Lively v. Baldoni 6 - Crisis PR Firms Are Literal Satan

Transcript

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

0:00:26 Thomas: And welcome to Gavel Gavel. This is episode 6 of Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni. Thomas, that over there is Lydia Smith. How you doing?

0:00:33 Lydia: Hello, I am doing okay. We're going to talk about some crazy stuff today. Whole thing's been crazy, but yeah, yeah, that's fair. But

0:00:40 Thomas: As opposed to the totally chill, normal stuff. The way we'll be doing this is we're going to release a chunk at a time because it doesn't really make sense to go through like some of a complaint and release that. And then some, so this next chunk, so good news, bad news, good news and bad news of the chunk system. Yeah. Yeah.

0:00:52 Lydia: We got chunks.

0:01:00 Thomas: The chunk method of podcasting. Chunk is a very, I potentially underrated chunk of the whole thing, even by me. And is the Stephanie Jones versus Abel and others at all complaint portion. This first I kind of thought this was like a bit of an afterthought. It's just kind of like, ah, it doesn't matter that much. Turns out this part is actually really important and it has a lot of stuff that, yeah, as far as chunks go. Oh, one this is a, like part saga that, that we're releasing now, we're still going to release these on a bit of a delay for normies. Sorry, normies, if you want to go on patreon.com/gavel pod, you can listen to all three episodes of this particular chunk right now in a row. Normies, you may have to wait a day or two. We're going to balance out the releases on the public feed. This is all about Stephanie Jones. It's an interesting episode. So I actually want break to point, the fourth, third wall, fourth wall. How many walls are there normally in a room? I guess if you're in the Pentagon, it could be different. But in a typical room, I suppose I'm

0:01:23 Lydia: An important chunk.

0:01:59 Thomas: Breaking the fourth wall,

0:01:59 Lydia: It's like, does the ceiling count? I don't know. I'm here like really trying to figure it out.

0:02:03 Thomas: I never really thought about that. Yeah, but no, but I'm bringing the fourth one a little. Little, normally I really, um, just a dumb thing about me for some reason. I really like preserving the flow and the like original conversation of my podcast. Like method of podcasting tends to be, we record a ton and then we edit down to the good stuff rather than like trying to sculpt something ahead of time. Just not good at that. And

0:02:07 Lydia: Yeah To use a word that gets used a lot in this entire saga, would you call it organic? It actually is organic.

0:02:32 Thomas: Yeah, it is. It is. Is different, as you can tell from the fact that we're talking about this in the past tense. Redoing this intro, because in this first episode where we were talking about, this is the first episode in the Stephanie Jones chunk of three, just to, Stephanie Jones, A New Hope. Yeah, a new chunk. We were talking about the fallout. So this episode you're about to hear is about the fallout and talking about that, we talked about Jennifer Abel and her posting, and then we started talking about crisis PR and PR firms. I started talking about my experience with a crisis PR firm in our legal awfulness that we had. Actually really relevant. And I think it's pretty interesting. I did that and then we edited and then and I didthat, I realized like, oh, great. Do this thing where when I'm trying to tell an unpleasant story like that, I'm trying to like not get into it. I'm I'mtrying to not do 14 hours on it. So I'm like trying to say as little as possible. Then I realized the way we did it, it not gonna make any sense to anyone who doesn't know that story so

0:02:48 Lydia: A three -part chunk. Yeah

0:03:33 Thomas: We had to make the decision to either rid of it or keep it in but modify it and so we are doing is I need to tell that story in a way that everyone will be able to follow along and we also wanted to re -record this intro to say there's a bit of that story there are people who have asked who I think weren't there at the time have asked like that story and I'm going to tell a little bit of it it's directly involves crisis pr and and how horrible those people are and so this first episode is going to be about the fallout and it's also going to be a bit of my story of my experience. I say my, even though it was both us, this was actually kind of my interaction with this crisis PR firm. Don't want people to think I'm just like excluding you from the story.

0:04:08 Lydia: I busy with a five-week-old baby when all this was happening so you know

0:04:15 Thomas: Just easy, light, non -stressful stuff. So that's also going to be later as well. So that's the agenda. It's a three part Stephanie Jones chunk. You can get all of it, including, you the second two episodes focus on her complaint, which is very fascinating. Go through it all. Doing. We do the reading and we bring you along on the journey. So that'S what you can expect. Um after this break we'll that get to that first episode can avoid the ads and get all three episodes right away on patreon .com slash gavel pod hope you do so hope you enjoy it all right with that said it's episode one a new chunk all Okay, so the New York Times article drops.

0:04:56 Thomas: Justin Baldoni is taken into custody. There's much rejoicing.

0:04:56 Lydia: Drops. Yeah. Never to be heard from again. Yeah. So we're talking December 20th, 2024, when the New York Times is reaching out for comment. December 21st, 2024. The New York times article goes live at 10 11 a .m.

0:05:15 Thomas: Do as a little teaser, the New York Times article wasn't the first article to go live with the complaint.

0:05:22 Lydia: Were multiple, but the entity that broke it and the the .10 in the morning, they started working on the complaint article, and at 7 .54 a .m., they broke it. Entities after that cited TMZ as being the source of Blake Lively -Justin Baldoni issue.

0:05:42 Thomas: Which pin in that for later, because if a theory is that the New York Times article caused a bunch of fallout, then legal theory is That it could perhaps be relevant that some articles came out before that. And one in particular, from TMZ was cited by all the other ones, and not the New

0:06:03 Lydia: So then just a few hours after the New York Times story drops, WME, William Morris Endeavor, a talent agency, announced that they were dropping Justin Baldoni.

0:06:15 Thomas: OK, I'm so sorry. Mind My is doing backflips right now because I don't know if you said W .M .E. William Morris Endeavor or William Morris and ever.

0:06:25 Lydia: Endeavor.

0:06:27 Thomas: I genuinely didn't know. I was like, it's 50 50. It's like Endeavor, like it's their Endeavor.

0:06:29 Lydia: That's fair. That's fair, yes. I'll give actually a little bit of history about WME in just a second. But

0:06:37 Thomas: Here we go. This is what Lydia is good for. Year was 1843.

0:06:42 Lydia: So they dropped him just a couple.

0:06:44 Thomas: Upstart actor by the name John Wilkes Booth needs some representation.

0:06:48 Lydia: They dropped him just a couple hours after the New York Times story was released. And Deadline reported, quote, due at least in part to the sexual harassment and retaliation complaint. WME, importantly, never issued any statement, really. Like the only information we know is that they dropped Justin Baldoni.

0:07:03 Thomas: Interesting. We know? We do know that. But how do we know that?

0:07:06 Lydia: We do know that. Know,

0:07:07 Thomas: Just some sort of source for...

0:07:07 Lydia: That's a good, some sort of source via deadline. Yeah, yeah. It hasn't been disputed or anything like that. So I think that's pretty clear indicator there. WME, I want to talk a little bit about this. I know it's seems a little scene that we're dealing with when it comes to this particular talent agency. Morris Endeavor was named that because of a 2009 merger between Morris Agency and the Endeavor Talent Agency.

0:07:38 Thomas: Space Shuttle Endeavor. I like

0:07:41 Lydia: They represent a lot of artists. So, you know, something that will come up. Blake Lively is a client. Reynolds is a

0:07:50 Thomas: My merger better. It's just like, well, I don't know. It is a space shuttle and it is William Morris. Now they are one thing. It was like the fly. Now, they are combined. The entire NHL? Or are you saying players within the NHL.

0:07:53 Lydia: Space. NHL.

0:08:02 Thomas: Oh, wow. Okay.

0:08:03 Lydia: The league.

0:08:04 Thomas: Wait, Sorry. Who? Do they, what do they do? Was about to ask if they're responsible for like advertisements, like, probably not.

0:08:08 Lydia: No, they're agents, agents and things like that. So I don't know like what exactly they do with regard to the NHL.

0:08:13 Thomas: I have absolutely no idea. I actually, I'm going to pretend. Oh yeah. Okay, they're agents.

0:08:17 Lydia: Yeah. Also a majority owner of WWE and UFC through the TKO group, which is also like, yeah, an interesting tie in for a variety of other things. Specifically the CEO. Of William Morris Endeavor is a man named Ari Emanuel. He is going to come up quite a few times, I think, throughout this entire saga. WME has little bit of a history when it comes to sexual indiscretion allegations. So in 2017, I imagine you remember this. Terry Crews said that Adam Bennett, the head of WME's motion picture department, had squeezed his genitals at

0:08:22 Thomas: Ooh, interesting. Oh, wow.

0:08:59 Lydia: A party. It yeah.

0:09:00 Thomas: Do remember the accusation. No, it wouldn't have stuck in my mind who it was, but I wasn't sure if you were about to say it's like people they've represented, but no, actually them, like some people. Okay

0:09:08 Lydia: Yes, exactly. Said they suspended Bennett following an internal investigation. However, they welcomed him back to work after a month of unpaid leave. As a result, Terry Crews was pretty upset and he sued WME and Adam Bennett specifically on December 4th, 2017. ended up getting settled. Have some information here regarding the settlement. Had to pay Terry Crews three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars to cover his attorney fees. And part of the settlement was that Bennett had to resign. So he he did so. 2018 was when he resigned. And there a provision in the settlement that WME cannot rehire him. Any capacity in the future it like a pretty yeah

0:09:52 Thomas: Like that. Yeah, I'm glad you said right when you said settlement. It's like, well, I like this wouldn't be an issue of like, give me some money by Terry Crews. You know, like at that point when successful. He's got chosen syndication stuff. He got money. And so I'm it was more about like, hey, no, don't hire this guy.

0:10:06 Thomas: But that does go to show like even a male victim who has a much easier time. Something and the person just gets suspended for a month and rehired. And, and, Terry Crews has to go through a whole legal battle to, do a settlement, to just have them not hire him.

0:10:03 Lydia: This is wrong yeah yeah he just comes back mm -hmm yeah just to say it's inappropriate for him to be working in this space because of what he did

0:10:27 Thomas: It's amazing. You think of like, if that was your, punishment, your like, all right, here's how we're going to let you off with this punishment. Here's the punishment. Don't hire an alleged groper. Be like, oh, that's If our company had that, like, hey, don't hire this alleged groper. Done and done. I wasn't going to that. That's crazy. Why would I ever do that?

0:10:35 Lydia: That's easy yeah Thank you.

0:10:46 Thomas: Just goes to show like lot of this is like these personal relationships and like these, people you seem to just have a way of sticking around.

0:10:52 Lydia: Think it's also like undoing this really like pervasive culture in Hollywood and in entertainment spaces where like we saw that like via Me Too and stuff, right, where it's like these things that just kind of were, you this is just part of the industry and you think you have to deal with it. And at a certain point, you're like, wait a second. No, I don't. This is my workplace. And I absolutely do not have to new policies around sexual assault and battery, including new employee training and a new requirement that quote, requires allegations to be reported to the heads of the firm's legal and human resources departments. So really kind of firming up like not only is this unacceptable in this instance, but you guys need to right your ship when it comes to the culture that you are in your space, you know, that that people could take advantage of. Right. Like lay that groundwork and that foundation and just get it really firm that. X, Y and Z are not allowed. And honestly, it puts WME in a better position, too. In some ways, this was, you for the best for them.

0:11:23 Thomas: Interesting. It's almost like they're like, okay, Terry Crews, we'll pay you $350 ,000 for some HR consulting. It's kind of weird. But that would apply to that company and their employees, right? It doesn't necessarily apply to people their agents are representing.

0:12:03 Lydia: It is weird. Yeah yeah. I I mentioned Ari Emanuel and a little bit about the. Potential culture that WME allowed or at least kind of looked away from. Emanuel is also someone that has like popped up in this space, too, if you go back even further. So in 2002, before the merger with William Morris Agency, when it was solely Endeavor, yeah, Endeavor Talent Agency. A number of employees sued Ari Emanuel specifically and said that there was a pornographic website being operated out of their offices at this talent agency and that Ari Emanuele made racist and anti -gay remarks. Disputed it, but they settled for two and a quarter million dollars in 2002.

0:12:33 Thomas: Just space shuttle, yeah. 2000. Oh, so this is a long time. Yeah.

0:12:57 Lydia: Is a long time ago. Yeah. So,

0:12:59 Thomas: So like when the nation's policy was anti -gay. Okay, a little bit different. I mean, Hollywood's going to be a different story, but still like the context is a bit different that long ago. But yeah.

0:13:08 Lydia: Is. But I think think it is to say that, things you that were happening come 2017, who knows how much better it actually got. And hopefully it's better now. Who really knows? Then just a quick little side note. Whitesell is the executive chairman with William Morris Endeavor. I And just bring him up because he. Was married to Lauren Sanchez, who is Jeff Bezos' current fiance. It was the heard around the world when Bezos had been having an affair with Lauren Sanquez. He was married to Mackenzie Scott, while Lauren Sanchez was married To Patrick Whitesell, they ended up both divorcing And now Lauren Sanquez is engaged to be married to Jeff Bezos So just kind of a little random fun fact, I guess For folks, that's another thing that I bring to the table So we mentioned WME drops him within hours, right? Lot of the movement for this fallout really happens between that December 21st, December 23rd time frame. How to Fail podcast takes down his guest episode that was published just a couple weeks before on December 4th. And the host of that, Elizabeth Day, specifically. A statement where she said, I have made the decision to remove the recent How to Fail interview with Justin Baldoni from all platforms while the distressing allegations made against him in Blake Lively's recent filing are fully investigated. Every individual has a right to a safe workplace. Every woman has the right to dignity in that workplace.

0:13:49 Thomas: So fun. Huh.

0:14:33 Lydia: He lost an award that he won very recently from organization called Vital Voices Global Partnership, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing and supporting women leaders. And they have a specific award called the Voices of Solidarity Award that they. Give to a that they feel has shown, quote, courage and compassion in advocating on behalf of women and girls. And so on December 9th, they had recognized him with that award. On December 21th, learned of the news. And December 23rd, they rescinded his award and they notified him that. They were taking it back. They removed all mentions of his honor from the event coverage on the website. Was scrubbed completely like it never happened. The flip side, during this time period, Blake Lively was receiving a lot of support. Were issued from the other girls from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. So Alexis Bledel, America Ferrara and I Tamwin. From the movie, It Ends With Us, which is unsurprising because they participated in, you press with her and not with him. And they attended the red carpet with her. So Slate, Brandon Sklenner, Colleen Hoover, again, the author of the book that had formed a working relationship with Justin Baldoni as far back as 2019 when they were talking about optioning her book to a movie. Additionally, Blake Lively's half sister, Robin Lively, who had brief a moment in the movie, she's also an actress, came out in support unsurprisingly, as did her husband, an actor named Bart Johnson. Who has seen High School Musical will know him. On December 23rd, he something pretty striking on Twitter. I'm just going to read it to you in full.

0:16:39 Lydia: Ouch. He issued that, he apologize for the, intense his language was there. He did not apologize for the support he was showing Blake Lively, but that, you know, he does expect himself to be a kinder person and that the way that he approached like his language there was was not very kind.

0:17:02 Thomas: Thought it was fine.

0:17:03 Lydia: Some folks that were working on the movie that Blake Latively. Coming out after this, A Simple Favor, which is a sequel to the installment, A Single Favor. Paul Feag, the is one of the folks that came out in strong support, as did her co -star in this, one of her co stars in this Michelle Marone. Marone had a video and said, it's usually not my thing to make these kinds of videos, but I think it's time to stand up for a person that I really love. And this person is Blake Lively. Felt something was wrong and I felt the pain when they met. We had the opportunity to talk about it, me and her. Blake was in pain. I think. Clearly whatever happened on set was enough. She carried it with her to her next project. I mean, that's that a significant thing.

0:17:48 Thomas: That hate spiral that happened? Or is it based on just the filming itself?

0:17:55 Lydia: Principal photography began in late march 2024 and then it wrapped may 26 2024 so it was before all that yeah based on the filming itself, unless, you know, I mean, people like don't have perfect memories and stuff. So so who knows? But if we're taking Michelle Morone at his word that they had these conversations while they were filming this movie, then it literally could not have been the negative press that occurred in the summer of 2024 because they were already done filming by that point. Additionally, -AFTRA came out in support of Blake Lively. Said, we applaud Blake Lively's courage in speaking out on issues of retaliation and harassment and for her request to have an intimacy coordinator for all scenes with nudity or sexual content. This is an important step that helps ensure a safe set. Later go on to say employees have every right to raise issues of concern or to file complaints. Retaliation for reporting misconduct or inappropriate behavior is illegal and wrong. Came out in support of Blake Lively.

0:18:50 Thomas: That's interesting.

0:18:51 Lydia: Yeah, I said, we have previously expressed our support for Blake in connection with her work on and for the film. We fully and firmly reiterate that support today. Further, we strongly condemn any reputational attacks on her. Any such attacks have no place in our business or in a civil society. Kind of an interesting take.

0:19:10 Thomas: Sort of. They're walking a fine line that I'm sure we'll talk about where they're first they're like, well, we're just the distributors. And like, fair enough, they were just distributors, but then they kind of got involved a little and then so I imagine that their legal is not thrilled with that because, you know, the minute you kind of take a hand in something like that. Alleged, workplace situation, then you kind of own it a little bit or you at least have some liability. And so, yeah, and it is interesting that not. They're they're also not really like statement they're doesn't really actively say much about the allegations or anything. It's sort of just like we support her work, which that's interesting.

0:19:34 Lydia: Bit of liability, potentially. Yeah, yeah.

0:19:46 Thomas: We'll keep an eye on that.

0:19:46 Lydia: And interesting bit support from a random corner of the world. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

0:19:53 Thomas: I saw this one.

0:19:54 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. So he and Blake Lively had worked together on a documentary for PBS back in 2015 about sex trafficking in the United States. And he wrote about his experience. I found her authentic, delightful and committed. She wanted to use her celebrity to help chip away at misogyny and oppression. 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 um you know pretty pretty favorable response from uh little random corner of the world I think um the flip side Baldoni's fallout continues. So December 23rd, Liz Plank quits the Man Enough podcast. She was a co -host alongside him, Justin Baldoni, as well as Jamie Heath. Her statement. Was, writing to you today to let you know that I have had my representatives inform Wayfarer that I will no longer be co -hosting the Man Enough podcast. Thank you for trusting me with your hearts and stories, for holding space for mine, and for making the show what it was. I will miss you, the listeners, so much. I love what this community created together with every fiber of my being, and that's because of you. Goes on to say, as this chapter closes for me, I remain committed to the values we've built together. Thank you for being here, for trusting me, and for being by my side for the last four years. We all deserve better, and I know that together we can create it. I will have more to share soon as I continue to process everything that has happened. In the meantime, I will continue to support everyone who calls out injustice and holds the people standing in their way accountable.

0:21:33 Lydia: Notably, she, I think I mentioned this previously, but she did not take pictures with Justin Baldoni on the red carpet for It Ends With Us before this happened, back in August.

0:21:32 Thomas: That's interesting before this even blew up. We know that's like an intentional thing you think, or, interesting. Well, we've talked about quite a lot. She's yeah. She is whose texts you've a heard lot of.

0:21:46 Lydia: Cannot say for sure, but feels like everything that happened on that red carpet was intentional. This same day, a character we've talked about a little bit, Abel posts on Facebook. That's true. So. Question. When it seems like shit is hitting the fan, should you go post on Facebook?

0:22:10 Thomas: Every single lawyer will tell you now.

0:22:13 Lydia: I feel like any lawyer who's listening is like like probably standing up right now, like like shaking.

0:22:18 Thomas: You know, that's an interesting little thing to talk about from our experience, which battle. I had this fight with my lawyers a lot. And really like a fight. I knew they were right, but also. It's so weird that, you were involved in something that on a much smaller scale, but it was very similar where it's like it was a lawsuit, but also the PR mattered quite a lot because where the audience was going to go that I had been cut off from mattered. And so the standard lawyer take and absolutely absolutely sound. Advice. And it makes perfect sense once you say it. If is you can only lose. Making any statement out of sight of court, you cannot win anything. You cannot gain. There's no upside to because statements out of court don't. Don't earn you anything like as a party. Like if you're if you were the party, it you in no way, but they can hurt you. So they can be cited, you like once there's an active lawsuit, no one's going to cite you and be like, well, this is where he said he didn't do it. Because like, yeah, you're already in a lawsuit. That's nothing, you the upside is basically nothing. And the downside is huge. If you say something wrong or, you us, it was just anything we say was going to be like spun in a weird way.

0:23:21 Thomas: And so every lawyer will say, don't don't do anything like this. Now, with my lawyers, there audience that I was cut off from on my show, a audience that wasn't wasn't hearing from me. That represented potentially in the long term. That's like, that's you our whole livelihood like that. That might be that's more than just, you want to make a statement to feel better about, you It's like no, that actually mattered. So we did make some statements where we could. With that recognition in mind that like, does you cause problems. It is going to be something that we see cited back to us in a bunch of crap that's spun and dumb. It was worth it. And sometimes. But, you all good.

0:24:13 Lydia: Yeah, do sympathize with that, too, because like it's your like reputations on the line, right?

0:24:19 Thomas: Maybe Abel thinks she just started her new business, which, you know, she just with her, yeah, with her new client, she kind of took with her. And so maybe she feels like that's a similar situation. Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe she felt like it was a similar position where like, Hey, no one's going to sign with me if they think, you

0:24:24 Lydia: RWA communications. Yeah, it's my livelihood that I yeah. I'm going to read this whole thing because it'S it'S NOT terribly long and I think IT'S interesting. Is I found the screenshots. Yes. All posted. Hi. I never thought the day would come when I needed to defend myself with my own peers. But this certainly has been an interesting and devastating, quite frankly, couple of days. So here we are. But here are the facts. I was never subpoenaed. I found out my private text messages and emails were included in the complaint after I received it on Friday night. And then New York Times contacted me one and a half hours after receipt. Had already reviewed the 80 -page document and had questions prepared and apparently also received, quote, thousands of pages of documents with our correspondence that we never saw. It was clear this was a coordinated effort, but nothing we haven't seen before since I've been working in talent PR for over 15 years now.

0:25:23 Thomas: What? Nothing. You've seen this before. Seeing you leaving your work for personal stuff and taking a client and then that work phone obviously getting subpoena. It's interesting. She said, no, I never received a subpoENA. And to be fair, I'm sure a lot of people thought that. A lot of people who weren't us and didn't go through with a fine tooth comb who didn't instantly recognize like we did. There was Stephanie Jones and Jones works. People did because it said like these were acquired through a subpoena or whatever the wording was. So maybe people did think that.

0:25:52 Thomas: But yeah, seen this before. That's a weird thing to say. I don't really know what that even means.

0:25:58 Lydia: Pay attention to this next little bit, because I think this is going to be very important for the next piece of the docket that we'll be talking about. Had recently left my previous firm, at which I was still with during this campaign.

0:26:10 Thomas: Which I was still with. Did she really say?

0:26:12 Lydia: She did. Yes. Seen her emails

0:26:14 Thomas: There's a reason you need the lawyer. Yeah, well, I'll excuse people for text. I leave out crap and do the wrong thing on text all the time. Like if making this is your statement that you shouldn't be making on Facebook and the world is going to be looking at you and you say at which I am with. Whereas in which I will there have wealth.

0:26:14 Lydia: And her texts. Yeah. Still with during a team who all participated in the campaign and a boss who oversaw and who had access to my work emails and work phone. So you can deduce from that what you will.

0:26:44 Thomas: Am I supposed to deduce from that?

0:26:47 Lydia: The cherry picked messages don't include, although not shockingly, as it doesn't fit the narrative, is that there was no, quote, smear implemented. No negative press was ever facilitated. No social combat plan, although we were prepared for it as it's our job to be ready for any scenario. But we didn't have to implement anything because the Internet was doing the work for us. Sure, we talked about it, contemplated if we needed certain things, flagged accounts that we needed to monitor, worked with the social team to help us stay on top of the narrative so we could act quickly if needed. And yes, we rejoiced and joked in the fact that fans were recognizing our client's heart and work without us having to do anything but keep our heads down and focus on positive interviews for our client. The text show, we sophomorically reveled and again joked privately to each other about the Internet's feedback to the woman whose team was making our lives incredibly difficult over the course of the campaign. I'm human. The long hours, months of preparation on top of my day to day scope. It felt good to see that although we were prepared, we didn't have to do anything over the top to protect our client.

0:27:49 Thomas: Was SHE even allegedly doing, according to these people? Remember, these texts are in August when the movie is premiering. I guess would she just be claiming that her behavior in promoting stuff separately and like, you is that what she's saying? Like all that stuff?

0:28:02 Lydia: And her her quote demands for the premiere. And yeah.

0:28:05 Thomas: And she said her team. So, yeah, I don't know. Who knows?

0:28:07 Lydia: Does go on. So I think we're going to get a little more specificity here. Well, Incredibly difficult, you say? In what way? Funny, you should ask.

0:28:17 Thomas: Okay. I should have let you read on. Thomas, you specifically say opposing

0:28:19 Lydia: I was notified at the start of the campaign that the opposing team had been planting horrible stories about my client as a, quote, fail safe. Yeah.

0:28:31 Thomas: Team. Does that even mean? Opposing team. Very That's revealing to me. Yeah, like what are you talking about? You know, that already means you're doing... Look, they're accused of, yeah, of of against specifically Blake Lively. And you're calling her the opposing team in It's very interesting. It'S very weird. OK, sorry. Go back a word or two.

0:28:36 Lydia: War. They're at odds. Like, yeah. Had been planting horrible stories about my client as a, quote, fail -safe if my client did not comply with the demands set forth for the campaign, which is why we brought on crisis, as it's not something that I do. My sole job was to put together interviews, screening opportunities, and speaking opportunities for my client in support of the film, a standard scope of work. I did my job. What kind of woman would work against another woman who was a victim of all the things being claimed? Thanks for asking. After reviewing the evidence, facts, hard proof that countered every single thing that was being claimed and demanded at the start of production, I made a choice to stand by my client of almost five years who had dedicated his life to the equal treatment of others, especially women, who had no incidence of negative treatment of and who had a wonderful community and team at Wayfair who all held the same moral fortitude and lived their life accordingly. Representatives, we all have to make that choice. So I did that to the best of my ability and felt good about our efforts. My client perfect? No. In fact, he says that he's not perfect so constantly to the point I tell him he needs to be less self -deprecating because it could be taken the wrong way. Blake's feelings valid? It's not my position to say or speculate what she was feeling in these moments that she claims, and I would never slam a woman for speaking her truth.

0:30:09 Thomas: That's wow. OK.

0:30:10 Lydia: Feels like you just did.

0:30:12 Thomas: I don't see how you can get around your that one. But, yeah.

0:30:14 Lydia: At the end of the day, if it's not the truth and there is evidence that proves otherwise, then as a representative, I have to do what I feel is right as well. Also reaction, of course, to Jen Abel's post here. She ended up deleting it. But before she deleted it, there was a comment like at the top that was like, from one PR person to another, you should probably delete this. Folks on Reddit were also responding that like other PR people that were like, this statement is the opposite of PR 101. Do you ever want to work again? Yeesh. Like just all of these things, you know, RIP to the lawyers who aren't going to get to do their Christmas holiday anymore. Yeah, I mean, like all these folks that are in that industry are kind towing that line of like, yeah. You say nothing. You couple days after it comes out.

0:31:01 Thomas: Will say this. Can take that as our first official preview of what likely the case is going to be the other way, which is these texts actually don't show a retaliation campaign. Show a bunch of preparation. Nothing was ever done. I will say my first impulse as you read that to me, my first impulse was, well, it's a bold statement. So bold that when you're already embroiled in a lawsuit, you know, well wait, no, so far it's just the CRD complaint, huh?

0:31:28 Lydia: Yeah.

0:31:29 Thomas: So the actual legal complaint has not dropped yet. So maybe she doesn't necessarily. Figure she's involved in a lawsuit yet, maybe, but point is, it's a bold thing to say because very quickly discovery and or the text you already know they have could disprove that. So part of me is like, well, that's interesting. You know, maybe there will be truth to that. The other part of is like well, I also know these people are willing to say anything. And I also think that the PR instinct. Be one thing, but might the not be thinking in terms of a lawsuit. And so PR, you just deny, deny, and that's what works great for PR for legal purposes. Doesn't look great if you are impeached very easily, you something like that. So like at trial, if it gets there. If just easily shown to be a liar, like, oh, you said this. Well, what about this message we now have where you said, yes, commence the campaign against Blake or whatever, you know, something like that. That's a very bad thing. Very document bad to have for your credibility. So I I will say that like maybe this could signal that in her mind she think that that's true. Maybe or. She's a PR person who I'm not. I have a bias. I will say I think I have reasonable suspicion of. I don't know. So, going to keep that in mind, though.

0:32:51 Thomas: Where I'm going to to talk about my experience with crisis PR people and why their opinions don't fucking matter and you should never listen to anything they say. I say crisis PR. Actually, I'm torn about whether I'm talking about all PR people or crisis PR People. I actually don't know. To some degree, I think it's all PR People, but I do think you could have a PR job that's mostly just like, oh, we're trying to get someone out there, trying to give them exposure, do interviews. That's fine. But we talk specifically about crisis PR, the thing they do is evil. Like it just it just fucking is. I mean, there could be a handful of examples where someone is actually a good or innocent person who has a PR crisis and needs help with it. I guess that could exist. What is 95, I'm imagining, plus percent of all of their work is here is an awful person. Can you lie creatively and profusely and people and gaslight large numbers of people into thinking an evil, shitty person is actually not so bad? That's the job and it's fundamentally in my opinion like not sorry I was gonna say sorry but no I'm not sorry if you work in crisis pr quit your fucking job do anything else another in reason we're doing this series is because I'm so disturbing how much the truth is just lost in this day and age if broad strokes the if if the job you're doing wouldn't know whatever it is, is contributing to the complete -apocalyptic nihilist fucking universe out there of facts don't matter and the truth is impossible to ascertain because there's so many lies. If you're contributing to that in any way, quit your fucking job. If you are either neutral or trying to help bring out truth into the world in some way, whatever that is, whatever way that is. Or you're just neutral. Your job is something that has nothing to do with it. Great. Stay in your job if it's a good job. But like, honestly, I just so sickened and saddened by how hard it is to know the truth seemingly, unless you put in a whole lot of work. Is one of the many reasons I'm s fascinated by this story is because it involves these very bad actors. So here's my story. Once caveats, this is a tiny, tiny fraction of the story. Telling as little as I can to bring everyone along,

0:34:53 Thomas: But still tell it. So broadly speaking, I I started a show in 2016 called Opening Arguments with a co -host and law grad attorney, Andrew Torrez, who was a very, intelligent guy who was good explaining at the law, had and it took off. It It was also right place, right time, because Trump happened like right after we launched it. And if you weren't there when this happened, I a lot of it, lot, a a lots. So please don't take this as a complete picture of what happened. 2023, just after the birth of our baby Remy and in the most stressful time, well, each after that broke the record, but at that time, the most stressful time, The show was actually at its peak. We had switched to four episodes a week. I was working way too much and we just had a baby. It was impossible.

0:35:36 Lydia: Kid.

0:35:36 Thomas: It Was Hell. That's when we out that there was going to be an article coming out about Andrew's dealings with women, particularly online and and that kind of thing, which, that article comes out to skip out on so much of the backstory because it's for another time. I can't get into it now because it just, it's too much. But long, long, Long Story Short, this article came out, reason to think that Andrew was going to take accountability, was going to offer his sincerest possible apology, was going to take time off and we'd go from there. That was what I always expected to happen because was always, however he handled it, hoped and I would help him make accountability and become that one good example. You know how everyone, when it comes to Me Too, they point to, what's Harmon as like the best apology. They're like, that is a great example of some, I hoped and think believed to a wide extent that that would be what Andrew would do. And then it would be up to the audience and we would figure it out. You know, this is a very weird thing for which there is no playbook. It's a bizarre, it's a two -person company with no contract. I knew that I had obligations to him. It's not my show. We were a 50 -50 with no tiebreaker, no contract, so no way to break ties. Figured that is just what he would do. What became evident this shit started hitting the fan that he wasn't really going to do that. And for that to be clear. One of the major signs of that was that he hired a crisis PR firm. He said, hey, these are the best people. They've dealt with so many things. I think his sister -in -law had either worked with them with somebody or something. He knew them somehow. They are called Red Banyan. They're not the same crisis PR firm that anyone used in this story but there's they're all they're all the same their function is essentially the same

0:37:22 Thomas: We'll

0:37:22 Lydia: I have some things to share later about them.

0:37:23 Thomas: Talk about yeah we'll talk about them because it became almost funny much later on to see how shitty they were I didn't know I didn'T know all I knew is I'm in the most high anxiety horrible time of my life with a newborn baby, and I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it. Andrew says, okay, I'm hiring this crisis PR firm. Should really work with them because they know how to handle these kinds of things. And I'm thinking that I already hate this because in my mind, the way I am with everything with my podcast is I'm an open book. I I wear my heart on my sleeve. I have ADHD, so I over explain and say everything anyway. If I try. Yeah, it's just it's how I am.

0:38:01 Lydia: It's always for better or for worse.

0:38:02 Thomas: Yeah. It's like it's it's just there's people who can't stand that style. I get it. They listen to other podcasts. It's fine. Reason I say that is I've always felt a very like personal connection to the listenership. Not like directly, but like It's a genuine parasocial relationship. And it actually kind of goes two ways. Like actually get a lot out of expressing, you know, when we're talking about opening arguments and we're telling people and we were talking about the, the state of the country, politics, all that stuff. I get a Lot out of our expressions of that interacting with different audience having a back and forth. And I'm very open about everything. And say nothing of my other shows which are deeply personal shows like Dear Old Dads. So my feeling always was was, that Andrew's not going to PR firm his way out Of this. That seemed insane to me. It didn't make any sense. Always thought, okay, say everything, you know, I'm always just like, there's going to be he'll have his explanation for stuff. He'll have his story. Will tell it as best he can. Then let the chips fall where they may. If the audience says, fuck you forever, then that's what it is. Then he has to go away. If he audience is willing to forgive, you you know, we'll figure it out. That was always my assumption that he hires this crisis PR firm. Away, I noticed that instead of taking accountability in any real way, what it looked to me like was Andrew was almost offloading his morality to these folks. Like he almost like stopped being like person a in my view, like he stopped being like the person that was the center of all this and needed to reconcile. It almost looked like was, it he was like paying money to just like, Hey, you figure out how to do this or something to these people. And It, It disturbed me. But he had said, Hey. You should use them. You Should should, work with them because they know what they're doing. And so I kind of like, I would run stuff by them, but I made it very clear I'm still ultimately going to do what I'm going to, I mean, I say what I want to say. I will consult them because then they prepared a statement for me. This statement was dog shit. Was dismissive. One, it also tried to like mimic like my style and it did it in the stupidest, horrible way. It Was like, Hey, you know, I'll never ghost you audience. And I was like, Jesus fucking Christ. It WAS like, hey, fellow kids, you knows the dumbest, that was the least of the worries. Cause I never would, I never would have put that out out in a million years. It also minimized and didn't. And indeed, it seemed to be written from a perspective of just genuinely not being aware of the breadth of accusations against Andrew. The point where I was like, what's going on? Like, I wrote an angry email back when they sent me the statement. I said, what the fuck is this shit? Like it's almost like you don't even know what's happening.

0:40:19 Lydia: Yeah

0:40:19 Thomas: Like this is this is nonsense, like I asked them, hey, don't you know about this thing and this thing? They're like, like we only know what he's told us. So I'm thinking, well, that's not going to work. Like If I'm going to accept that you're trying to help or whatever, at a bare minimum, you have to know what's happening. Like you help is going to be useless if you don't even know the full truth. He told them everything. I confronted him and was like, did you not tell them about like other stuff stuff that didn't make it to the article, but was public, you know, that was like in, it was public. It was available. It's being shared by our audience. Like they knew about it. He said, oh, I told him everything. Then I told the crisis PR people, I asked them and they said they didn't know. So in retrospect, I think Andrew was just lying, but whatever. Then what happened was I thought, okay, at the very least, if I have to kind of work with of these folks and coordinate with them, they need to know what's going on. So I thought, do I communicate to them the seriousness of this? Because the statement was not serious. It was minimizing. It was, if I put that out, would I never, I never have put that. I just plainly never would have. The fact that they even wrote it made me worry what this was going to portend. You know, like, what does that mean Andrew's going to say?

0:41:23 Lydia: -hmm.

0:41:23 Thomas: You they're trying to have me say this, what the fuck is he going to say? Is it going to be some incredibly dishonest denial and not the full throated apology and ownership that I really he would do?

0:41:34 Lydia: That everybody deserved to hear.

0:41:35 Thomas: It's just nothing of the fact that obviously it's the right thing to do. Of course. And so I when I remembered that Andrew had touched me in a very uncomfortable way one night a years before this when he was drunk. One of those things, I don't want to get too into it, but I do think it's important to the story. Happened when that happened was my mind went into the mode of well I can disassociate and I don't care about this but like someone else would you I just forgot about it I just made myself forget about it and was like it didn't I don'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN IT IT WAS LIKE IT WAS ALMOST LIKE I WAS was like, yeah, boy, that's not good. That's an example of why this guy might have a problem. I never thought of myself as somebody who could be an actual person in that exchange. I never though of, as weird as it sounds, I never thougt, oh wait, I as a person could have a problem with that. I just thought of it as like, yep, this guy's got an issue and here's an example of it. You know, it was sort of detached. I don't know if that makes sense. Because Because truthfully, it's not as though... grope me in a private area. It was uncomfortable. Of that I'll talk about in a minute. Wasn't normal. It's uncomfortable. It is weird. Weird. It wasn't, I traumatized. wasn'T I traumatized by it. I not like I was saying that it some horrible, horrible thing that happened to me, but very objectively wrong and weird thing. In that moment of thinking, okay, I need to communicate to this crisis PR team that Andrew has a problem. Like he and they are not going get through this by denying that he has And that was when I first remembered that because I just memory hold it. Here's the thing. I just remembered that. I was like, I need to tell them this, but I can't tell Andrew because I don't I just I'm not I I'm not really ready to say that in front of him. It's like it's an intense thing like telling.

0:43:21 Thomas: Like telling this guy like, hey, remember this time they touched me weird, especially as men. It's a it's a weird thing. Like it's just, it's so, it was the last thing I needed was yet another catastrophic mental thing to try to deal with. I actually emailed them and I said, Hey, actually, fuck it. I'll read the email. Why not pull Here's what I sent after they sent me back the most ridiculous statement ever. It I guess I had sent them something first like hey here's because I agreed to run stuff by them so I said here's and this was a short statement because I needed to get something out the longer story was something that was again working on that and I said Here's what I want to put out in the meantime. They sent me back this insane draft that was stupid. Here's what I sent to them. This is February 2nd, 2023, 6 there are plenty of changes I am totally happy to accept, right away, the allegations are more than texts with two women. Instantly would ruin all credibility with me in the audience. If you haven't reviewed the stuff I sent, please do. Those screenshots are publicly available in several Facebook groups. They also make paragraph four and five absolutely unacceptable. This is way more defensive of Andrew than I'm willing to be. I'm sorry. I're working on my full story now. It's hard to get done quickly, but it might just be that I have to send that to you before this can be done. We were trying to figure out what the fuck to do. So that's what I sent. Then we had a little bit more of an exchange. We agreed at that time that we were kind of at an impasse. So I had to put out something that was like just more about buying time

0:43:46 Lydia: You, like, drafted something? Yeah. Yeah.

0:44:41 Thomas: Before I could tell the full story because I said, all right, I'll agree to kind of not really say much now and just work on my full story and we'll take more time because this is like a Friday too. So it's like, I'll take more time work to on this and maybe I can run it by you later. Then after we got that out, that like short statement, the next day, whole I thing was not sitting well with me. I sent this email. I don't know who to direct anything at because again, there's like four fucking people working on this. I was wondering if you guys are open to talking to me to be able to have a better picture of certain things without it being told to Andrew. Are so many things to balance. And one thing is mine and Andrew's potential personal or working relationship after this is all done. If you guys have some legal or contractual obligation to tell him everything, let me know, because I don't want him to know these things. If confidence can be kept, I have things to say that I think may be very important to the job. Know this is your line of work, so I'm sure you understand, but I'm sorry if this is weird. I'm just obviously under so much pressure and anxiety right now. So they ran it by Andrew and he agreed, I think because he was really just trying to get me to go along with whatever. And so I think this was in his interest to like, try to get me still working with this crisis PR people. So we had this conversation that was, you not to be told to Andrew. I told these crisis PR fucks about the fact that Andrew had touched me inappropriately. I told them that and I sold them about the other accusations that I guess they didn't know about about the interest of, hey, take this fucking seriously. Like we're coming in here expecting to paper over it with some PR bullshit, we're nicht doing that. Like it's just not going to happen. This is a real thing. Like I need you to know this is real. Silly me, stupid, naive me. I thought I was dealing with human beings. To some extent, dealt with fucking crisis PR people. Turns out I was was dealing with sociopaths who only care about the, like, because it's their job, their job is their job. As things continued to not go well with how they're approaching it. And as I had just remembered what happened in that moment, and as I thought about it more started to have this weird, it was like, I don't know how long a period of time If it was 24 hours, if it was 48 hours. Once I had gone from remembering this thing I had memory hold and realizing, A, how weird and gross it was that someone would do that and inappropriate was, and B, how much of a sign of the lack of boundaries someone has. Has. I guess C, realizing, oh, wait, I too am a human. I had this very, very emotional reaction to that. And it's amazing now, I think this is the first time I've ever talked about this without like breaking down because

0:47:19 Thomas: It's just a weird psychological thing. I realized in that moment, oh I count, I get to say, I shouldn't have spoken too soon. Okay, okay, I'll get through it. I get to saying, oh yeah, I had this thing happening that I didn't like. I don't know if that all makes sense, but I truly had never thought in those terms. I never thought like, oh wait, yeah, I get to be like, hey, I don't like that. That wasn't a good thing. Once I had that realization, I realized I had to tell I clear that Andrew was going to try to minimize everything and not take accountability. And it was Clear that like that might work on a certain number of people. I had, I couldn't talk to these PR fucks anymore. Cause I couldn'T get through to them that a real thing. And didn'T, they didn't, you know, they talked about like how he was going To be back on the show. And he was, I was like, that's not happening. I don'T know what, what world you're living in. So I eventually just had to take matters into my own hands and and just published my allegations. And I made the recording, which was very weird. And it was, again, mid -emotional breakdown. The most important thing was I messaged you the night this happened. And,

0:48:22 Thomas: And I, I am so thankful I did because I never would have said, I never would have told anyone if I hadn't, because I needed, I needed the proof. I know how much people don't believe stuff like this. I had our text messages from that night where I said to you how uncomfortable this was and how much it sucked.

0:48:40 Thomas: I just, there are some people in the world who look at that and think that somehow there's still a way that I'm making something up, which has astonishing to me. And is again, another part of why we're doing this entire thing is because there

0:48:51 Lydia: Yeah, I was going to say it's a parallel to what we're experiencing here.

0:48:55 Thomas: Is no universe in which in the year 2021 or whatever it was. Decided to send you a fake message of how he made me uncomfortable because in the year 2023, I would want to use it against that. That's not a person. That is not a real thing. And people, there is a number percentage of people that cannot get that through their heads, that that's just not a possibility. It's not. Mean, there are some people who thought it might've been faked, but that also, like, if you looked at the way our conversation was there's it's not fakeable like no one would talk like that in a fit like and to this day it still bothers me that there's people walking amidst us in the world who could look at that as anything other than a true reflection of my feelings yeah point is once I I did that, the PR firm, who was, representing again, Andrew and not OA, they decided to help Andrew steal the company,

0:49:09 Lydia: It's insane. Yeah, Yeah.

0:49:46 Thomas: Me out of all access to everything, and publicly smear me. And here was the, in retrospect, the hilarious thing. Never thought that that off -the -record conversation could ever be used as any proof of anything you fact that I told the pr firm I had never thought of it that way because when I did that I as I always am was acting from a genuine stated interest that I had to try to make this thing work the only fucking way way I have of operating which is here's straightforwardly what I'm doing okay I am straightforwardly doing this here we go.

0:50:18 Thomas: And better or worse, and amazingly in Andrew's first like public filing, or maybe it was the letter to me. I don't remember which we could go back and look someday. Decided to say, to tell the world, oh, and here's this other thing Thomas did. He made this move to talk to my PR folks and to audition his fake story that he was going to later tell the world. Yeah. Which was so insane. And two things. The reason I bring it up is that any person, that any human could go along with that. Like if you're the PR firm and you have heard me, Thomas Smith, human being, tell you off the record, entirely in confidence that, hey, Andrew, this guy did this inappropriate thing. Then you could see me bear my soul in my accusations and then that you could then have the reaction, well, how discredit and smear Thomas online? And how do we help that effort? That's our full focus now.

0:50:17 Lydia: Can attest to that, folks. Yeah exactly. Yeah rehearsing. Jennifer

0:51:25 Thomas: That is psychopathy. I'm sorry. It's fucking psychopothy. So anyone's PR firm's endorsements of their client is worth nothing. Worth nothing. It's worth fucking nothing, Stephanie Abel is worth nothing that you stuck with your client of four or five years or whatever. That's worth nothing they are amoral psychopaths. They just are. They can make the excuse that it's all for money and it's just a job. But the thing they do is fundamentally take a bad person who who has done a bad thing and try to gaslight the world about it. Just to tie up that loose end was never dreamed that that would be anything I could ever use. Cause if I said, yeah, here's as further proof of the genuine authentic nature of my accusations. I told Andrew's PR firm, like, they're not going to verify that. Like I never, never would have dreamed that would be something I would ever bring up because the only people who could verify it would be me and the crisis PR firm that's on Andrew's side. So I never Would Have Even Brought Up, but he, as an idiot, decided to proactively mention that I did that, thus corroborating it and making it even more insane. Like, part of my nine -dimensional chess plan would be to first tell his crisis PR firm about my accusations and, like, try it out on them.

0:52:42 Thomas: It doesn't make any sense.

0:52:41 Lydia: A fabricated thing from years ago. Yeah. Yeah,

0:52:45 Thomas: Like, there's just no world in which that makes sense. So all that is to say, fuck crisis PR people. To a certain extent, fuck all PR people, I'm not sure to what extent. Apologies to any, like actual good PR people who might be listening. But, but definitely fuck crisis PR people. Endorsement of your client is not worth anything. It's worth nothing. It's worth less than nothing. And if you want to know the end of that story to by the way, if anyone who doesn't know what I then had to do as the comedian of that show, I had to win the show back from the Harvard educated lawyer through the court system, which I did. And now I have opening arguments, sole ownership of it. And it's a great show with Matt Cameron, not a shitty person, an actual good person and lawyer over there. So if you are part of that group that hasn't listened to opening arguments please do so. So oh, where are they now? Well, Andrew Torrez is over with Liz Dye, someone who helped him steal the show from me, facilitated that on their show Law and Chaos, which which the most brazen fucking imagine the gall of someone ever. Covered this.

0:53:48 Lydia: Yeah

0:53:48 Thomas: They covered Baldoni and so Andrew, somebody who had very serious allegations against him of sexual misconduct. Duck nature, flipped out, used a crisis PR firm to smear me and to try to like smooth it over, stole the company, all that stuff. They are going to opine about Justin Baldoni and what he's doing. Yeah, it was just, it's incredible to me. Incredible. So, for that bit but I hope that was valuable.

0:54:06 Lydia: Sit down. Sit down please. Yeah well we can't leave yet because I have some stuff that some things that you don't even know to this day. Red Banyan, folks. You know, I'm just going to lay it all out there because I've been sitting on some of this stuff and I've Banyan is founded by this man named Evan Nierman. Now, Evan Nieman has been making he makes like a lot of appearances. He actually went on the TMZ show to talk about the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni thing a little bit. I guess he visits them a lot because they're like, great to have you back, Evan. But he wrote a book called The Cancel Culture Curse from Rage to Redemption in a World Gone Mad. Guess who wrote the the on the cover? Talking about how great of a book this is.

0:54:18 Thomas: That's right. Right later wow um wait

0:54:54 Lydia: You'll get it. And one guess, I bet. Yeah, you will. Think about everybody we've been talking about.

0:54:56 Thomas: What I will oh Dershowitz, Alan Dershowitz oh boy yeah who would have it's weird who's the list of people with a vested interest in saying cancel culture is this this real thing that's actually coming for everybody oh checks notes it's every worst person the

0:55:20 Lydia: Think when I was looking into this, you know, like he's very anti -cancel culture in quotes. Right. One thing that came up was last year he went on Dr. Phil, the CEO, and he went with a former client of his. I don't know if you remember this at all. The San Francisco Karen. That sound familiar? In this like nice neighborhood of San Francisco, a Filipino man was approached by a white woman and white man. And they said, you that's private property. He was stenciling Black Lives Matter on on a sidewalk or on like, you

0:55:29 Thomas: Ceo guy right yeah assumed and

0:56:01 Lydia: And he had lived there for years. Yeah. So, I was a fallout for sure. But they were accusing him of committing a crime. They said they were going to call the cops.

0:56:02 Thomas: Cancel culture struck yeah no that's that's a perfect example of that's consequences for you being shitty years

0:56:14 Lydia: Yeah. I want to share when they went on Dr. Phil to talk about this years later, years later. Because, yeah, it's still going on, apparently. So

0:56:21 Thomas: Later okay there's still yeah oh

0:56:25 Clip: Us is Evan Neerman. Evan is the founder and CEO of Red Banyan, a public relations firm that specializes in high stakes crisis management and who also has worked closely with Lisa as a client and friend. So Evan, should she have written the apology?

0:56:42 Thomas: Friend, what?

0:56:43 Clip: No, because she had nothing to apologize for. I have the same opinion. I felt like, what are you apologizing for? I didn't. I couldn't find out what it was she was apologizing for. If there was a misunderstanding, it was not on her part. And I think that apology got used against her. Is that a fair statement? Absolutely. And that's the problem with this life that we're living in a cancel culture world is in a normal circumstance, if someone does something and they apologize. The person accepts the apology and you move on. But in this cancel culture world, the moment you apologize, whether it warrants an apology or not, all the people who want to pick you apart seize on it and they say, see, they're admitting they did something terrible. They deserve everything they get. So unless you've really done something that warrants and apology and there's someone specific who should receive it, shouldn't apologize. Let me suggest an alternative narrative to

0:56:59 Thomas: What? Don't

0:57:40 Lydia: Yeah, you can stop that.

0:57:41 Thomas: Be a psychopath. Oh, this is fantastic because you sent me this YouTube video and YouTube is a den of scum and villainy like you can't believe. And the top comment is, before people start defending her, look up what happened. There's one, the next one. There's a reason they didn't play the video. All right. I need to actually, yes, I need, I don't remember this.

0:57:59 Lydia: Do you want the video? Okay, I'll send it to your right now.

0:58:02 Thomas: Yeah, because that's incredible. A Phil channel on YouTube, and that audience is like, nah. Now, I remember how she looks now. Okay.

0:58:10 Lydia: Yeah. Pump the brakes, folks.

0:58:15 Clip: Your property? Hi, I'm asking you if this is your property. Why are you asking him? Because it's private property. Because it is private property, sir. So, are you defacing private property or is this your building? You're free to express your opinions, but not on people's property.

0:58:28 Thomas: They're already recording, by the

0:58:30 Clip: Okay.

0:58:30 Thomas: Way.

0:58:30 Clip: Absolutely. Just respectfully. Sure. So we're just saying absolutely your signs and everything and that's good. This is not the way to do it. Okay! It's private property. But if I did live here and it was my property, this would be absolutely fine. And you don't know if I live here or if this is my property. We actually do know. That's why we're asking. Oh, really? Because you live here, right? You said so. No, because we know the person who does live here. Oh. Okay. Then I suggest you call him or call the police. Because you're accusing me of a crime, correct? What I'm asking you is why are you doing this? And I'm not answering you. Okay, that's fair. That's fair? So your choices are to call the cops if you believe I'm calling a crime, and I will more than be happy to talk to them. Okay. Thank you. What's your name again? I'm Lisa. Lisa, what's your last name? What is your name? I asked first, Lisa. What is you first name, sir?

0:59:26 Clip: I don't... I'm talking to you. You're talking to me. I'm just asking you the questions. Well, we're not doing anything illegal. Neither am I. Actually, you are. Really? Okay, well then, call the cops. Lisa and Robert. I'll be right here. Bye.

0:59:44 Clip: And that, people, is why black lives matter. That's Karen, and she's calling the cops, and this is going to be really funny because she knows the people who live here personally.

0:59:53 Thomas: That's so good. Oh, my God. So good.

1:00:08 Lydia: What struck me about that Dr. Phil appearance, too, is that the whole like Nierman's position, don't apologize. And that I feel like echoes a lot of what you experienced with trying to talk to these people about what Andrew needed to do to fix things. And, you know, that don't apologise thing. Yeah.

1:00:28 Thomas: It's the most psychotic fucking reaction, because what actually happens is people do a shit apology like Andrew was doing and did that doesn't take accountability and is garbage. Then they get backlash and they say, well, might as well not apologize. Well, yeah, if your choice is apologize horribly in a way that gaslights and denies what you actually did, then, yeah. Don't do that it's it's just a fascinating ugly horrible mindset to take a look at oh

1:00:59 Lydia: Gets uglier because if you remember in the fall in Aurora, Colorado, there were a lot of reports about Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes. Trend de Aragua. Right. In Aurora, Colorado, this was centered around a called CBZ Properties, and they had places in Denver and Aurora. The Denver Post shared that since at least 2020, tenants in CBZ's properties in Denver and Aurora have intermittently lived with broken heating systems, sewage water, broken doors, cockroach infestations, and black mold so severe that one housing advocate said his hand sank into it. Lawsuits, tens of thousands of dollars in fines, and now a first -of -its -kind investigation by the Colorado Attorney General have followed a company that officials in two cities have been unable to bring into compliance. They interviewed the Aurora police chief, Todd Chamberlain, about it. And he said, quote, it appears to me based upon all the information that I have that the management company is using this story or the exaggeration of this story because gangs did follow these terrible conditions to say, hey, we're stepping away from a place that we mismanaged basically into ruin. And if you click on the link that I sent you, there is a. of this investigation film where they're speaking with somebody affiliated with the management company. We hear a little bit about what happened.

1:02:16 Clip: PR firm was just hired within the last month, and it's because of how much media attention was garnered from closing the Nome Street property. The Nome street closure was nothing short of a PR disaster for Ziv, with headlines swirling around calling him a slumlord, taking advantage of vulnerable migrants. Fox 31 found entire families on the streets saying they had nowhere to go after the city shut down the complex. The mayor of Aurora called the owners of the complex slumlords. They're out -of -state slumlord. Residents at both locations have made complaints about filthy living conditions with proof of trash piling up, rats, bedbugs, and depleting buildings. City leaders tell us they've been trying to hold CBZ accountable for code violations for years. That's where Red Banyan Crisis Communications came in. Utilizing Rick Benning's proprietary approach, we help you press the truth, seize the initiative, and triumph in the court of public opinion. If you didn't know, what crisis PR firms do is take someone embroiled in controversy and use their unique relationships with journalists and media outlets to basically flood the airwaves with an alternate story in a coordinated effort to shift the narrative, or in some cases, create a narrative from thin air. The PR firm was

1:03:10 Thomas: Christ fuck

1:03:27 Clip: Hired to essentially respond to media requests that had started coming in to them. In response to media request, Red Banyan, speaking on behalf of CBZ, said it was impossible to maintain the property due to gang threats. The owners of the complex and CBZ management claimed it couldn't do maintenance or repairs because the complex was overrun by a migrant gang.

1:03:42 Thomas: You I'm sure oh

1:03:50 Clip: Simultaneously, Danielle, who appears to be working in some level of coordination with Zev, began doing televised interviews and claiming that all of these code violations were inflicted by the tenants themselves. Those are the ones that I believe broke the windows, broke the doors, graffitied Venezuela all over the buildings. I mean,

1:03:49 Thomas: Yeah who

1:04:08 Lydia: So they were directly involved with fueling the theory that apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado, were being taken over by Venezuelan gangs. This were instances

1:04:16 Thomas: Fueling it or did they just take advantage of that to say that's why Why? They come first? But I'm saying did did the Red Banyan version of the story come before the like national outcry over the, taking you over an apartment complex?

1:04:31 Lydia: From what I understand, they were hired to handle the media requests that were coming in to inquire why one of these apartment complexes was shut down and a bunch of people were on the street.

1:04:43 Thomas: And that's before. Wow. So they might have been like kind of responsible for that story gaining wider traction. Oh, my God.

1:04:50 Lydia: To the point of Donald Trump visiting Aurora, Colorado because of this and then them talking about

1:04:57 Thomas: Fuck these. You know, I wasn't hard enough.

1:04:57 Lydia: It at like Madison Square Garden.

1:05:00 Thomas: I wasn'T hard enough on these people. Fuck these amoral psychopaths. Outlaw crisis PR.

1:05:06 Lydia: Know. Like, when I saw this, I was floored. I is mean, like, yeah, client above all else. Above all else, including poor immigrants that are being completely railroaded by slumlords. Like what in the world? Most recently he Evan Nierman, CEO of Red Banyan, posted an Opinion piece in The Baltimore Sun titled Zelensky wasn't ready for diplomacy with the Trump administration.

1:05:17 Thomas: Defend the slumlords. I Wow.

1:05:29 Lydia: Can you imagine like taking that stance after seeing that video?

1:05:32 Thomas: Can you imagine being a ostensibly progressive podcaster hosting a left podcast and hiring this this pr firm can you imagine that

1:05:42 Lydia: But to bring us back to Blake Livelytown, they have been opining on this saga as well. I just want to share a podcast on YouTube called News Girls invited on a vice president of Red Banyan named Kelsey Kintner. And they her, as you a PR expert, what's your opinion on this?

1:06:03 Clip: How responsible is the celebrity for like how hard his or her crisis pr like firm goes I think he was very involved in giving the green light I just it's hard to imagine a pr firm going rogue and deciding to quote bury somebody without that coming from the client I mean at the end of the day who's paying the bills the client right I mean ed red banyan is a very um collaborative effort between the client legal and ourselves and I think right now something that we're all feeling is kind of whiplash it's like one day we're here and then justin and he's denying everything and saying actually she was her side was doing a campaign against him who are you believing right now well my disclaimer is I don't really know but I will say this that's a tactic right making it so convoluted and I think you see this in politics as well making a situation so convoluted that you don't know what the truth is anymore is actually a tactic felt

1:06:09 Thomas: Responsible responsible and psychopaths yeah fucking a that's every every yes it's everything now it's literally everything and it's Everything I hate that's everything I stand against fuck these people don't do this job quit your job work at anything else sell drugs do anything else oh I'm just now realizing something I have not thought about until literally just this episode that actually, what if Andrew did tell them everything? And the PR firm was actually just using me to put out their fake version of events and to underplay what he was doing. Actually, I don't know now. Now these people work and you give me more evidence of that exact Red

1:07:07 Lydia: I know. Yeah. Yeah,

1:07:43 Thomas: Banyan Firm being lying pieces of shit.

1:07:44 Lydia: It's slimy every way you look at it.

1:07:47 Thomas: It's like maybe that's what it was. I don't know.

1:07:51 Lydia: What if they, yeah, like, I mean, and then in a way it's like getting dirt on you in and then weaponizing it.

1:07:58 Thomas: Actually thought of that too, but I was like, I don'T know if I want to go too far. But yeah, I mean, if they are expert strategists, maybe that's what they're doing. Maybe they never even kept anything from Andrew. I don' t know. They definitely told him the minute that we at odds, which I guess fair enough, but also, I don't know, it's kind of slimy. But yeah, and then the thing I was thinking was, I cannot imagine, and in that position and like, it was knowingly having, trying to have me make a statement that is lying and minimizing what actually happened. I can'T imagine wanting the people who would fall for that to be your audience. As a podcast, I will never understand it. Like I, I just will never understanding it. Went into a mode of how what, can he get out of this? How can he, you away with it, get out of it, be at position he was in like that is just something I will never relate to. I don't want my audience to be people who would go along with that, either because they're too dumb to realize it's an obvious lie or because they're blind to it. Like, like I always have in my mind that smart listener who's going to challenge me on everything. In like a bad hostile way, but just like, cause who's like, uh, that'S uh, who I would want listening to me. And I don't know if that is who's listening to me, but like, THAT'S WHO I WOULD WANT TO BE LISTENING TO ME. Why, why would you want your audience to be idiots who would blindly follow How could anyone find that interesting or fun or fulfilling? I'll never.

1:09:23 Lydia: Narcissists.

1:09:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Well, anyway, it's I got to take a break to calm down and mind you, I had no idea who these fucking people were at the time. We only, you only found this red bin and stuff later. And it was like, my God.

1:09:38 Lydia: It was because I had a Google alert for cancel culture, I think, or woke. And he popped up, Evan Nierman popped up in my Google alert. And I was like, what?

1:09:43 Thomas: My God, ridiculous.

1:09:48 Lydia: Yeah. You know, there was other I don'T I think we've talked about this in guess maybe a little bit or we we implied some of it. But the text messages that came out as part of the CRD complaint also included text messages in which Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan are kind of like bad mouthing Justin Baldoni to each other. Have been folks in the PR industry who have spoken to various media outlets saying that like their clients are calling them and being like, please don't ever talk about me like that. Like these are some big celebrities that are like, oh, my God, that's awful to be talked about in that way.

1:10:32 Thomas: In discovery again, discovery is a hell of a thing. Also using your work phone for. Possibly private stuff.

1:10:35 Lydia: And gossiping.

1:10:39 Thomas: Yeah. But this is all stuff that would be discoverable as well. So discovery is a hell of a thing. And I could imagine, yeah, it is bad evidence if it's like, and it's just for anyone, like even these other people say, Hey, if you're my PR firm, I'm going to go ahead and say, one of your duties is don't talk shit about me in this way. That would be incredibly embarrassing if it came out, which

1:10:57 Lydia: I they're talking about contracts being revised to include provisions regarding this because of how how it looks when that happens. Yeah. That that that would be considered a breach of contract. So yeah,

1:11:10 Thomas: By the way. Goes to my point that these are amoral psychopaths, because if your rule is, hey, we've taken on a new client, it's Hitler. We catch you talking about them in any negative way, you're fired. What that work demands. Get a different job. Quit your entire industry. Sorry.

1:11:27 Lydia: Piece I want to talk about is the public reaction to when this dropped. And, you know, it's not necessarily fallout in the same way that Justin Baldoni experienced or support in the like a moment of reckoning for a lot of people online. Example, someone subreddits regarding celebrity gossip. Said, played us like a goddamn fiddle, didn't they? Person, I feel so disappointed in myself. I thought I was a critical thinker. I cannot believe how completely I was manipulated by this guy's smear campaign. There have been a lot of people that have like come out and like like really reflected on when this article came out, like, oh, wow, I feel like I was really manipulated. I surprised by how easily I fell for some of this stuff. You know, granted, I don't know that all these people would feel the exact same way today. We have a lot to docket to get through.

1:12:15 Thomas: I also don't know how many of those people are real. I don't what to trust.

1:12:19 Thomas: Like, I don' know if it may be Blake Lively now hired some, but I, I dunno, you hope those people were real. Like I hope there was a question that came in to the podcast. I listened to if books could kill this might've been, they might've done like a bonus or something. Cause I think it was a Q and a, and it was around this time or a little bit after this time. And I hadn't paid. Attention yet like I kind of vaguely knew about it I think um someone had asked like hey you was it was essentially exactly what you're saying and they were saying that like there's the amber herd thing and that was like okay some people learned their lesson there, they thought, and then got taken in by this.

1:12:19 Lydia: That's true. That's true, yeah. Yeah.

1:12:53 Thomas: And there's a question from the standpoint of like, how did this happen again to me? You know, and it's like, hey, maybe be suspicious if all of a sudden a bunch of people are hating on a woman. I'm just saying, again, we'll get to later entries into the docket, but I will say that be suspicious of a whole bunch of are hating Things that absolutely are disproportionate. Hey, check out where there's woke because that had a lot more on that in of comparing male behavior that gets a complete pass pretty much, at least after a certain number of days.

1:12:58 Lydia: That's tough. Yeah, yeah. And next day. So Jennifer Abel wrote that Facebook post on December 23rd. Not totally sure if she took it down the same day or what. It's gone now. But the next date, December 24th, she went on record with The Wrap and said that she quit Jones Works due to bullying. Interesting. Want to back up a little bit from that December 24th date. Yeah.

1:13:51 Thomas: Yeah, we just do the rewind here.

1:13:54 Lydia: Going to leave you with this, that on August 15th. What else was going on August 15th? You know, kind of like the peak hate Blake period of time. Was a long business insider piece that was published that titled Who's Afraid of Stephanie Jones? How Tom Brady's publicist became one of the most polarizing names in celebrity PR. It is a lot there. Yeah. I'm going to have to stop us there.

1:14:24 Thomas: Big, because that's yeah, we're going to have to talk About Stephanie Jones because because where we paused December 24th is the next entry into our docket, which is. Stephanie Jones filing a lawsuit against Jennifer Nathan, Justin Baldoni, Wayfair Studios LLC, and John Does 1-10. Will be talking all about Stephanie Jones and getting into the next complaint here on the next episode. So thank you so much for listening, everyone. I'm excited. Can't wait to hear about this article as well. That's So let's meet back here again.

1:14:55 Thomas: What do you think? Right, everyone. In next time. Thanks for listening and thanks for supporting. Please share the show with someone, by the way, and write a review. Hey, if you like the show, please hit five stars on the podcast thingies and write a review. We'd really appreciate that. It's super helpful.

1:15:09 Lydia: Love reading the reviews, too. Like it just I don't know, makes me happy hearing that people are appreciating it. So.

1:15:15 Thomas: Nothing as nice as a cherry picked sampling of our audience. And I mean that unironically. It's great. It's nice to see. People who really love you and the people who really hate you. That's the two groups of people you see. Gavel, gavel. I don't know.

1:15:25 Lydia: That is true. That is true, yep.

1:15:32 Thomas: Gavel out.

1:15:32 Lydia: Gavel out. I like that.

1:15:34 Thomas: Think Matt did that, didn't he?

1:15:36 Lydia: Did he?

1:15:37 Thomas: don'T know, a million years ago for one of them. You probably haven't listened.

1:15:39 Lydia: Well, yeah, I have. Yeah,

1:15:40 Thomas: You're not a fan.

1:15:41 Lydia: I'm way behind.

1:15:42 Thomas: Lydia's not if she hasn't written a review. Have given me a one-star review. I DON'T KNOW.

1:15:48 Lydia: Never.

1:16:06 Thomas: Drugs do right I can I can return of the chunk yeah you you went you skipped like two for entire uh yeah entire franchises um well and the weird thing is a new chunk is actually episode four if you look back you know because of the prequel chunks all nothing well

1:16:08 Lydia: Empire chunks back the last chunk Oh, return to the chunk. Whoops. Chunk one. Rogue chunk. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I know. Yeah. Jar chunk. Jar bink is nothing. How dare you?

1:16:38 Thomas: The characters aren't themselves chunks

1:16:40 Lydia: I know the phantom chunk, the chunk menace.

1:16:43 Thomas: Where now you're losing it I'm cutting your mic um taken on a new client, it's Hitler.