Nicholas Kristof
Blake Lively Turns the Shame Around
Dec. 24, 2024, 11:42 a.m. ET
Opinion Columnist
The
actress Blake Lively worked with me on
a 2015 PBS documentary exploring
sex trafficking in the United States. She was shaken by what we found, deeply
compassionate toward survivors and willing to look unflinchingly at an ugliness
that many avert their eyes from.
The
villains then were easy to spot: brutes who raped, sold and enslaved underage
girls. In the real world, it’s more complicated. Predators can hold glamorous
jobs, present themselves as feminists and be celebrated for their roles
empowering women.
That’s
the situation Lively describes in an explosive legal complaint that she filed Friday
against Wayfarer Studios, maker of her recent film “It Ends With Us.” She
alleges that after she protested sexual harassment by Justin Baldoni, her
co-star and the film’s director, the studio retaliated with a P.R. smear campaign
against her. Lively also names Baldoni and several public relations experts in
the suit.
Ironies abound. The film is in part about how men get away
with mistreating women around them. As my Times colleagues noted in their must-read article, Baldoni was honored this month at an event heralding men who
“elevate women” and “promote gender equality.” And he reportedly has described himself as a feminist and
has said things like, “Let’s just shut up and finally listen to the women in
our lives.”
So,
with the caveat that the complaint presents just one side, let’s listen.
Lively
alleges that Baldoni added sexual content and gratuitous nude scenes to the
film and treated women disrespectfully. During a childbirth scene, the filing
says, the studio allowed “nonessential crew to pass through while Ms. Lively
was mostly nude with her legs spread wide in stirrups and only a small piece of
fabric covering her genitalia.” Among the nonessential people who showed up,
she says, was a Wayfarer co-chairman.
“Ms. Lively became even more alarmed when Mr. Baldoni
introduced his ‘best friend’ to play the role of the OB-GYN,” the complaint
states. It adds that “the selection of Mr. Baldoni’s friend for this intimate
role, in which the actor’s face and hands were in close proximity to her nearly
nude genitalia for a birth scene, was invasive and humiliating.”
Lively’s
complaint says that executives entered her trailer uninvited when she was
undressed, ogled her when she was topless, asked intimate questions and
commented inappropriately on various women involved in the film.
Text messages and emails obtained by Lively’s lawyers
through a subpoena suggest that Wayfarer organized a social media campaign to
pre-emptively discredit her, for fear that she would speak up about her claims.
“We can bury anyone,” boasted a crisis management expert hired by the studio,
in an exchange about her.
Wayfarer
and Baldoni strongly deny the allegations. “It is shameful that Ms. Lively and
her representatives would make such serious and categorically false
accusations,” a lawyer for the studio said in a statement to The Times. After she raised initial
concerns, Wayfarer agreed to provide an intimacy coordinator and added other
safeguards.
What
is clear is that Lively faced a surge of online negativity last summer, with
The Daily Mail asking if she
was about to be canceled and suggesting that her star might be forever
tarnished. Sales of her hair care products fell.
Even
in an age when wild lies and deepfakes catch fire on social media, it’s a
little scary to think that a few P.R. professionals could manage to undercut
one of America’s best-known celebrities so successfully, swiftly and
effortlessly. If “social manipulation,” as the internal messages referred to
the apparent campaign, can damage a famous person like Lively, is anyone safe?
As one of the people hired by Wayfarer put it, “People really want to hate on
women.”
I
suspect that the last thing Lively wants is for us to be discussing people
leering at her while she was naked. This suit prolongs the humiliation. But the
only way to end impunity is to speak up.
In a very different context, in France, Gisèle Pelicot
spoke out after her husband arranged for dozens of men to rape her while she
was drugged. “The shame must change sides,” she said, and of course, she was right: The shame lies
with the rapists, not with their targets. And while what Lively faced is not
the same, it’s also true that on a movie set or anywhere else, the stigma and
humiliation should fall on the abusers, not the abused. That’s the only way
forward, and it happens when people step forward and file suits with painful
details.
We
don’t know all that happened on the set of “It Ends With Us,” and Baldoni and
the studio executives have a right to be heard. More will emerge as this case
proceeds.
The
online campaign against Lively suggested that she was a diva and difficult to
work with. All I know is that during the collaboration with Lively on the
documentary, “A Path Appears,” by Show
of Force, I found her authentic, delightful and committed. She
wanted to use her stardom to help others who needed the attention more, such as
survivors of human trafficking. She wanted to use her celebrity to help chip
away at misogyny and oppression.
She
was particularly moved by the courage of women who shared harrowing accounts of
being trafficked. “I just have so much admiration and respect for these women,
for opening up and telling their stories,” Lively said at the time. “Because it
makes me think, if that happened to me, would I have the courage?”
Then
she said something that shapes how I see her in this moment. Speaking of the
trafficking survivors we met, Lively said: “They don’t want to hear, ‘You’re so
inspirational,’ because that implies you’re a victim. It’s like, ‘I don’t want
to be an inspiration. I just want to be a woman. I just want to be an equal.’”
In a world facing so many challenges, I want to thank
readers for donating $5.1 million so far to the nonprofits in my annual holiday giving guide, in ways that we estimate will
benefit more than 100,000 people. You can learn more or donate at KristofImpact.org.
More on Blake Lively’s lawsuit
‘We Can Bury
Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine
Nicholas
Kristof became a columnist for The Times Opinion desk in 2001 and has won two
Pulitzer Prizes. His new memoir is “Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life.” @NickKristof
‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine
Private
messages detail an alleged campaign to tarnish Blake Lively after she accused
Justin Baldoni of misconduct on the set of “It Ends With Us.”
By Megan Twohey Mike
McIntire and Julie
Tate
Published Dec. 21, 2024Updated Dec. 22, 2024
Last
summer, as the release of “It Ends With Us” approached, Justin Baldoni, the
director and a star of the film, and Jamey Heath, the lead producer, hired a
crisis public relations expert.
During
shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly
violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments
to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy
coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a
side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also
agreed not to retaliate against the actress.
But
by August, the two men, who had positioned themselves as feminist allies in the
#MeToo era, expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint
them, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. It claims
that their P.R. effort had an explicit goal: to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation
instead.
Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of
text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena. These and other
documents were reviewed by The New York Times.
There
have long been figures behind the scenes shaping public opinion about
celebrities — through gossip columns, tabloids and strategic interviews. The
documents show an additional playbook for waging a largely undetectable smear
campaign in the digital era. While the film, about domestic violence, was a box
office hit — making nearly $350 million worldwide — online criticism of the
actress skyrocketed.
“He
wants to feel like she can be buried,” a publicist working with the studio and
Mr. Baldoni wrote in an Aug. 2 message to the crisis management expert, Melissa
Nathan.
“You
know we can bury anyone,” Ms. Nathan wrote.
In
the following weeks, Ms. Nathan, whose clients have included Johnny Depp and
the rappers Drake and Travis Scott, went hard at the press, pushing to prevent
stories about Mr. Baldoni’s behavior and reinforce negative ones about Ms.
Lively, the text messages show. Jed Wallace, a self-described “hired gun,” led
a digital strategy that included boosting social media posts that could help
their cause.
An
attorney for Wayfarer said in a statement to The Times that the studio, its
executives and public relations representatives “did nothing proactive nor
retaliated” against Ms. Lively, and accused the actress of “another desperate
attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation.”
“These claims are completely false, outrageous and
intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative
in the media," the lawyer, Bryan Freedman, wrote.
Mr.
Freedman did not address her allegations about misconduct during the filming by
Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath. He alleged that Ms. Lively planted “negative and
completely fabricated and false stories with media” about Mr. Baldoni, which he
said “was another reason why Wayfarer Studios made the decision to hire a
crisis professional.”
The
effort to tarnish Ms. Lively appears to have paid off. Within days of the
film’s release, the negative media coverage and commentary became an unusually
high percentage of her online presence, according to a forensic review she
sought from a brand marketing consultant.
Ms.
Lively — who is married to the actor and entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds of
“Deadpool” fame, and is close with Taylor Swift — experienced the biggest
reputational hit of her career. She was branded tone-deaf, difficult to work
with, a bully. Sales of her new hair-care line plummeted.
“Is
Blake Lively set to be CANCELLED?” read a Daily Mail headline one
week into the attacks.
Mr. Baldoni, by contrast, emerged largely unscathed. This
month, he was honored at a star-studded event celebrating men who “elevate
women, combat gender-based violence and promote gender equality worldwide.” On
Saturday, however, after this article was published, the talent agency William
Morris Endeavor stopped representing Mr. Baldoni, said Ari Emanuel, chief
executive of Endeavor, the agency’s parent company.
Justin Baldoni received an award this month for being an ally to women. A
legal filing has since accused him of harassment and retaliation against the
actress Blake Lively.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
Ms. Lively’s complaint — against Mr. Baldoni; Mr. Heath;
Wayfarer; Steve Sarowitz, a co-founder of the studio; Mr. Wallace; Ms. Nathan;
and Jennifer Abel, another public relations executive involved in the campaign
— alleges sexual harassment and retaliation, among other claims. The complaint,
filed with the California Civil Rights Department, is a precursor to a lawsuit.
In
a statement, Ms. Lively said, “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the
curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about
misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”
She
also denied that she or any of her representatives planted or spread negative
information about Mr. Baldoni or Wayfarer.
‘We Should Have a Plan’
In
May, several months after the filming wrapped, Mr. Baldoni realized that Mr.
Reynolds had blocked him on Instagram.
“We should have a plan for IF she does the same when movie
comes out,” Mr. Baldoni wrote of Ms. Lively in a text exchange that included
Ms. Abel, a publicist who has long worked with him and Wayfarer. “Plans make me
feel more at ease.”
Mr.
Baldoni, 40, and Mr. Heath, 55, had a lot riding on the film, which is based on
a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover.
Mr.
Baldoni was best known for the CW satirical romantic dramedy “Jane the Virgin.”
Wayfarer provided the resources for bigger ambitions. It was bankrolled by the
billionaire Steve Sarowitz, who is co-chair of the studio with Mr. Baldoni.
They and Mr. Heath, the chief executive, are all deeply involved with the
Baha’i religious organization, which promotes unity, peace and gender equality.
Mr. Baldoni has presented himself as an ally to women, writing books,
co-hosting a podcast with Mr. Heath and giving talks on toxic masculinity.
Ms.
Lively, 37, was by far the bigger star. The TV show “Gossip Girl” catapulted
her to early fame, and she appeared in films ranging from “The Sisterhood of
the Traveling Pants” to “The Town.” She built businesses outside the
entertainment industry, appeared on the covers of glossy magazines and amassed
more than 45 million Instagram followers.
Ms.
Lively had expressed concerns about Mr. Baldoni from the beginning, according
to her legal complaint. Before shooting began, for example, she objected to sex
scenes he wanted to add that she considered gratuitous.
In November 2023, as the cast of “It Ends With Us” was
preparing to resume shooting after a monthslong writers’ strike, Ms. Lively
went to Wayfarer with the side letter seeking safeguards.
“Our
client is willing to forego a more formal HR process in favor of everyone
returning to work and finishing the Film as long as the set is safe moving
forward,” her legal team wrote to the studio.
She
detailed her complaints during a meeting with Mr. Baldoni, Mr. Heath and other
producers in January, according to the legal filing. She claimed Mr. Baldoni
had improvised unwanted kissing and discussed his sex life, including
encounters in which he said he may not have received consent. Mr. Heath had
shown her a video of his wife naked, she said, and he had watched Ms. Lively in
her trailer when she was topless and having body makeup removed, despite her
asking him to look away. She said that both men repeatedly entered her makeup
trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including when she was
breastfeeding.
In
agreeing to the terms that Ms. Lively sought, Wayfarer acknowledged that
“Although our perspective differs in many aspects, ensuring a safe environment
for all is paramount,” according to her legal complaint.
By the spring, Ms. Lively told people she worked with that
the men’s behavior had improved with the new protections.
But
she was now in a creative battle with them. With the support of Sony, the
film’s distributor, she made her own cut of the movie, bringing in editors and
a composer and adding one of Ms. Swift’s songs.
In the end, Sony and Wayfarer went with Ms. Lively’s cut,
and she got a producer credit.
The author Colleen Hoover and cast members Brandon Sklenar, Isabela
Ferrer and Ms. Lively, promoting the film “It Ends With Us” without Mr.
Baldoni.Credit...Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images for Sony Pictures
As
the film release neared, Ms. Lively and other cast members informed Sony and
Wayfarer that they would not do any appearances alongside Mr. Baldoni. So did
Ms. Hoover, the author, who had her own dissatisfactions with him and had
become more upset after he told her about Ms. Lively’s allegations, according
to text messages from Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath.
‘Most Importantly Untraceable’
By
the first week of August, Wayfarer and Mr. Baldoni had retained Ms. Nathan, who
had worked with high-profile clients including Mr. Depp, whose ex-wife, Amber
Heard, accused him of physical abuse.
The New York Times
would like to hear from readers who want to share messages and materials with
our journalists. nytimes.com/tips
Mr. Depp successfully sued Ms. Heard for defamation, and
the trial became a spectacle amid suspicions of an online campaign to damage
her credibility.
This
year, after a decade at the New York consultancy Hiltzik Strategies, Ms. Nathan
started her own firm, TAG PR. Its majority stakeholder is a company run by the
entertainment industry executive Scooter Braun.
In
an initial planning document sent to Wayfarer and Mr. Baldoni on Aug. 2, Ms.
Nathan suggested media talking points, including that Ms. Lively used an
imbalance of power to take creative control of the film.
But
Mr. Baldoni wanted more.
“Not
in love with the document they sent,” he responded in a text exchange that
included Ms. Abel and Mr. Heath. “Not sure I’m feeling the protection I felt on
the call.”
Ms.
Abel relayed his frustration to Ms. Nathan: “I think you guys need to be tough
and show the strength of what you guys can do in these scenarios. He wants to
feel like she can be buried.”
“Of course- but you know when we send over documents we
can’t send over the work we will or could do because that could get us in a lot
of trouble,” Ms. Nathan responded, adding, “We can’t write we will destroy
her.”
Moments
later, she said, “Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants
ends up in the wrong hands.”
“You know we can bury anyone,” she wrote.
Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath hired Melissa Nathan, a crisis P.R. expert
whose clients have included Johnny Depp and Drake.
Three
days later, Mr. Baldoni texted Ms. Abel, flagging a social media thread that
accused another celebrity of bullying behavior and had generated 19 million
views. “This is what we would need,” he wrote.
Ms.
Nathan soon floated proposals to hire contractors to dominate social media
through “full social account take downs,” by starting “threads of theories” and
generally working to “change narrative.”
“All of this will be most importantly untraceable,” she
wrote.
Jennifer Abel
I think we need to
put the social combat plan into motion
Melissa
Nathan
So do I
Within
days, the group was working with Mr. Wallace, whose company, Street Relations,
offers services ranging from public relations to more opaque crisis management.
He is a somewhat enigmatic figure with very little digital trail. But court
records show that his clients have included Paramount Pictures and the YouTube
personality Adin Ross.
And
in a since-deleted LinkedIn profile, Mr. Wallace described himself as “a hired
gun” with a “proprietary formula for defining artists and trends.”
‘That’s Why You Hired Me’
The Aug. 6 premiere brought the first wave of press
coverage questioning what had happened during the filming. A Hollywood Reporter story speculated
about a rift between Ms Lively and Mr. Baldoni, after TikTokers noticed that
the two stars didn’t pose for photographs together and that Ms. Lively and
other cast members didn’t follow Mr. Baldoni on Instagram.
Justin Baldoni
The
unfollow situation is what everyone is pointing at. Seemingly that something is
much bigger under the surface - as why would they all unfollow
Tag PR
executive
Weve flagged to
Jed and his team as well
Ms.
Nathan had already been speaking to other journalists, according to text
messages.
When Ms. Abel wrote to her Aug. 4 that “I’m having reckless
thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week of how horrible Blake is to work
with. Just to get ahead of it,” Ms. Nathan replied that she had spoken off the
record to an editor at The Daily Mail.
“She’s
ready when we are,” Ms. Nathan wrote.
A
flurry of articles followed the Hollywood Reporter piece. Many made it seem as
if the only rift was over creative control. Some journalists had gotten wind of
complaints about Mr. Baldoni’s behavior, but none of the most serious ones were
published.
“He
doesn’t realise how lucky he is right now,” Ms. Nathan texted Ms. Abel.
In other exchanges, Ms. Nathan claimed that she had kept
allegations against him out of stories, writing in one message that major news
outlets were “standing down on HR complaint.”
Jennifer
So are we in the
clear now?!
Did we survive
Melissa
We survived
ALL Press is so
overwhelming Weve confused people So much mixed messaging It’s actually really
funny if you think about it
Messages have been edited for length.
Meanwhile,
an online backlash against Ms. Lively was underway. It is impossible to know
how much of the negative publicity was seeded by Ms. Nathan, Mr. Wallace and
their team, and how much they noticed and amplified.
On Aug. 10, Kjersti Flaa, a Norwegian entertainment
reporter, uploaded to YouTube a 2016 interview in which Ms. Lively snapped back
when Ms. Flaa commented on her baby “bump” and remained testy for the rest of
the conversation. Ms. Flaa titled it “The Blake Lively interview that made me
want to quit my job,” and told The Daily Mail that “it’s time that people
behaving badly in Hollywood, or anywhere else for that matter, gets called out
for it.”
After
publication of this article, Ms. Flaa on Sunday contacted The Times and said
she had not participated in any orchestrated effort to harm Ms. Lively’s
reputation. In an email, she said that she had resurfaced the 2016 interview
independently this past August. “It was neither coordinated nor influenced by
anyone associated with the alleged campaign,” she wrote.
It wasn’t the first time she had posted a video aligned
with a client of Ms. Nathan. In 2022, in the midst of Mr. Depp’s legal battle
with Ms. Heard, Ms. Flaa posted clips of her interviews with the actor, tagged
#JusticeForJohnnyDepp.
During
the film rollout, Ms. Lively was also accused of being insensitive about
domestic violence. The official promotion plan instructed the cast to focus
more on the uplifting aspects of the movie than on abuse, and to embrace a
floral theme (her character has a flower shop). In several appearances, she
never made reference to domestic violence at all. And she faced criticism when
her Betty Booze beverage company was promoting the film, given the role alcohol
can play in abusive relationships.
Seeing that blowback, the text messages show, Mr. Baldoni
and his P.R. team decided instead to highlight survivors of domestic violence
in his interviews and social media.
More
criticism came when Ms. Lively said in an interview that Mr. Reynolds, who had
no role in the film, had helped rewrite a scene, prompting snarky comments
about the actress leaning on her husband and speculation that he had violated
the writers strike.
It
is unclear exactly how Mr. Wallace operated. There are references in emails to
“social manipulation” and “proactive fan posting,” and text messages cite
efforts to “boost” and “amplify” online content that was favorable to Mr.
Baldoni or critical of Ms. Lively.
“We
are crushing it on Reddit,” Mr. Wallace told Ms. Nathan, according to a text
she sent Ms. Abel on Aug. 9.
The
next day, one of Ms. Nathan’s employees texted, “We’ve started to see shift on
social, due largely to Jed and his team’s efforts to shift the narrative.”
Ms. Nathan wrote to Ms. Abel: “And socials are really
really ramping up. In his favour, she must be furious. It’s actually sad
because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women.”
When
a TikTok sleuth started asking questions about Mr. Baldoni, Ms. Abel texted
that “this girl is on a very dangerous crusade.”
“We’ve
flagged to Jed and his team for more serious action on the social side,” she
wrote.
Throughout
the text exchanges, Mr. Baldoni encourages the P.R. team, sometimes flagging
social media posts for them to use. On Aug. 15, he proposes “flipping the
narrative” on a positive story about Ms. Lively and her husband by “using their
own words against them.”
Other
times he appears to vacillate, seeking assurances about the tactics being
deployed. When he notices a tabloid article critical of Ms. Lively, he sends a
worried text: “How can we say somehow that we are not doing any of this — it
looks like we are trying to take her down.” On another occasion, he wondered
whether they were deploying fake “bot” accounts on social media.
“I
can fully fully confirm we do not have bots,” Ms. Nathan wrote, adding that any
digital team would be too intelligent to “utilise something so obvious.”
Mr. Wallace’s operation, she wrote, “is doing something
very specific in terms of what they do. I know Jamey & Jed connected on
this.”
Mr.
Baldoni, Ms. Nathan and others on the team claimed in their text exchanges that
Ms. Lively was using her own public relations team to create bad press about
Mr. Baldoni but cited no evidence to support those claims.
By mid-August, the team was reveling in the damage to Ms.
Lively’s image.
Jennifer Abel
The narrative
online is so freaking good and fans are still sticking up for Justin and there
literally has been no pickup of those two articles which is actually shocking
to me. But I see this as a total success, as does Justin.
You did such
amazing work
Melissa
Nathan
Narrative is CRAZY
good So did you.
The majority of
socials are so pro Justin and I don’t even agree with half of them lol
Messages have been edited for length.
On
Aug. 16, Ms. Nathan shared the Daily Mail article headlined “Is Blake Lively
set to be CANCELLED?” with references to ‘hard to watch’ videos and a ‘tone
deaf’ promotional Q. and A.
“Wow.
You really outdid yourself with this piece,” Ms. Abel responded.
“That’s
why you hired me right?” Ms. Nathan replied. “I’m the best.”
‘We Men Have to Step Up’
A brand marketing consultant, Terakeet,
produced a report in August for Ms. Lively that concluded she had likely been
the object of a “targeted, multichannel online attack” similar to one against
Ms. Heard, and that it was damaging her reputation.
The
report did not identify who was behind the attack. But by analyzing “the
entirety of Google’s search index” for Ms. Lively’s name, it found that 35
percent of the results also included a reference to Mr. Baldoni. This was
highly unusual given the length of her career, the company said, and suggested
that the media environment was being manipulated.
A
separate report, by Ms. Lively’s hair-care company, Blake Brown, concluded that
the social media onslaught also had a negative effect on that business. Her
product line, which had launched in August with record-breaking sales,
estimates that it lost as much as 78 percent in sales.
With
the recent arrival of “It Ends With Us” on Netflix, Mr. Baldoni has begun
another round of promotion and messaging.
In
an interview on “Access Hollywood,” he said “there is never an excuse” to “hurt
a woman, physically or emotionally.” He added, “We men have to step up and
figure out how we can be better allies.”
Produced by Leo Dominguez and Rumsey Taylor.
Megan Twohey is an investigative reporter at The Times. Her work has prompted
changes to the law, criminal convictions and cultural shifts. More about Megan Twohey
Mike McIntire, an investigative reporter, has been with The Times since 2003. More about Mike McIntire
