Lively v. Baldoni 4 - He Wants to Feel Like She Can Be Burned

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:26 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Gavel Gavel. This is episode four of the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, It Ends With Us legal mess. Thomas Smith. Now having gone through all of the sexual harassment allegations and and the misconduct type stuff, we're shifting our focus to the alleged retaliatory campaign. We're going to take you through the entire thing. A lot to it. There are messages. There's there's a it's a and we're first going to a quick break during which you might hear or some annoying ads, I want to tell you that you can avoid those if you go to patreon.com/gavel pod, never have to hear them again. You support the show, get a hold of some extras, all good reasons. Right. After this, we'll get back to work on this complaint. Now we're going to get to the part of the article, the New York Times article and the complaint about the Hollywood smear machine. You the article itself was called, we can bury anyone inside a Hollywood smear machine. This sort of shadowy, alleged shadowy PR campaign to take Blake Lively down sort let'S go back TO Lively's complaint and that'll be the more complete version and we'll go from there. They conclude production and they go into the post -production and then eventually like the marketing plan for the film, that 97, the marketing planning and related talking points expressly required Miss Lively, as well as all other cast and crew engaged in promotional activities to quote, focus more on her character's strength and resilience, as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence. To quote, avoid talking about this film that makes it feel sad or heavy. It's a story of hope. So if you remember, there was a whole lot of controversy about how, well, look at at, Justin Baldoni, how feminist he's compassionately to always talking about domestic violence and Blake Lively is talking about flowers and isn't she so unserious and not, you know, all the, there's so many attacks about that. This complaint makes clear or alleges is not just alleges, like we have the copy of the marketing plan as

0:02:30 Thomas: That marketing plan was on purpose that way. They did not want to market it as, you know, like abuse porn, I guess. You know, it's like they wanted it to be a positive story. Wanted to marketit as such. Now, we can agree or disagree on that approach. Approach, could you even think that's the dumbest approach ever, but it is incredibly relevant to know that that was the agreed upon plan. And according to this complaint, Blake Lively was following the agreed -upon plan.

0:02:55 Lydia: And the agreed -upon plan as put together by the production companies.

0:02:59 Thomas: Yeah. It's not like it was just hers. Was a collaborative effort.

0:03:02 Lydia: And and do I think I want to share just kind of something that happened like way before this. Um, January January of 2023, Colleen um, Hoover had published an It Ends With Us coloring book. And so remember, this is like way back before, before any of the movie or anything like that. And fans of the book were furious.

0:03:14 Thomas: So we're going way back. This is before, yeah. Okay. Yeah,

0:03:20 Lydia: They were so upset about it because they were like, this ist a book about domestic violence. Why are you making a coloring book about it? I And feel like, you know, she ended up apologizing, pulling the coloring book from publication like it. Never It existed. Existed um I feel like the studios could have recognized that like oh remember that misstep that happened just about a year ago a year and a bit ago um the fan outcry here if we want to do this right let's like take that into consideration where there have been missteps in the past um again that's not on blake that's Not on any of the cast that's on the the production companies for developing a marketing plan that wasn't connecting with their audience in the way that they thought it would yeah

0:04:02 Thomas: But on that point, the trailer was a huge success. The trailer comes out May 22nd. So a we're, little that's right, where we are in the timeline, essentially, maybe a little before, and gets 128 million views in 24 hours, which I'm not an expert, seems good.

0:04:10 Lydia: I it's very high I had seen some comparisons um it was very impressive the

0:04:21 Thomas: Know I was being a little facetious there. That's very good. And considering the fact that the movie ended up being very successful, I think we can go ahead and confirm that that's quite good. I think maybe it's worth playing the trailer because I think we can talk about what this approach should be. And I think it'll be interesting to keep this in mind. It says, it ends with us. Trailer starts now. Sony opening

0:04:22 Lydia: Sorry mm -hmm

0:04:42 Clip: Lily, you want to do the honors? No, you go ahead. I need to take it in from here. Well, let's hope you'd say that, okay? Oh, my God. Oh -ho -ho. That's my brother, Ryle. The first official customer? Well, you'd have to buy something to be considered a customer. Right now, you're just loitering. We all have an idea of what love can be. I want to see you again. Now you see me. You know what I mean. That special connection you feel that first kiss but

0:04:49 Thomas: Their flower shop based on the worldwide phenomena.

0:05:23 Clip: 15 seconds that's all it takes to completely change everything I'm so sorry never knowing what they'll mean that was a long time yeah what are you doing in boston I opened my flower shop I still remember the day I saw you in the window yeah we were just kids then uh is that um is that your guy yeah that's um that's ryle what happened he tripped you love him now I love you it wasn't my question if one day you had a daughter what would you say to her she came to you and said the person she loved was hurting her what would she say to him none of this is your fault as hard as this choice is we break the pattern or the pattern breaks us

0:06:55 Thomas: Hopefully in audio format, hope it translated. I mean, there was some text, but I don' t think it was that that important I think you get the point that it goes through the whole arc that trailer so it's uh love and then uh only takes 15 seconds for that to change and then it's a bit of a darker feel in the middle third and actually through toward the end to some extent and know portrays scenes of abuse uh least as much as you would in a a movie preview um no it's it's pretty clear I mean he's throwing stuff he's doing you know it's very clear and then whatever the hell happens with atlas I don't we'll see the movie someday I don't know if that's like the good is that the good guy or was he also shitty in the beginning I don' t know who cares um but so I the point I want to make is this is what more people are going to see by a factor of a gajillion. The little pop we're talking about and PR and interviews. Mean, people see that, but like how many people really see that? And so the marketing plan being positivity, flowers, whatever, when it comes

0:07:51 Thomas: To these in -person, yeah, that makes sense. What are you going to do? Have Blake Lively come out with like a fake black eye or something? Like you're not going to market in person in pop -op events with like a darker abuse tone. Like, it's just not, it makes sense to me. Now, even setting all that aside, even if you disagreed with that approach, was the agreed upon approach. Have the exhibit that doesn't seem to be in dispute even. We'll get to that later. So Blake Lively was following she should have been doing, her business obligations as an actress. Also what we see is so was Baldoni. It says in July, Baldoni, late July, Baldoni appeared at a pop -up of Lily Bloom's flower shop, Century City, California, where he held a long stem rose microphone and playfully gave tours of the shop to influencers. He's participating in that floral theme, you know, positivity stuff at that time.

0:07:51 Lydia: Empowerment mm -huh yeah mmhmm yep yep yeah

0:08:43 Thomas: It says, It says, in advance of the release of the film, and we'll learn more about this, I'm sure, but nearly all cast members chose to appear in public separately from Mr. Baldoni, given his onset behavior. Already talked about this. That's how Blake puts it. It will be interesting to see see If we learn More About this. If we learn more about, I don't know, through discovery or anything like anyone's individual decisions, I imagine Baldoni would, would want to allege that like, Lively made everyone do that or poisoned everyone. And, and that's stuff that I, I would think you'd find out in discovery. I mean, there's going to be like, if that were true, I'm sure you'd see texts. Oh, here, Blake Lively is portraying it as nearly all cast members making that choice. And so it plausible from what she's described as the atmosphere. It certainly seems plausible to me that a bunch of people would not want to appear together with Baldoni. If that's true, again, we're looking at Blake Lively's complaint. If that's true think about what that means think about how that takes us from oh he made someone uncomfortable I was a little awkward I get to the point where nearly all cast members are not going to appear with him for pr of the film that he directed and started pretty extreme that takes a lot again I think I think I'm just anticipating I think Blake Like, made everyone do that somehow, but that's great. Like taking Blake's version for a moment. That's crazy. That, that means, that mean Justin Baldoni sucked hard, like for that to happen.

0:09:07 Lydia: Turned people away from him yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:06 Thomas: Cause that's a major thing. You, you talked about that other movie where there was, yeah, still they, they it together. So this is if Blake Lively's version is true and I feel like this will be something they'll They'll be able to establish one way or the other. A bad sign for what that film set was like. Then it says, at this point, once they decided to appear separately, according to Blake Lively's timeline, Baldoni pivoted away from the film's marketing plan to explain his absence from the rest of the cast. So she tells it, and this, I mean, this makes sense from a like bad theory point of view. People are not appearing with you and you need a way to explain it, finding some wedge issue like this too.

0:10:08 Lydia: Don't worry, darling. Yeah, yeah. They went through a lot. And yeah. Distinguish.

0:10:47 Thomas: Yeah. And so it says after the film's premiere, changed his Instagram profile, canceled lighthearted social media posts and instructed his team to look for survivor reactions and support all in an effort to quickly shift his own public narrative to focus solely on survivors and domestic violence organizations.

0:11:04 Lydia: And then I think we start getting our first texts.

0:11:07 Thomas: Where we start seeing this backed up with text messages in the complaint. So we get a text from Justin Baldoni to Jennifer Abel, 8th, 2024. just landed. What is the Tik Tok strategy? I'd like you guys to start posting me only talking about domestic violence and clips clips and why this movie is so important.

0:11:25 Lydia: Only in all caps.

0:11:27 Thomas: The complaint says the team followed Baldoni's instructions. Miss Abel concluded, quote, it doesn't feel performative now that you've done major substantial press on the topic. Abil, on August 11th, Miss Abl laid out a posting timeline to Mr. Baldoni and the team stating, quote, theater surprise. And then I think survivor content first thing tomorrow a .m., which then will be helpful for news cycle. Think I just need to read this part. It's pretty clear. By repositioning Mr. Baldoni's marketing of the film on information and belief, Mr. Baldwin hoped to create the false impression that he had chosen not to appear alongside the other cast members. Baldoni directed his team to share on his public Instagram feed the private messages he had received from survivors sharing their stories of domestic violence with him. Mr. Baldoni's team talked him out of these ideas, writing that they, quote, do not recommend using private DMs as content. This one has bothered me a little bit because while they do. So the complaint quotes here do not recommended using private DMS as content, we don't actually see the screenshot of that. I think I think if you're quoting, it's probably there somewhere, but it is interesting.

0:12:29 Lydia: I think think what if I m going to be you here what this probably is telling me because it includes the text from baldoni in full to jennifer abel um his request that they start doing that and then And again, there's a quote. I imagine there is more in that text that's not super helpful for Blake's complaint. So not having the image there showing the full text is beneficial to her complaint like really what that tells me. I could be wrong. And, you know, again, discovery. But that's what it feels like to me when present one side in full and the other side with an excerpted quote.

0:13:03 Thomas: This is one of those where I have some degree of skepticism because I think even Justin Baldoni knows not to blast out people's DMs. If they're DMing in private, like, emotional touching content about being survivors, I think he would know not to just blast that out. So I think maybe who knows if this could be a misconstrual. The The point is, regardless all that, it demonstrates his strategy of promoting the film on these terms, of it being about survivors and highlighting the abuse, all that stuff.

0:13:30 Thomas: Too heading is Mr. Baldoni and his team formulate a retaliatory plan.

0:13:34 Lydia: Something if true, they specifically signed a document stating they would not.

0:13:40 Thomas: It first establishes like, you knew about the complaints, yada all pretty straightforward. Then we get, as early as May 2024, told his team that they needed a to get ahead of the claims against him in the event that they were to go public. Specifically, Mr. Baldoni wrote, quote, just want you guys to have a plan. Plans make me feel more at ease. Why don't you remind us of the PR situation in terms of of who's representing whom and who these folks are.

0:14:05 Lydia: Yeah, so back in May, Jennifer Abel was still with Joneswork, which is Stephanie Jones's PR company. Able does not leave Jonesworks until

0:14:15 Thomas: So these texts are with Jennifer Abel. There's some other folks that will come in here or there, but for now, like you said, this is all with Jones works. I suppose if my theory were true, not just my theory. I'm sure a lot of people think this. Leaves Jones' works and Stephanie Jones shares these texts, then we shouldn't see any texts from after that point. So, all the everything should be up until around then. So we can kind of keep an eye on that.

0:14:37 Lydia: 21th. Yeah. Good point.

0:14:40 Thomas: Of the other side of what we highlighted in episode one. We're seeing the inner workings of kind of what people had only, you to dig up and do detective work on. May 17th, Mr. Baldoni texted his publicist, Jennifer Abel, that Ms. Lively's husband had blocked him on social media stating, quote, we should have a plan for if she does the same when the movie comes out. In June, it notes that as Ms. Lively and others were fulfilling publicity obligations, they didn't publicly discuss misconduct, nor did they ever suggest to Wayfair or Mr. Baldoni that they They intended to discuss their concerns publicly. Yet, it says, quote, on June 20th, 2024, Ms. Abel texted Mr. Heath her concern. We can't have fans starting to guess why JB is left out of this stuff. Then they start strategizing how THEY might have kind of a cover story for that. We get to our next text here. June 24th, Baldoni proposes, quote, offensive and some of the attributes that come with it to explain that anything he had been accused of was social awkwardness and impulsive speech.

0:15:40 Lydia: Makes me not feel great I I don't know exactly the the kinds of things that he deals with but to try and explain away his potential behavior that might be called into question based off of that based off of like planning to talk about that uh it doesn't feel great yeah

0:15:56 Thomas: I will say that I thought this at first. When I first was just started, I was watching some of Baldoni's content and And learned a little bit about what was accused or alleged. And I did think, you know, I think this guy's got ADHD and he might just not have a filter and he might just share things like a lot of the accusations are kind of him just talking and not understanding that people are not interested. And I actually thought that before I saw this and I mentioned it to you and it was kind of weird when I saw This was like, oh, wow, that's exactly what I thought. Um, I think there's a certain amount of that that could be legitimate, in um, my opinion, like there's an amount of it, but you got to remember, we're also talking about Jamie Heath going and looking at her boobs in the trailer. Is not, you know, like that might be a way to explain some things, but it's not, it does not explain all of this at all. Way too much bad behavior here. And I think if anything, it sucks that he kind of has in his mind, if lively version of events, this sort of is an easy way for him to kind of not be to blame in his own mind. Like, yeah, yeah. Well, and I think he might believe it. Like I think he might leave this about himself, that that's really all that's going on here.

0:16:59 Lydia: It feels weaponized yeah but I guess I would be curious his responses to when people have said that they are uncomfortable and everything and he's like I'm not even attracted to you um can do that because my wife's here today and people expressing that there's a problem it never ever came up where he's like hey this is something that you struggle with on my end and I really apologize that it has made you feel this way etc etc you

0:17:28 Thomas: You, so far we've only gotten Blake point of view. So

0:17:30 Lydia: Again that if we were to take her entire complaint at face value if that was the case I feel like there were a lot of opportunities for him a yeah

0:17:40 Thomas: But I'm saying we wouldn't know that because she wouldn't put it in her complaint. There could be that, um, would be be something to look for later, maybe in his complaint. Yeah. This is interesting. July 24th, Ms. Abel emailed Mr. Heath and others requesting quote, the legal letter that was sent to Ms. Lively and her team. That language is confusing, but I'm pretty sure from context, It has to be the the, 17 point list, or it could be the 30 point list. We actually don't know for sure that was sent by Ms. Lively and her team, but it says sent to Ms. Lively. Maybe she's just saying when the one they signed and sent back. So that would be the 17 points. Anyway, she says, it goes on quote, this seems pretty damning here, quote, per our conversation, we will go through point by point and draft context surrounding each situation. Situation. Can then flag what we are missing. That would be in, and this is bolded by Blake helpful to arm us in the case. We need to refute any of the claims. So could look at that though, as, as PR on Abel's part. I far, I don't see anything there. That's like a retail This just seems like, Like, you anticipating if there's going to be a complaint and Baldoni's PR anticipating if there's gonna be a complain, we need to be ready with our version of each of these claims. So I it's interesting, though, like acknowledging, and they're talking about the thing he signed to make sure you know they know that's there that really bad document. So they're forming their strategy around it. Kind this heading, Wayfarer engages Melissa Nathan and Tag, T -A -G, on behalf of Mr. Baldoni to launch a retaliation campaign against Ms. Lively. Now, who is That?

0:19:10 Lydia: Right. So Melissa Nathan, folks deep in like the pop culture scene or like pop law sort of scene might recognize that name. She was actually the crisis PR person for Johnny Depp in the Depp v. Heard trial. TAG, T -A -G, is her company, the agency group. Now, she was working with Johnny Deppe under her previous employer and then went and started her own firm.

0:19:33 Thomas: Keep saying to do that, I guess.

0:19:34 Lydia: Yeah. That's who we're talking about, that Wayfarer engaged Johnny Depp's, former crisis PR person, on behalf of Mr. Baldoni.

0:19:41 Thomas: Seems significant because if you're alleging a retaliating campaign, campaign, you go with the best. You go with someone who is a part of, I think, successfully completely smearing Amber Heard.

0:19:50 Lydia: Something very successful. Successful that Amber Heard moved to Spain and lives there now trying to rebuild her career. So.

0:19:58 Thomas: We'll leave that be because we have not covered on the show, but at the very least, I Think it's indisputable that that was a very successful campaign against her. So that's the kind of person that Baldoni is getting ready here. In fairness, So far, we're still just talking about arming against the possibility, you know, like which all I mean, that all seems at very least not to put moral judgment on it. That seems like consistent with, you their obligations contractually and consistent with not not just prepping behind the scenes so far in this complaint.

0:20:28 Lydia: And I mean, I imagine there's like fiduciary responsibility to the company and, that they need to engage in that way.

0:20:34 Thomas: Now it starts to talk about I and think the complaint is trying to make that transition from merely preparing to like on the offensive. And I think that's going to be That's I what I'm keeping an eye on as I'm reading this. Paragraph, according to Tag's own planning document, the purpose of Ms. Nathan's engagement was to help Mr. Baldoni get ahead of the narrative and mitigate bad press that might arise from Ms. Lively's and others' HR becoming public by engaging in techniques such as rapid response communication system and cataloging third party advocates willing to provide a potential quote or engage with reporters on Mr. Mr. Baldoni's and Mr. Heath's behalf to mitigate negative narratives from a source outside of Wayfair. So that still seems, I mean, it still seems I don't know what the phrase is above board, like you're still preparing. You're still trying to get ahead of a narrative. So, man, going to be a question of what is technically retaliation legally in this context. And from the conversations we've had with lawyers, I to spin things in Baldoni's favor is not necessarily retaliation. Even I think you narratives, having someone to provide write a positive quote, like those things don't strike me as retaliation. If it's all focused on his side of the story out in a way that's not, again, her. So there's that caveat, but like, if it's just about trying to explain certain things or just positive press out there to kind of brace for something that strikes me as not retaliatory, But be we'll an eye on that going forward here. Then on August 5th, Mr. Baldoni sent Miss Abel a screenshot of a thread on X regarding another female public figure's alleged history of bullying many women. Mr. Baldoni stated, this is what we would need. So

0:22:14 Thomas: That seems not like kind -defense or prepping things to look favorable you or any of those things that seem more like, you guess for lack of a better word, positive PR on Baldoni you, and like positive PR. Are this seems like taking someone down mean I very clearly if he's saying this is what we would need and it's a takedown of a female celebrity the implication there seems very clear oh

0:22:13 Lydia: It's Hailey Bieber um yeah I was mean a really really interesting situation because it was Haley Bieber married Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber previously dated Selena Gomez for a very long period of time. So essentially it was like fans against each other and about who ended up with Justin Bieber and attacking the other woman as a result. Lost more than a million Instagram followers because of all of this. And Selena Gomez like tried to get her fans to stop like and to leave Hailey Bieber alone um it was it was very bad um

0:23:05 Thomas: Wow I next there's a bit about the business arrangement here and I think it's It's important because the services are so this is of kind the quotes from Ms. Nathan and TAG, the agency group. This is the Depp person, right? One, $175K. This will be for a three to four month period and includes website to discuss, full Reddit, full social account takedowns, full social crisis team on hand for anything, anything, engage with audiences in the right way, start threads of theories to discuss. Parentheses to discuss just means they're going to, I discuss it further, you it's not going to be written out in this proposal. I just want to make clear. It's not like starts threads of queries to discuss, it's like starts threats of theories, parentheses discuss as in they're gonna clarify more.

0:23:18 Lydia: Yes

0:23:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:46 Lydia: An action item yeah uh

0:23:48 Thomas: Is the way to be fully 100 % protected, did, which is interesting. Quote two is weirdly cheaper. We can talk about 25K a month as three months as it needs to seed, same as above. This will be for creation of social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts, helping to change the narrative and stay on track. Nathan stated, Lively's and bolded this, all of this will be most importantly untraceable. A lot more to both these quotes, but easier to discuss via phone in terms of capabilities and what I have personally experienced in and out of crisis scenarios.

0:24:21 Lydia: So that first quote that they received is for like, you full service kind of thing. Specifically covers you for three to four months. All inclusive approach crisis management where they would have an entire website created to of field the, you and Reddit engagement, all of those things starting like initiating theories potentially where. Quote two is more of responsibility like the quote, where, yes, you do have a minimum of three months, but that is only going to bring you up to 75K. But you're not going to get a website out of that. That. You're going to getting folks or something engaging online to steer discourse in the way that they want to see it. I

0:25:03 Thomas: Interesting. It heading is Mr. Baldoni, Mr. Heath and Wayfair perpetrate a retaliation scheme against Miss Lively. So we've set all that up so far. Still, nothing that's officially, it seems, allegedly retaliatory. It's still just kind of preparation. And um

0:25:16 Lydia: Do want to reiterate something that I mentioned previously. Do we know that he hired a crisis PR firm? How did that come out? Not something that you have to disclose for any reason.

0:25:24 Thomas: No it just any who could have been involved in any of that process did he physically go into an office or something I don't I don' t know is it something stupid like that I

0:25:36 Lydia: Know. I just have no idea how someone got this intel. Oh,

0:25:41 Thomas: Might be a place to say this there is it and and this actually seems to be corroborated by the text I'm I'm sure we'll go through more eventually. There's an extent to which the PR people are kind of playing against Baldoni as well, because from their perspective, and I think this is highly unethical, but there's evidence that they're like seeding something negative and then telling Justin, ah, see, you need us. Look, there's something negative here. I can almost see this being part of that. Like, if they leaked it, going to kind of potentially invite negative press. Just pure speculation on my part, but it is something that we see evidence of in other places that there are posts that people think that it's alleged that are actually seeded by the crisis management people to be like, hey, you need us because look at this post. Post.

0:26:08 Lydia: Interesting. Yeah, that's so crazy.

0:26:27 Thomas: Super unethical, seems to me. Guess it could technically be fraud too. I don't know. Who knows? Here's an interesting text from Jennifer Abel to Jamie Heath on, August 1st. Thanks for the the call. Confidentially, I'm out to dinner with a friend of 12 plus years who writes for People Magazine, Fox News, InTouch, Us Weekly, and she is fully briefed on the situation and is armed and ready to take this story of Blake weaponizing feminism to any of her outlets the minute we give her the green light. She hates Blake, has heard the story before, and will do anything for us, just FYI. Or around August 2nd, Ms. Abel connected the contributor with miss nathan subsequently miss nathen engaged directly with media sources on behalf of mr baldonian wayfarer regarding mr baldoni miss lively in the film on August 2nd, they circulate a document to Baldoni and others entitled Scenario Planning. It Ends With Us. That's in Exhibit D. So this is something that Blake also got from probably Stephanie Jones. Definitely at subpoena, at least. Yeah

0:26:32 Lydia: Oh, beyond just the crisis mitigation of news what, online kind of thing, it also includes materials that they wanted to have kind of prepared in advance. Of them, which I think is really interesting, our team and Wayfair Studios will discern what assets pertaining to communications, schedules, times when Blake Lively called out, et cetera, that we can share for off -record and or for context purposes with journalists. Think I that's interesting. Would And say pin in that because I feel like that is something that's going to pop back up a little bit later while we're talking about this.

0:27:58 Thomas: Interesting so means like they're going on you know off record background but they're having things ammunition to kind make make a plea to like journalists that she sucks or something and convince them to yeah

0:28:13 Lydia: Like, you filming, difficult to work with, you that she didn't show up for days when she was scheduled to, et cetera, et cetera.

0:28:22 Thomas: We never see that part I mean definitionally we don't see that part of anything like how much did a reporter get behind the scenes on background or off record that went into kind of the editorial decisions there.

0:28:34 Lydia: Of the key messaging points are things that we touched on, too, when we started talking about Justin Baldoni at the beginning, right? Right. His TED talk in 2017, the Man Enough podcast and, he approaches redefining masculinity in those spaces and how it's been, from their perspective, really helpful and a source of inspiration for folks. Also says in the key messaging points, while Justin Baldoni and Jamie Heath attempted to foster a kind, safe, creative environment on set during a challenging period in Hollywood, resurgence of COVID -19, the writer's strike, the SAG -AFTRA strike, their efforts were continuously thrown back in their faces.

0:29:11 Thomas: Seems weird. Why would their efforts be thrown back in their faces? That sounds cartoony to me.

0:29:15 Lydia: They also call out that people lost their jobs because of how Blake approached the production of It Ends With Us. They specifically refer to it as Blake Lively's takeover and insisted upon involvement.

0:29:28 Thomas: Yeah, this is where we're starting to see, I think this is the first we're seeing of this narrative, which eventually takes over the entire thing. Blake Lively wasn't able to get her way on set or behind the scene, she involved her husband to create an imbalance of power between her and justin baldoni um reynolds went so far as to use his power to call agents and agencies sony and other key players so that blake lively would get her way and it says there's a clear likely motive due to the film's value within fan base in which blake lively is attempting to bully her way into buying the rights for it starts with us but this seems like nonsense to me because Wayfarers has the rights to, it started with us and there's, can't remember if I mentioned this, but it's Not even like an option that expires. They just have the rights. Like there's no, no one can make them sell it. I mean, I guess, I mean she could argue if, if somehow she, She, don't I know, yeah, like made people so mad that they wouldn't want Wayfarer to be in charge of it. Then she could like buy it. But you can't force them to sell it to her. I don't know. That seems weird.

0:30:22 Lydia: And and this point has really like held on to social media discourse I see this all the time on like the reddit pages and everything people still saying that you know blake was driven by her desire to own the rights for it starts with us and

0:30:37 Thomas: Would any of this help that? I don''t understand.

0:30:39 Lydia: I don't know yeah then the last bit of this scenario planning document is the scenarios themselves right so scenario one blake and team push out negative story regarding justin wayfarer post premiere and how they would react to that specifically her team is working on a longer lead negative narrative we would be given in parentheses a short heads up in advance of the story and would alongside jen correct Correct inaccuracies in fact -checking, mitigate false narratives, and point reporters toward third -party advocates who can speak positively on your behalf. You're being Justin. Two, subtly hints at her, quote, experience in post -premier coverage, either in an interview, op -ed, or otherwise. Wise and they specifically say that based on their experience if she goes this route she will not name justin baldoni directly but rather pepper and quote easter eggs alluding to your involvement um being mindful not to jeopardize her involvement with the potential sequel for the movie um still trying to sow doubt um the fan base in particular

0:31:42 Thomas: Then the final scenario three ryan comes forward in defense of his wife it's kind of interesting should ryan come forward in defence of his life we would advise against any direct engagement um and this I mean this really outlines a lot of what we eventually see weaponizing feminism they're using feminism to bully them into getting their way about this movie I want to note correct me if I'm wrong none of these three scenarios happened so I there's an argument and I I think it's a convincing argument we'll get to it that blake lively's team may have been seeding some stories possibly but they're preparing as though blake is gonna like come out with her sob story of how she was mistreated and uh or she's gonna hint at it and then she's going to do an interview and or ryan's gonna come none of of that happened. I and not, not yeah, not, not until they discovered this very plot from from all information that we have. I think Baldoni alleges and will allege that she was seeding negative stories. Don't know which scenario that would be under. I guess that would be like scenario one or something.

0:32:27 Lydia: Not not at that point in time no it was as a response it was not yeah proactive yeah right yeah but it was all like anonymous sources insider reveals if that were the case right would be scenario four melissa nathan missed one retaliation

0:32:51 Thomas: So the only Only stories. Well, I think my point is they are taking and is going to be what they're doing, their crisis planning, I guess, but like are assuming Blake is going to go after Justin Baldoni and didn't happen until they found out about this very plan. Right. I mean, that we know of. We've scoured everything. It's look, the internet is a big place. There's a lot going on here. Perhaps we've missed something, but I don't even see any, there were articles that like, something was going on. Was there a rift? But some of those are alleged to be planted by Nathan, and I think credibly.

0:33:26 Lydia: One of which written by her sister her yeah

0:33:28 Thomas: I think that would bolster that claim. So none of that is Blake Lively. I don't even see anything that really could be tied to Blake Lively in any way. So I don't think any of these scenarios really happened. And we also can keep an eye on this timeline to see, was there a moment or, and these would be in texts we don't get there. That did happen, I would expect there to be a moment where they're like, ha, she has attacked us in this way. Know, deploy the plan.

0:33:51 Lydia: Hmm, yeah press the button yeah

0:33:53 Thomas: That I mean, just, imagine just if that's what you're doing, you and your PR team, you're anticipating all these things you're making. If, your if whole thing, and this is like going to be Baldoni's story, if it's all just in reply, it's on response, you would expect internal texts that would say, well, the day has come. Here she is doing this thing. To unleash the Kraken or whatever. You know, it's interesting text here when Baldoni tells Jamie Heath, wait, Paragraph 134 says, upon review of the scenario Mr. Baldoni informed Mr. Heath that he was, quote, not in love with the document they sent. Not sure I'm feeling the protection I felt on the call. Heath responded, quote, that's the most important part of this is how quickly they can shut things down and place stories in your favor. Now, that'S interesting because that'S a conversation you might note between Baldoni and Heath. Think we can assume that someone was CC'd, so that would have to be Miss Abel, I I Think it would have To be. The other possibility would be, oh, I did this subpoena that we discussed, get a hold of more things than we thought. And, but I think the more likely explanation is someone was CC'd on this. But that makes sense because this is going to be Baldoni and Heath speaking with Abel about whether or not they're going to hire Miss Nathan. So it's like, they're kind this part and they're all going to make that decision together.

0:34:41 Lydia: It would have to be mm -hm right

0:35:08 Thomas: So just a little interesting, you thing to think about. To keep like an eagle eye on this like stuff and what the messages are. And it all seems still consistent with the idea that Stephanie Jones would have had these texts. And also have Abel talking to Nathan, saying Baldoni is questioning whether the plan is aggressive enough, that, quote, Baldoni wanted to feel like Miss Lively could be buried. Nathan responds, of course, but you know, when we send over the documents, we can't send over the work. We will or could do because that could get us in a lot of trouble. And Blake Lively has bolded this in her complaint. Can't write it down to him. We can't write. We will destroy her. Imagine if a document saying all of the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands. It's just the ultimate irony of all this. Just if anyone were reading what we were writing right now.

0:35:56 Lydia: I will say like those messages, yeah, save like even more bombshell -y. Like if it was actually written down in full, like what step by step, what their plan was going to be exactly. So, I that element of the crisis reasonably, I guess.

0:36:12 Thomas: Now here in this text, I think we see that this is the source of it. Able to Nathan. You can, of course, do that, but I do think he needs to know. I'm going to confidentially send you something. He's texting me and Jamie on the side just to arm you before for this call. 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. So I would imagine that's the source of that conversation between Heath and Baldoni is that, that very thing right there. 4th able text nathan quote 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 she's putting us through hell now that's interesting what what would that be that's on august fourth yeah

0:36:54 Lydia: I think it's in advance of the premiere, because what we see in the scenario planning document is that Blake had to compromise with what she wanted the premiere to look like. I'm thinking because she wanted nothing to do with Baldoni and he still got to be there. I'm guessing that it's those that week that are kind of driving Abel up the wall.

0:37:16 Thomas: Okay and nathan replies same am I already off the records I think I think she means, and I'm already off the records, spoke to the daily, to the editor daily. Jesus. I'm sure my texts look like this too. Am I already off-the-record, spoke to the editor daily mail, because she's my friend. I think we get what what that means. But anyway, ready when we are. As I was suggesting earlier, we should see if Baldoni's kind of events where only responsive, we Should See the, oh, Deploy the Plan, we kind of get that here. We have to allow for the fact that maybe Blake Lively wouldn't put that in her complaint. Maybe there is something that they're going to reference that's the impetus for this. All we we have in this complaint is August 7th. I think we really need to put the social combat plan then into motion. To Nathan there. Nathan back to Abel. So do I. says that day abel corresponded with tag that's the agency group group regarding her discussion with Tag regarding social manipulation, which she described as distinct from social media mitigation and proactive fan posting to counter the narrative. So manipulation is an interesting word

0:37:29 Lydia: Let me uh

0:38:27 Thomas: To be using. So they're killing stories as best they can. Is interesting. August 9th, sends Abel two links, one from the Hollywood Reporter entitled, Did Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni Have a Rift Over It Ends With Us? Sleuthing TikTokers So. One from Daily Mail entitled, Disturbing Truth Behind Why Blake Lively and Her Ends With Us Stars Are Feuding With Justin Baldoni. Baldoni daily these two articles at first sight you might think ah is this you lively seating something is that because it's like it's talking about the rift um when you look at him I'm reading him now it's interesting because especially the hollywood reporter one is very cleverly pro pro -Jordan because it, it it as sleuthing TikTokers think there'S a feud, but all that is mentioned after that is Blake Lively's, uh, control. She brought in her husband to help take over creative control of the film. It's entirely from that perspective. So there's absolutely no way that Blake Lively would have anything to do with this because it's entirely framing it in terms of the very strategy that we are seeing that Justin Baldoni wanted to use and did use. The Daily Mail one, now this one, you might think, okay, it is actually starting to get more at like something like misconduct type stuff. But when you read it, it actually also might be very Machiavellian in really Justin Baldoni in a way. Like his interests, even though you might not think so. So it starts with kind of the same, you conceit that fans are convinced there's a feud kind of thing. Talks about the, you know, separate press stuff and all the stuff we've already covered. And it's, it's saying you something definitely happened behind the scenes to matters more suspicious. Slate completely dodged a question about Justin and says, what was it like having Justin be director, but also a scene partner? Jenny Slate, I guess, said, I mean, what an intense job to have to do so many things. I found myself being like, wow, I just want to have one job at once. She replied, let's then it kind of quotes Baldoni, who was on the Today Show and off the rumors and did a nice thing. Don't know if you know how smart and creative she really is. She's best known as an actress. And of course, she's a fashion icon, but she's so much more than that. She is a dynamic creative. She had her hands in every part of this production and everything she touched, she made better. Back to The Complaint, Nathan sent Abel those two articles and said, I can tell you've done a lot of work here. She continued, nothing about being unsafe, fat comments, sexual. Concluded, thank fucking God. As much as that article was potentially like, oh, there might might be some negativity about baldoni it ultimately kept it where they wanted it to be which is way far away from anything like sexual misconduct yeah

0:40:57 Lydia: Just that he's a jerk.

0:40:59 Thomas: They maybe there was like butting heads over creative decisions and that kind of thing one's interesting. 9th, Ms. Nathan indicated to Ms. Abel that she was on the phone with her sister, Sarah Nathan, a journalist at the New York Post and contributor at Page Six, and remarked that Mr. Baldoni's religion should be taken out from media coverage. She went on to state, quote, and mostly the misogynistic.

0:41:20 Lydia: I this is like a pretty, I mean, there's a that's like super well known about Baha'i, but the things that do pop up a lot is that they don't allow women to be leaders in their religion. So I'm wondering if that's kind of what they're trying to get at there.

0:41:36 Thomas: Doesn't sound great. Is that confirmed? They don't allow women to be leaders in their religion? That sounds sort of sexist and misogonistic.

0:41:42 Lydia: Men and women are equal in all ways is one of the things that they say, except if you're going to be a leader.

0:41:48 Thomas: What they didn't say was, so we might as well let men do it all because they're equal anyway. So later

0:41:52 Lydia: Someone, you know, was asking questions in the Baha'i subreddit about the power structure of Baha', they said, I see that women are explicitly not permitted to serve in the universal house of justice, the highest governing level. I cannot find any reasoning beyond, quote, the reason will be revealed in the future.

0:42:10 Thomas: Uh. Good old religion. You just say whatever. That same day, Ms. Nathan texted Ms. Abel a link of an article on page six by Sarah Nathan entitled, Truth Behind It Ends With Us Feud Rumors. Justin Baldoni made Blake Lively uncomfortable, uncomfortable, sources say, stating, I knew she would keep uncomfortable. Uncomfortable. Nathan saying she knew her sister would keep that word, right? Now we start to get to what has been portrayed by the New York Times as sort of these celebratory nihilistic texts. Texted, did. Press is so overwhelming. We've confused people. So much mixed messaging. It's actually really funny if you think about it. Is August 9th. So are we in the clear now? Did we survive? We survived. That's the, when the response is all press is so overwhelming, we've confused people. So much much, mixed messaging. Now I think I'm just going to read a bunch of these texts because these important. Is Nathan back to Abel. I really think the worst is over. I do think the next few months definitely will be a tiny bit bumpy, but not canceled. Abel to Nathan. Ha, this is the next day, not in reply to this. Abl to Nathan, what? Yes I some people text me too and I just didn't respond the narrative online is so freaking good and fans are still 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 narrative back to Abel on that same day. Narrative is crazy good. So did you. Little bit later, majority of socials are so pro -Justin and I don't even agree with half of them.

0:43:37 Lydia: LOL.

0:43:38 Thomas: LOL. Yeah, I didn't miss that. Continues, he doesn't realize how lucky he is right now and we need to press on him just how fucking lucky. Whispering in the ear, the sexual connotations, like Jesus fucking Christ, other members feeling uncomfortable watching it. I mean, there's just so much. Hard that's to explain. This is own PR team, PR, Melissa Nathan texting Jennifer Abel saying he realizes how lucky he is right now. We need to press him just how lucky. The whispering in the ear, the sexual connotations. You, they know Blake Lively's complaint. This is before that. They know the actual complaint, not the legal complaint is what I'm saying. Ist them aware of these complaints and realizing it's a big deal and being like, Justin is really lucky. Saying other members feeling uncomfortable watching it. The following day, Ms. Abel confirmed to Mr. Baldoni that there had been nothing, very little pickup, and that fans, quote, believe the issue of the feud is because she took control of the movie. Of important here, on August 9th, Ms., Nathan had shared with Ms. Able that she had been informed, quote. We are crushing it on Reddit, and this is going to end up being quite a storyline. Is a reference to Jed Wallace. The complaint. Ms. Nathan's reference to Jed is a reference to Mr. Jed Wallace, an independent contractor based in Austin, Texas, whose company, Street Relations, offers public relations and crisis management services. On Information and Belief, Mr. Wallace has described himself as a hired gun and claimed a, quote, proprietary formula for defining artists and trends. Mr. Wallis had worked on previous matters with Ms. Nathen and was retained by TAG to perform social media services on behalf of Wayfarer and Mr. Baldoni in connection with TAG's engagement. The quotation appears to be a reference to efforts by Mr. Wallace to seed and influence online forums on Reddit attacking Miss Lively and defending Mr. Baldoni. There's more stuff that sort of just reveling in their success here. You guys will love this. And it links to a TikTok basically saying that Blake needs to divorce Ryan because he's made her into a meme. He's ruining her biggest movie of the year, forcing her to ostracize Justin, rewriting the script, et et cetera. More, more of these, you kinds of texts. Nathan to Abel and socials are really, really ramping up. Actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women.

0:45:52 Lydia: Yep. Wonder if there's any like self -reflection on their role in creating that.

0:45:58 Thomas: Likely. That same day, a member of the tag team, who knows it's the same one because it's blank again, advised of a shift on social due largely to Jed and his team's efforts to shift the narrative towards shining a spotlight on Blake and Ryan. Hi team, so far extremely limited pickup on Daily Mail or Page Six. We'll continue to keep an eye out and send pieces as needed, but so far it's been steady Steady coverage on pure speculation. We've also started to see a shift on social. Largely to Jed and his team's efforts to shift the narrative towards shining a spotlight on Blake and Ryan. Again, we'll continue to send links and screenshots, but wanted to send an update in the meantime. There's a few things that that like very negative Justin stories having nothing to do with Blake Lively that the team kind of says ah these probably aren't true and they're working to kind of quashed them. We can skip those a bit unless, you know, if they ever become important, we can come back to them. Then this paragraph, on occasion, any member of Wayfair or the social manipulation team could text the link of a positive story about Mr. Baldoni or a negative story about Miss Lively and ask that someone boost the story to the public or engage in the comments to fuel desired narrative. August 18th, Baldoni circulated a TikTok in which the poster criticized Ms. Lively for not speaking about domestic violence in press interviews. A member of Ms. Nathan's team responded that she would let digital know.

0:47:19 Thomas: Now we're coming to an interesting thing that will be important. The Same Period of Time, when media sources inquired about HR complaints that were made on the set of the film, Ms. Nath and Ms. Abel and their teams worked to suppress coverage of these HR complaints. Further, on or around August 14th, media outlets directly inquired about HR complaints made on set because they were, quote, being told there were at least three HR complaints filed against Justin Baldoni on the set of It Ends With Us and inquired if, quote if the complaints were investigated and what the results were. This time, individuals at TAG, Ms. Nathan and Ms. Abel were aware of the existence of HR complaints and sought clarity as to the specific HR complaints at issue in order to better counter them in the press. This is interesting. Unnamed person to unnamed person, Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Able saying, hey, guys, read the TMZ thing. Read the HR complaints. Our understanding is that two were from Blake and blank read the sexy comment. Is the additional one from blank re the thing with jamie and her apartment in nyc just want to clarify me

0:48:23 Lydia: Stopped me in my tracks when I read that.

0:48:25 Thomas: I kind of lost over that but you uh rightfully pointed out what the fuck is that do keep in mind, this is all Baldoni's team with themselves. So for one, they're establishing that there were H .R. complaints and of them might be from blank read the thing with Jamie in her apartment.

0:48:28 Lydia: Yeah, basically. Basically. You know how I am. I'm pull up the IMDB. I start like looking up where everybody lives because I want to know what happened. I have some theories, but we won't get into it.

0:48:56 Thomas: But it's not worth speculating.

0:48:57 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, of course not.

0:48:58 Thomas: But just to make another point, again, if the whole thing is about a grudge against Baldoni, I is someone else against Jamie Heath and possibly about Jamie being at her apartment. Don't I don'T know. But that's again, this Baldoni's team. This is not Blake Lively. This is so it really seems like there are problems here. One minute later miss able asserted the need to position the claims as quote claims that are already out there about the kiss and the weight comment referencing earlier public reporting by tmz on mr baldoni's lingering kiss with miss lively and mr baldani's comments regarding lively's weight on set it's or around the same date miss nathan directly engaged with several media platforms discussing the issue of HR complaints made against Mr. Baldoni while on the set of the film. On August 15th, Nathan texted Ms. Abel that, quote, DM hounded me re -HR complaints. She stated that DM is not running any content about it, but continuing, Jen, this went so well, I am fucking dying. I have to call you later in a bit and tell you how this went. It was genius. So, okay, we have the four majors standing down on HR complaints. Complaints I think we are fine on that bit I there's a lot about again this this feels pretty questionable to have sarah nathan the sister of nathan who's the crisis pr person and sarah Nathan the journalist is like like helping them with wording on set, draft language, you will then eventually be by Sarah Nathan. You know, it's like they're working directly with a journalist who's related to the crisis PR person. And the article ends up being titled Blake Lively approved final cut of It Ends With Us amid feud with co -star director Justin Baldoni. Article addressed, among other topics, Miss Lively's role in approving the final cut of the film, but emphasizes how Miss Lively, quote, contributed to almost every aspect of the film, that her husband wrote one of the most important scenes in the movie, and that she was begged to remove one of her song choices from the film despite Mr. Baldoni's ownership of the rights to the book via his production company Wayfarer. Language contained in the article is almost a verbatim copy of the language exchange between Sarah Nathan and Miss Abel via text and reflects multiple of Miss Abels' revisions to sarah nathan's original proposed draft so abel's revising sarah nathan's draft then get the article from the daily mail entitled is blake lively set to be cancelled in all caps string of hard to watch videos that have surfaced following the tone deaf q a to promote it ends with us could tarnish 36 year old stars golden hollywood image for good and this article talks about the kirstie flaw video that we've already talked about and also a q a with four women like lively calling hoover jenny slate and isabella fairer

0:51:33 Thomas: And says they giggled together as they discussed everything from their dream jobs to their zodiac signs but there was no mention of their film's domestic violence theme And this is just in my opinion. I mean, it sucks that people fall for this crap, and I really think that is wanting to hate women. Putting that microscope on, again, this is the author, you supposed to do every single media appearance as like dire, sad interviews about abuse? Like, that's just not how anyone's going to do anything. And they can pick any moment they want to try to contrast it with the film's domestic violence theme and make it look like, oh, are, idiots you and out touch and don't care. You know, it's just it's playing into people's hatred of women in a way that I find really sinister and gross. Light -hearted they're giggling together now here's what uh said abel stated you really outdid yourself with this piece and miss nathan responded that's why you hired me right I'm the best then the complaint talks about the blake brown you hair stuff and how that received a bunch of bad review bombs and all that is the complaint brings in sarowitz the billionaire a bit and it says uh mr baldoni and mr sarowitz along with mr heath not only encouraged efforts to target miss lively and her family but they went so far as to provide input and ideas on ways to who negatively influenced the narrative against Ms. Lively and her family. Instance, on August 9th, after the film's release date, after sharing certain negative articles about himself with Ms. Abel, Mr. Baldoni stated, quote, there's no way we can just let this go. On August 15th, Mr. Baldoni texted Ms. Nathan and Ms. Abel stating that his business business partner, Mr Sarowitz, suggested, quote flipping the narrative arising from unnamed sources who had made false claims about Mr. Reynolds' involvement in the script of the film, and suggested ways to manipulate those rumors to make Mr. Reynolds appear to be anti -feminist. There a text here from Baldoni to something about Ryan claiming the female hired was feminist writer, didn't know how to tackle a female film, etc., using their own words against them. They're talking about just kind of making stuff up.

0:53:32 Thomas: We're once again, for the millionth time, going to have to say, this is Blake Lively's complaint, but here's what she says about what she was doing. Of August 16th, Ms. Nathan was continuing to confer with additional reporters to release stories that would cast Ms. Lively and or Mr. Reynolds in a negative light. Meanwhile, Ms。 Lively neither publicly commented nor directed any of her representatives engage with the print media, social media, or otherwise about the hostile work environment Mr. Baldoni, Mr. Heath, and Wayfair created. Indeed, throughout the time period discussed herein, Ms. Lively did not provide her publicist with details about the hostage work environment that she, alongside the other cast members and crew, had experienced. Ms., Lively expressly instructed her publicists not to engage with press inquiries, including ones regarding the onset behavior of Mr. Baldoni, Mr. Heath, or Wayfarer. That's interesting, because again, it's possible she's just lying, but that's all stuff you would see in Discovery. I mean, I that's going to be pretty easily verifiable, not to mention, you witnesses and stuff. And so, Think it's going To be interesting to see what happens there. I mean If telling the truth, I I think That's very powerful, and it also strikes It strikes me that it would be pretty silly to make these certain claims and be telling the truth. So who knows?

0:54:39 Thomas: Can't put it past, you Lively and her PR people to to be, I know, having off the record conversations in ways that would, you channel stuff. I DON'T know. But we're gonna have to see if there's any proof of that. This is the last paragraph of this this section, experiencing the very sudden tidal wave of the increasingly negative public attention building around her, however, Ms. Lively began to suspect that the extraordinarily rapid shift in public sentiment and press coverage that began immediately after the rest of the cast and crew attended the world premiere was likely orchestrated by the men about whom she had raised HR complaints. The next section says Mr. Baldoni retaliated because HR complaints regarding his behavior threatened his feminist brand. Several pages of the complaint are talking about Baldoni's feminist kind of image. So I guess it's just establishing he would want to be protective of that.

0:55:22 Lydia: Cred.

0:55:23 Thomas: Yeah, it's a lot of things that I consumed in the videos and podcasts I listened to. Can read the last paragraph. In sum, Mr. Baldoni has crafted a public image of himself as not just an ally, but also a fierce advocate for women. Contrary to this image as set forth in detail above, Mr. Baldoni has spent the last several months and significant resources on his goal of wanting to bury and destroy Ms. Lively raising concerns about his and his CEO's harassing behavior and other disturbing conduct. Section of the complain is talking about the harm. So it's, you and this stuff, I know how to read this stuff Because in our legal dispute, the other person got some internet expert to say that some article got $11 trillion gazillion. It was just insane. Like it was a flatly absurd claim on its face. It didn't really matter, but it was related to like anti -SLAPP and whether, you know, how much something was distributed. So point is, I be bullshit. It could be not. But there's hired people to research this kind of negative campaign. They claim that there's this market increase in this negative publicity and all this stuff. Stuff. You know, they have compelling graph. That's like sentiment was, you know, green. And then in

0:56:26 Lydia: Versus negative.

0:56:27 Thomas: August starts going totally negative in ways that seem crazy. A moment ago, I was going to point out, I wasn't sure if we'd have more text, but it was interesting that it left off on the 16th and It said, as of August 16th, Ms. Nathan was continuing to confer with additional reporters to release stories that would cast Ms. Lively and or Mr. Reynolds in a negative light. That strongly suggests that that's the last date they had texts from.

0:56:27 Lydia: Negative

0:56:51 Thomas: Know Abel was or left maybe terminated. We'll talk about it from Jonesworks on the 21st. So interesting, you five day time lag there. But maybe she knew she was leaving and transitioned to a different phone.

0:56:59 Lydia: Well the 17th and 18th were the weekend so yeah

0:57:06 Thomas: Who knows? Yeah, that clearly, I think, indicates when the texts go up to and is pretty consistent with the theory that this is Jones. I think it's overdetermined at this point. The rest is about trying to establish the harm. I won't go through that because I don't think it's important right now. Take it for granted that if if her allegations are true, they did cause a lot of harm. We'll just say that.

0:57:06 Lydia: Could be

0:57:27 Thomas: But, you know, it's also something they have to prove.

0:57:27 Lydia: Well and a lot of this is yeah and a little bit of it is like a lot more of it foundation for like what um damages they could recover as a result so if all of this stuff is true then this it's

0:57:37 Thomas: We do want to note that of course um York Time sought comment from Baldoni and Brian Friedman pin in that uh gave a statement. I think, for the sake of fairness, I think we should read the statement. Is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its representatives as yet another desperate attempt to fix her negative reputation, which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign für den Film, interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions. These claims are completely false, outrageous, and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media. Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film to alongside their own representative with Jones works employed by Stephanie Jones due to the multiple demands threats, and threats made by Miss Lively during production, which included her threatening to not showing up at the set. That is one long sentence. That whole thing is one sentence. This is, this got lost in that sentence because it was, in my opinion, kind of badly written. Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film to work alongside their own representative with Jonesworks employed by Stephanie Jones due the multiple demands and threats made by Miss Lively during production, which included her threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to be a part of the were not met. That's a sentence. Was also discovered that Miss Lively enlisted her own representative, Leslie Sloan, with Vision PR, who also represents Mr. Reynolds, to plant negative and completely fabricated and false stories with the media, even prior to any marketing had commenced for the film, reason why Wayfarer Studios made the decision to hire a crisis professional to commence internal scenario planning in case they needed to address. Representatives of Wayfarer Studios still did nothing proactive nor retaliated and only responded to incoming media inquiries to ensure balanced and factual reporting and monitored social activity. This is, I'm so sorry, this is badly written. I can't help it. This is bad writing. It's is pointedly missing from the cherry picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise, just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize, which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals. I don't know, hard to believe because they talked about the articles that they published

1:00:12 Lydia: Yeah. And I will say so Leslie Sloan, you issued her own statement, essentially. About a week later, Leslie Sloane is commenting in people issuing her own statement. And she says, I was contacted on August 11th by Sarah Nathan, Melissa Nathan's sister, forwarding an anonymous tip that Page Six received regarding allegations of HR complaints on the set of It Ends With Us. That, I Was contacted by various press outlets asking about allegations of HR compliance. When contacted, I responded to press questions by referring them to Wayfair or Sony for information regarding HR complaints. Clear that Mr. Baldoni and his Wayfaire or associates are suggesting that I originated press stories about hr complaints on set which is false yeah yeah

1:00:53 Thomas: That's pretty clear. Knows? Somebody's lying. Of the information we have right now, I would be more inclined to believe that Friedman and Baldoni's side is lying since we've seen so many texts from their side. But who knows if will come a time when we'll see everything from Baldoni's side and see if it stacks up. Once we'll say those are claims that were just made that can be very easily verified in discovery or, you know, contradicted or, yeah, so we'll keep an eye on that. New York Times particle does go into more of the like creative control stuff that we haven't really touched on because it wasn't so much in Lively's complaint but I think we'll save that that because it'll be, you the same way that we went to Lively's complaint for her claims, I think that this is more going to be Baldoni's side. And so we'll go to his complaint to

1:01:35 Lydia: Oh

1:01:35 Thomas: Get the full response there to do it justice. An interesting sentence here that I I want to bring up in the new york times article as the film released neared miss lively and other cast members informed sony and wayfarer that they would not do any appearances alongside mr baldoni we already know that but so did miss hoover the author who had her own dissatisfactions with him and had become more upset after he told her about miss lively's allegations according to text messages from Baldoni and Heath. Know. It's just interesting.

1:02:04 Thomas: We don't have any more information on that, but that sets up a few things. It sets up that Ms. Hoover already had her own dissatisfactions with him and then became more upset after not Blake Lively, but he told her about Ms. Lively's allegations. That's from messages from Baldoni in Heath. So that's their version of it. So like there's a lot there. That's very interesting. I I don't know if we'll find out what that is, but did

1:02:24 Lydia: Don't have yeah we don't know we don' have any specifics on that and I had mentioned earlier too that in the wake of all of this uh hoover ended up deleting her social media for time.

1:02:40 Thomas: Interesting thing in the New York Times article, Flaw, the person who I think did the deceptively edited YouTube video with the congratulations on your little bump or whatever, this news article does kind of make it seem as though Ms. Flaw was working with Ms. Nathan. So it says, let me just read this. It's weird because we have a quote that says, after publication of this article, and it gives her statement. So it's like there must have been a previous version that went out and then she commented and then they put this in.

1:03:05 Lydia: They did the the update. Mm

1:03:07 Thomas: So that's kind of weird. But after of this Article, Ms. Flaw 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. Quote, it was neither coordinated nor influenced by anyone associated with the alleged campaign, she wrote. Then this is the part that I think must have already been there in the article. Wasn't the first time she had posted a video aligned with a client of Ms. Nathan. 2022, in the midst of Mr. Depp's legal battle with Ms. Hurd, Ms. Flaw posted clips of her interviews with the actor tagged hashtag justice for Johnny Depp. Interesting.

1:03:46 Lydia: Very curious.

1:03:46 Thomas: The... Hold on. That's the only place where she's included in this. It's New York Times. It's not even Blake Lively.

1:03:52 Lydia: That's it. Yeah. Uh, for a little bit of you This Blake Lively interview was done in 2016, and then on August 10th, she decided to share it for, you just no reason, just about time to start calling out people in Hollywood. Months later, yeah, two months later she she an interview that she did with Anne Hathaway that was very uncomfortable. Comfortable and why wasn't that the one that she shared in august like why was it specifically the blake one I don't know just

1:04:04 Thomas: She said because it's about time that, Says the pro Johnny Depp person.

1:04:25 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, she, yeah, I think that we'll talk about it because I think there's got to be a whole section on her. I see it as plausible that she's taking advantage of that there already was a bit of a, hate you storm starting. So I think her kind of taking advantage OF that and inserting into it, I is very plausible to me. Interesting is and we've covered this, but just to reiterate, York Times had access to everything. Blake Lively seems to have given them access to everything. A quote in here that it seems really damning that they published, but that's not in Blake Lively's complaint. Seems interesting. The text exchanges, Mr. Baldoni encourages the PR team, sometimes flagging social media posts for them to use. On August 15th, he proposes, quote, flipping the narrative. So we did have the flipping the narrative part. It says on a positive story about Miss Lively and her husband by quote, using their own words against them. We did have that, but then here's the part that's not in the complaint. It really seems like it should have been. 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. Another occasion, he wondered whether they were deploying fake bot accounts on social media. I I can full, fully confirm we do not have bots, Ms. Nathan wrote, adding that any digital team would be too intelligent to, quote utilize something so obvious. Wallace, that's Jed Jed Wallace's operation, she wrote, is, quote, doing something very specific in terms of what they do. I know Jamie and Jed connected on this.

1:05:55 Lydia: Vague statement means nothing yeah

1:05:57 Thomas: I wonder if, you know, maybe the reason Lively didn't include that in her complaint is it paints more of a picture of Baldoni not knowing what's going on exactly. I think that could be slightly undermining the idea that he's retaliating. I don't really think it does because it's his team. Like you can't have, you can, you can get out of that obligation to not retaliate by just hiring a PR to attack someone.

1:06:07 Lydia: That's a good point yeah and for them to take the the fall.

1:06:23 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. So I think this is one of those things where, again, when you're writing a complaint, you're trying to make it as convincing as you can. It might, this might be one of those where it's like, well, yeah. That quote like sort of makes it seem like he might not not know what's going on, which might suggest he wasn't behind this or something. Maybe it's just speculation on my part, but I think that's pretty damning actually. Can we say somehow that we are not doing any of this? Looks like we're trying to take her down. I don't know. Or, you maybe there's some other explanation. You could theorize that there's other that texts are like, confirming you that they're not trying to taker down. But if that were true, the New York Times would not have published that because they have access to everything. Thing. And I am incredibly skeptical the the, idea that the New York times would knowingly commit defamation, uh, the way that like, it is so hard for the Newark times to lose on defamation. One way they could would be if they knowingly like published falsified stuff, you know, like, and the idea of that would get through their legal team and their waves of reporters who have a lot lot of experience in this exact thing, I don't find plausible at all. So interesting.

1:07:20 Lydia: Note on bots. So, you we have Melissa Nathan as saying that, like, fully, fully do not use bots. You know, it's not sophisticated enough to, saying, like that's like a really kind of superficial move, like people would see right through that. Know we're not digging into the Amber Heard case here, but I have been listening to an investigative podcast where they are talking about like how sophisticated bots can actually be, where it's not just like bots that have no history on their social media. Media very obvious um exactly but like are ways that you can make it seem like this person has had their social media profile for their whole fake life and um know that they're interacting on on different things and stuff like that so

1:07:49 Thomas: We're, we're way past that. Especially with AI. I mean, it just gets easier and easier to just, yeah.

1:08:02 Lydia: With ai so how in the world I I just that statement from melissa nathan I feel like I can't totally And, that's what I mean, that

1:08:12 Thomas: Maybe she's saying, oh, we don't have bots in that, you 2010 sense or whatever, 20, you now of like, yeah, they're yeah doing is more sophisticated, Which might also, parentheses, might also still be bots, but just more creative and convincing.

1:08:22 Lydia: People. Yeah. Mm hmm. Hmm, yeah.

1:08:26 Thomas: So that is everything thus far from Lively's side on the alleged smear campaign. Pretty convincing. Strikes It me that there been more. I feel like there's still more in Discovery. There's still more. And again, all their texts just go up to August 16th and it was still going on after that for a while. So again, reminding everyone that it's not normal to even have texts from the other side at this time. So the complaint could have just been on information and belief. They were doing this, you know.

1:08:54 Lydia: Exactly. Exactly. And as stated earlier, too, like it just needs to survive any motion to dismiss. And there's

1:09:01 Thomas: It'll be interesting to see if we get more demonstration of that campaign that's not just you merely reactionary but is proactive um many more bad texts with the read now think about this we blake lively already has a lot of stuff just from miss able imagine getting discovery on jamie heath and baldoni and sarowitz And, you know, And I'll also say something that obviously I every lawyer probably knows that a might not. To withhold anything from discovery is a very stupid thing to do because gets so complicated and it's so easy to be proven that you're doing something wrong. Wrong. And if you're shown to be withholding in a serious way, to it simply, the judge will then just kind against you in terms of whatever they were trying to prove. So it'll be like, well, we will take an adverse inference that whatever the other side was trying to say would be in your text is actually there. And that's stating it very generally. There's more to it. But point is, messing around with that is not good. Reason I bring it up is Because having access to something like a bunch of texts from someone else helps

1:10:00 Thomas: A lot to single damn one of those texts that Heath and Baldoni are included on is not in the stuff they hand over, that's an incredibly easy way to know that they're withholding. Don't think they would. I think this is the kind of thing where it would be pretty foolish, but it's just another, another way that Lively has to guarantee that, they're you going to get a lot of stuff and feel it to non -lawyers or people who haven't been a part of this, that it would Be easy to like withhold stuff. It's really not because like, you just don't think about how many different ways there are to verify something like different metadata or something's mentioned or someone else's, you never know if the other side of the conversation has produced something. Something and so then they'll see like hey there's a text that they've produced that you're in on that you haven't produced and the minute you go down that road it's very bad for you so we're gonna see it you know we're likely to see a lot of stuff and I can only imagine jamie heath and and baldoni's texts like

1:10:50 Thomas: I feel like we'll see I mean we have a lot to go through but that is going to be something but you could also say that uh blake lively's texts in which she planned this entire thing and made it all up. Those will be very damning too.

1:11:01 Lydia: You could say that.

1:11:04 Thomas: Right. Well, on the next gavel gavel, we have gone an exceptionally long time without having our actual attorney and on the podcast. So So episode is going to be with our amazing lawyer, Anne Linder, coming on to talk give us a breakdown on the law, of what we talked about so far. She's going to comment on some of my guesses, some ofmy theories about stuff. I'll run those by her. We'll see what she thinks. Looking forward forward to it, and we'll see you then.