basis probably saved my life - and I am not exaggerating in the least. It was very much a life-or-death situation for me, and they not only took on the job pro-bono, they also did an amazingly thorough job with it. They spent countless hours working on it, and to this day I remain incredibly grateful for the amazing job they did.

I do not think it is unreasonable to point this out, not because I assume AKA doesn't know this or realize this, but because I honestly don't know who might be reading this thread. You don't even need to be registered on the boards to read it, so (at least AFAIK), literally anyone on the whole internet could be reading this thread now, or read it at some point in the future. If that should be the case, I think it is worth spending just a short little paragraph to let them know that, despite the awful things that some lawyers do, they should also not be afraid to reach out if they have a personal problem of their own that they need some help with.

I hope that clears up any confusion, and thanks for hearing me out.

That does clear things up, but I don't think it was necessary. I don't think we need to offer corrections or addendums to things someone merely might generalize thoughtlessly from, for a few reasons.

First, because I can't conceive of a person close-minded enough to generalize that badly, yet simultaneously thoughtful enough to reconsider based on your post. Second, because even if such a person existed, nobody has the time to head off all (or even most) of those possibilities. And third--and probably most importantly--because even if there were some immeasurable benefit where it kind of worked, I don't think it would be worth regularly disrupting/impeding the free flow of conversation. Because there is no end to the things which could be misinterpreted or could have context or nuanced added.

Unrelated to all that, though, is a basic issue of forum etiquette: quoting someone directly implies the thing you're saying is for them.

Thanks so much for the kind words Yoda. You are always so nice to me! It is much appreciated. Filmbuff, I completely understand where you are coming from. There are some wonderful lawyers working in non profits, and I am happy to hear that you were helped by a lawyer who treated you with kindness and offered free assistance. Of course, I could have included more explanation on my views on the law, including some of the context that you suggested, but I often feel my posts are already too long, and so I tend to try to not include lengthy explanations of things that are not central to my main argument. The reason I mentioned why I decided not to practice law is because I was again reinforcing my larger theme, which is that it's about the narrative, not the truth, not the facts, not what the evidence objectively shows, but what is the best narrative argument to win the case, and that bothers me. Yoda had said this didn't bother him because that's the job of lawyers. I didn't take offense to your comment Filmbuff and would love to avoid derailing this thread, so hope we can quickly return to Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni and the events central to this case.

Thank you for understanding. For what it's worth, I am neurologically disabled and a lot of people with disabilities like mine often find ourselves in situations where we're completely sure we've said what everyone would agree was absolutely the right thing to say, only to be told later that... it wasn't, exactly.

If you ever think I've slipped up in something I said, feel free to drop me a PM.

Anyway, back to Blake Lively....

That remains to be seen. People have survived more than this. As soon as the next “scandal” comes along, the current one starts diminishing. Such is life.

Armie Hammer just got cast in an Uwe Boll movie, anything can happen