Lively v. Baldoni 35 - The Big One. 400 Pages of... Stuff

Transcript

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

0:00:01 Clip: All rise. Court is now in session. Court is reconvened. I may be seated. Maintain order. The federal rise to face the jury and harken to its verdicts.

0:00:26 Thomas: Gavel in, gavel in. How's it going? I'm pumped. I'm excited. I'm Thomas. That's Lydia. How are you doing?

0:00:32 Lydia: I'm feeling gavel -y. How are you feeling? How many gavels?

0:00:35 Thomas: Well, is it a gavel -y diddly -do to you too?

0:00:38 Lydia: It's a gaveling day in the neighborhood. It's a gaverly day in my neighborhood. How are you?

0:00:44 Thomas: Oh boy. Yeah.

0:00:44 Lydia: I'm asking you because you got on me on another show about not asking how you were doing. Yeah.

0:00:47 Thomas: Oh, that's nice. It's nice to feel cared for.

0:00:51 Lydia: Good.

0:00:52 Thomas: Doing great. So excited to go through 400 ,000 million bajillion pages. Unironically though, it was good to finally get to this way after I was hoping, but we're getting to it.

0:01:03 Lydia: Way after.

0:01:04 Thomas: Yeah, a bit after. Don't look at the date, anybody, of anything. This is just a little late. So here's the plan. We are beginning this undertaking. We are going through this gigantic, nearly 400 pages worth of stuff, but we're breaking it up here and there, not with anything like, you know, wild goose chase or anything, but because we have things that are related to the claims being made that we can kind of do as little jaunts, little strolls that are still like, actually, it's not just like an an excuse to do something different. It's vital to the claims. I'm just flagging it because in episode two of this, we're going to depart to an interview we did again a while ago with lawyer Ann, who we miss, haven't had on a while, about a claim made in the lawsuit. So it is breaking it up a little, but it's not for the sake of doing anything crazy different. It's just like, this requires a deep dive on this kind of thing.

0:01:53 Lydia: It's all related on this particular And we're not, you know, jumping timelines or dockets in order to do it. Yeah.

0:02:02 Thomas: No, yeah, we are here for the long haul. We're going, the next everything of this show is going to be this amended complaint until we finish. Now, will the year be 2033? Will there be robot overlords? Will we even have a society anymore by the time we finish? These questions, we don't know the answer to.

0:02:25 Thomas: Maybe the robot overlords will be into true crime still. They'll be like, oh, oh there's a new, okay, we'll let them be slaves making podcasts. Make sure she has her closet to podcast from. Yeah as we eat our enjoy our soylent green who knows so who knows what the future will hold but we're getting through this now it won't take that long I don't think but we're doing it doesn't matter how long it takes we're we also got a bit of a request a good I think bit of feedback little tip here that

0:02:49 Lydia: Doing it. Yeah.

0:03:03 Thomas: Maybe we should be more attentive to resetting the names and the people and everything the parties because like you know you and I live and breathe this and other people have lives and you know given the chunk system for some people it's a long time between listings so why don't we do that right now, we're going to detail the parties in this complaint and we'll just quickly reset who they are. Apologies for everybody who already knows this, but I think it's important. I mean, I'm so bad with names that I also could use this.

0:03:20 Thomas: So I think that'll be good. So what is the complaint? What does the cover sheet, you know, the top sheet say in terms of the parties and what this is?

0:03:28 Lydia: All right. So this complaint was filed by a number of entities. Wayfair Studios LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. So that's the production company that was in charge of It Ends With Us, the movie. Justin Baldoni, an individual, he served, he's part of Wayfair Studios and so served as a producer, served as the director and also was cast or cast himself. Yeah.

0:03:54 Thomas: He made the cast, huh?

0:03:56 Lydia: As

0:03:56 Thomas: He posted the cast list. Yes.

0:03:57 Lydia: Ryle, which is sort of the main character. Yeah. Okay.

0:04:01 Thomas: I mean care. We don't Funny you go this crazy. But did he have a like official role in the company? I know Jamie Heath was like president at this time, right?

0:04:10 Lydia: Yeah, Jamie Heath was president at this time and moved into CEO at a certain point. But Justin Baldoni, I don't know if he has like a named title or anything like that, but he's a, you know, founder.

0:04:24 Thomas: So he's an owner of the company. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah.

0:04:26 Lydia: Jamie Heath, who we just mentioned, an individual, but also, you know, a producer on this film via his capacity with Wayfair Studios.

0:04:34 Thomas: Somebody who has a few credits as a composer. So it's kind of weird to be heading up to be literally like president or CEO of your film production company, right. I mean, full credit. They were also doing the Man Enough podcast and that like little web show thing is part of this Wayfair Studios as well as a production of them or so okay I mean fair enough he's he is a part of that he was a co -host on that podcast and he's also the one who in the post me too man enough talk round table that I watched the whole thing of way back when we should go through that as a bonus sometime or something if we did I mean I think we played a little bit from it but it's got like Scooter Braun and like Jamie Heath not to poison the well but only because it's like been kind of relevant, he admits, in that one that he like cheated on his wife or I think his current wife or it was his former actually don't it's ambiguous but has a history of like womanizing I guess we'll say but was presented it in that post me to talk as like he's a reformed man and he's learned better and that kind of thing

0:05:06 Lydia: Roundtable. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. The other entities here, It Ends With Us, Movie LLC, a California limited liability company. It's pretty self -explanatory. Melissa Nathan, an individual. Melissa Nathan is the owner of the Agency Group, which is the crisis PR firm that was hired by Justin Baldoni et al. as they were going through the press tour and some of the comments that were happening online and the fear of what Blake might say. She specializes in crisis management and services. She was Johnny Depp's crisis PR person.

0:06:08 Thomas: Right and what was the date of that hiring because I do think it's relevant and I do also think in retrospect that kind of announcement you know that news that broke I think that probably was was a bit of a Cuban missile crisis in this Cold War of the standoff. So, you know, at that time that they were hired, and we'll go through this, I'm sure, in this suit, but there was a truce that they were supposedly operating under. No one was going to badmouth anyone. And I think that if you're in a trance with somebody and then there are news breaks that they've hired Johnny Depp's crisis PR person, I would take that as a bit of a sign.

0:06:22 Lydia: Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. Yeah the first shot kind of thing.

0:06:49 Thomas: I get why Blake would be on alert after Right.

0:06:51 Lydia: Yeah and so Melissa Nathan and her firm were hired July 31st, 2024.

0:06:57 Thomas: So that's before, you know, that's before a lot of stuff, before any of the like, quote unquote, bad Blake Lively press that, you know, the interview thing, the whatever, all that's, it's before all of that.

0:07:01 Lydia: During press tour and all of that stuff, but before the premiere, before. Right. Yep. And Jennifer Abel, an individual. And Jennifer Abel is the PR person for Justin Baldoni as part of Jones Works and then also after she left Jones Works. So she serves as Wayfair Studios PR person and also Justin Baldoni as an individual, his PR person.

0:07:28 Thomas: And finally, Steve Sarowitz, who wasn't a plaintiff in their first complaint that we're kind of combining with this one that was January 16th, but is now on this first amended complaint, also one of the plaintiffs.

0:07:40 Lydia: And so they are suing as a group, Blake Lively, an individual, Ryan Reynolds, an individual. Ryan Reynolds is her husband, also an actor, notably from Deadpool.

0:07:51 Thomas: He is Deadpool.

0:07:52 Lydia: Yeah. Leslie Sloan, an individual. Leslie Sloan is Blake Lively's PR person.

0:07:56 Thomas: And longtime PR person, Right.

0:07:59 Lydia: Long time. Long time.

0:08:00 Thomas: So and I only mentioned that because I think it is kind of important. Leslie Sloan wasn't crisis PR that Blake Lively hired, you know, in this truce time. Leslie Sloan has just been her PR person for a long time.

0:08:12 Lydia: And then her company, Vision PR Incorporated, a New York corporation is named as well. And the New York Times company, a New York corporation. And I don't need to explain what the New York times is.

0:08:23 Thomas: Yeah. So there you go. Hopefully that's helpful as we go along our merry way here. And so we'll take our first break here. And then when we come back, we will dive in. Hey, oh, I also wanted to say, since this is a big chunk release, this is multiple chunk release that you're getting, make sure you're a patron because I'm going to give it to the patrons right away for the normal feed. You know, it's going to be a little spaced out.

0:08:47 Thomas: So if you don't want to put up with that, if you want to just get it now into your veins without ads, make sure to go to patreon.com/gavelpod, support the show, get all the stuff.

0:09:05 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:09:05 Thomas: Well, we better get to it.

0:09:09 Lydia: I have to tell you when we were getting ready for this, all I could think of in my head was for whatever reason, when Mufasa says like, it is time, and like Simba's going up on Pride Rock at the end of Lion King. And that's what I'm feeling.

0:09:20 Thomas: Yeah that's not at all like this but wait

0:09:23 Lydia: That's probably what they think is going on. But I don't know. Yeah, it's just all I hear in my head right now.

0:09:29 Thomas: Doesn't Rafiki say it is time no

0:09:31 Lydia: So, oh, does he? I thought it was Mufasa — no, you're right. I thought it was Mufasa in the clouds. Oh, okay. It's Rafiki.

0:09:36 Thomas: I don't think so. Have you even seen that movie? Yeah, never mind. All right, we found a new excuse to not go through this 400,000 fucking pages.

0:09:38 Lydia: I guess it's time for me to do a rewatch.

0:09:47 Thomas: Wayfair v. Lively, step one — why don't you catch us up on our timeline we've invented time travel because we're getting further in the past because it takes so long to try to keep up with this stuff. Where are we?

0:09:59 Lydia: So we hopped on back over to the main Lively v. Baldoni suit. And this was instead of responding to Lively's complaint with an answer, the Wayfair parties, some of the Wayfair parties decided to instead file a counter complaint. And this was originally done january 16th but then we get an amended one just a week and a half later on or I guess two weeks later january 31st

0:10:29 Thomas: Yeah we're gonna just skip to the amended it's the big I mean I was gonna say the holy grail but it was like if the holy grains was just something that contained fecal matter yeah I don't know it's the mother load we'll say the mother load with the emphasis on load we've compared the original one and that's why I think many people myself included although I'm doing the trumpian thing where I think most people you I just, whatever I think everyone thinks.

0:10:36 Lydia: Brian Friedman thinks so yeah

0:10:55 Thomas: People didn't even realize, people didn't realize that there was a 1-16, a January 16th Wayfair v. Lively complaint. People only just now found out about this because the amended came out so quickly after two weeks after and had the big gigantic timeline bullshit. Yeah.

0:10:55 Lydia: Yeah they also have the bar scene footage that they released in between two so like that january 16th release and then five days later the bar scene takes over kind of the discourse online and then quickly followed up by the amended.

0:11:24 Thomas: So we're going to do the amended. There's some changes. I actually went through with the track changes type thing, and there's nothing really that matters that much, So I think it works to just go through the amended. The main changes are that they combined it with the New York Times one. So before the New Year's Times stuff was like kind of mentioned, but then they officially brought them in and consolidated it all in their big old giant manifesto of grievances against everybody. You know, we're going to approach this as I approach everything with a skeptical mind. And I'm going to look for where I think is possibly good, where I thing is bad. I will say a lot of this we've already seen. But unfortunately for us, it works out, I think, hopefully well for the listener, but not for us. We're in hell.

0:12:06 Thomas: If anyone wants to trade seats, let me know because we have to just go through the whole fucking thing.

0:12:06 Lydia: We have to sit here for like 12 hours.

0:12:12 Thomas: Yeah, I don't see any other way to do it because we don't know where the stuff is that we've already seen and we got to see what we got to see well

0:12:22 Lydia: And I want to be fair, you know, like I just want to be fair and approach this in a reasonable manner.

0:12:29 Thomas: It's not fair to have made a document this long. That's already unfair to us and to the world it is literally 224 fucking pages and then also the exhibits which I think some of them are also in there might be some duplication I'm going to kind of have them both up and scroll as we go but like that's another 168 pages Oh, yeah.

0:12:39 Lydia: And then also, let Let me correct you there. It's a single exhibit. It is not multiple exhibits. It's just exhibit A is 168 pages.

0:13:00 Thomas: That'd be nuts. Let me offer Exhibit A and then it's like the scene from Miracle on 34th Street where they come in with the letters to Santa. Badly formatted text messages after badly formatted texts. Yeah. Yeah. Kids wrote all these blurry text messages to Santa. Yeah. That's the other thing. That exhibit A, which is, yeah, 168-page exhibit is unreadable. Like almost none of the texts are readable.

0:13:12 Lydia: Everything's blurry. Can't really read it. Yeah, yeah,

0:13:30 Thomas: They're so bad quality. I don't know if that's on purpose or just truly incompetent.

0:13:30 Lydia: I don't know. But like, it really made me wish that the whole like enhance thing from TV was real, where you just keep zooming in forever. Enhance, enhance. It's just pixels. Yeah.

0:13:39 Thomas: Yeah, oh God, yeah. Because I'm doing that enhance, enhance, and it's just blurry blurry garbage. You know what enhanced blurry garbage is? More blurrier garbage. So we'll do what we can. But we're going to go through it. What else was I going to say about that? Yeah, there's only a few things added in. There's one very fun difference from the 1-16 original complaint to the amended, which is the nice pool stuff that was specifically added in to the admitted complaint.

0:14:03 Lydia: Which is so crazy because like just thinking it's so dumb. It's so dumb. And they were like, let's spend some ink on this. But then also like the amount of talk on the Internet about nice pool, too. I mean, I guess that was the right move if you're Wayfair because people really latched onto that. We'll see.

0:14:28 Thomas: Yeah, I, well, how do you, how do you evaluate what the right move is in this context? I don't know.

0:14:35 Lydia: Well, I'm saying from a PR perspective, right? Like from trying to get people on Justin's side yeah

0:14:39 Thomas: It was the right move of that one guy to make everyone drink that Kool-Aid that killed them because everyone did it. So I guess it was the right move by that guy. I don't like they're just going to do, but anyway, here's the thing, this giant monstrosity of a document, it's sort of like the Bible where everyone says what's in it, but no one's read it. You know, I think some people have read it, but if you're online in this discourse at all, or if you ever talk to anyone who's on the Baldoni side of this, they swear that this was a devastating document that completely undid everything Blake Lively ever said. And so we need to go through it and see if that's true, but that's why we are doing this. That's why it's still, you know, this 400 some odd, sorry, nearly 400 pages is is something we're going through. And, you know, much like the Bible, we are the Jesus figures who are crucified on the cross of this fucking long shit. Okay, here we go. Here we go, general allegations. You gotta, you gotta read, well,

0:14:45 Lydia: Okay fair yeah here we go yeah

0:15:35 Thomas: We're not, obviously, not gonna read the whole thing, but this is, we gotta start, we got to read some of the beginning. See, see how this tone starts? Yeah.

0:15:37 Lydia: I I have to start with yes, of course, of course, the hook the following is not a story the Wayfair parties ever wished to tell and then an immediate footnote. In the interest of transparency, a complete timeline of the sequence of events alleged herein is attached hereto as Exhibit A and incorporated by reference in its entirety. Okay.

0:15:57 Thomas: Legally not sound, but that's okay. We'll save that for another day.

0:16:01 Lydia: Unfortunately, Blake Lively has unequivocally left them with no choice not only to set the record straight in response to Lively's accusations and the New York Times company's maliciously and recklessly propagated falsehoods, but also to put the spotlight on the parts of Hollywood that they have dedicated their careers to being the antithesis of. That task was always going to be an uphill battle. They never imagined they would encounter it to this degree.

0:16:25 Thomas: What? Encounter what to this degree?

0:16:28 Lydia: Hollywood ne'er-do-wells?

0:16:29 Thomas: This is just bad writing. To what degree could you

0:16:30 Lydia: It's like a film noir sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. Had Lively chosen to merely ride out the self-inflicted press catastrophe she faced in August 2024, the public would likely have moved on and never known the truth about her. They would have never known that she deliberately and systematically robbed the Wayfair parties Justin Baldoni and Wayfair Studios LLC of their movie. No one except the parties involved would have known that she used threats and extortion to relegate the colleagues she once highly praised to a basement to sit out their own premiere while she enjoyed the spotlight of a premiere and after-party that was ultimately co-financed by both Wayfair and Sony. She would have gotten away with these things and more.

0:16:45 Thomas: Encounter if it hadn't been for these? Yeah.

0:17:15 Lydia: Scooby-Doo. Because Baldoni focused entirely on seeing the film succeed would have held his tongue as he had through the year and a half that Lively tormented him his family and his partners yeah the

0:17:25 Thomas: Hey, we know that's not true because we have text messages that are real. They're not. They're real. And they're him being like, hey, we need to take her down. We need something like this. This is why, look, we've approached this whole thing and I've approached this whole things from a skeptical point of view, but we've already been through a lot of these lies and they're obviously lies we've pointed out I pointed out where I think Blake Lively's not telling the truth maybe or like where might not be and all that but like this is just it's not really serious the major problem with honestly the whole fucking world today is adopting a fake objectivity that actually just means losing your brain like it just means like treating all ideas as equal or all lies is not lies when they are like I'm not gonna do that I'm skeptical about everything this is we already know this is lies like he He didn't this. None of that's true. Like we know he was working behind the scenes. We have the text on what he was doing and on how he wanted to take Lively down PR wise, you know, and wanted all those things like it's just a fake victim narrative already.

0:17:30 Lydia: Tongue was not held yeah yeah it also reads so much like a pitch for a movie

0:18:30 Thomas: Yeah, it's the kind of thing where it's like you need once you're in this level of reality distortion, it has to be a bigger and bigger sell. It can't be a 9 -11 conspiracy that's like, well, you Know, one guy thought like, yeah, maybe I'll do that. You know, like it's too big, you know, if those towers were not really there or whatever, like it has to be like, all right, this starts at the top. You know? You have to do a huge, the more facts you're trying to blur into your distortion of reality, the bigger the story has to be because you have to explain so many things. And now he has to explain all of what's happened. And his story is that he was much like Jesus was going to just take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune I don't know that's combining a few things but uh

0:18:35 Lydia: Too mm -hmm right yeah yeah

0:19:17 Thomas: But okay we're two paragraphs in we'll uh let's keep going yeah

0:19:22 Lydia: But lively could not tolerate her publicly tainted image for even a moment and further could not accept that it was entirely of her own making

0:19:29 Thomas: You're both celebrities neither of you would do that

0:19:32 Lydia: Yeah he doesn't like that either you hire pr

0:19:33 Thomas: What are you talking about you hired 18 pr firms the minute anything before anything happened you hired crisis pr and all that stuff before anything even happened because you were worried about something happening lively could not tolerate her publicly tainted image yeah you're in a business called public images that's your business you're in she needed a scapegoat this is right this is not how legal complaints are

0:19:39 Lydia: People yeah and your image yeah yeah yeah she needed a scapegoat and rather than admit and take accountability for her own mishaps, she chose to blame the Wayfarer parties in a malicious and unforgivably public manner. When she and Reynolds could not force Baldoni and Wayfarers to read a statement she and her representatives prepared, extorting them to, quote, take accountability in defense of Lively's actions, she lay in wait for months, preparing to publicly attack Baldoni by falsely claiming that he had sexually harassed her. The same falsified stories she had calculatingly devised and used throughout the production of this film in order to take control were now being used publicly to destroy Baldoni and the Wayfarer parties.

0:20:01 Thomas: Written so just think about the ridiculousness of that claim she had all these stories that she had faked we've seen the proof that she at the time we've talked about the bar scene footage, which at this point has been released in the timeline we're at we backtracked through the timeline day by day, what? Like five weeks. It was each day of filming in the first like week or two, she had a complaint or more and

0:20:49 Lydia: Before then it was, yeah, day three, something like that. Yeah,

0:20:58 Thomas: She brought them up at the time, at the time. It's just not how — like, you have to be a misogynist. Sorry. You have to be a misogynist to think that this is how this works. Oh, actually there's no, women can't have serious complaints about conduct that they brought up at the time contemporaneously, instantly when I was doing it. That can't be a genuine complaint. Complaint that has to be something she calculatingly devised and then used to take control of the production of the film and then when all this stuff bad stuff happened to her then she's like well isn't this convenient I have all these stories I already made up about sexual harassment now yeah I'm just gonna use them again I'm gonna blame Baldonian

0:21:28 Lydia: I'll just use them again. I think the language she lay in

0:21:37 Thomas: Wayfair for everything and say they said — like, it's just stupid it's so dumb yeah so the skeptical rational take on these first three paragraphs is they're fucking stupid lies that's what that's why I'm so sick of this idea that you have to be neutral on everything. That's ridiculous. When somebody says a ridiculous thing, the neutral skeptical thing to say is that's fucking ridiculous. Yeah.

0:21:38 Lydia: Wait for months is also incredibly sexist. What it evokes there is just so disgusting to me. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah it's fiction.

0:22:02 Lydia: Like it reads like fiction because it is fiction.

0:22:05 Thomas: We've already talked about what her plot would be. And you have to believe that conspiracy theory about her plotting to take over the movie from the beginning. You have to believe that for any of this to work. He's just shown it in that paragraph too. You have to believe that for any of his story to make sense. And That's Obviously Ridiculous.

0:22:20 Lydia: One of the other differences we're going to get in this complaint from the original is that she had been colluding with the New York Times for months before the release of the article. And we're going to get a lot of, quote, evidence to demonstrate that.

0:22:32 Thomas: I'll just remind everybody that's nothing. So I said it at the time. I'll say it again. You can say words in scary ways that make it sound like it's the bad thing, but like preparing, working with the New York Times. First off, we don't have any evidence of that. This just asserts it, but fine. They are going to work on articles over periods of time. That's what something like the New York Times does.

0:22:57 Thomas: They're not going to like, would it be better if they did it instantly? Yeah, it doesn't. That just made it sound worse, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter either way. Like if she's telling the truth, it doesn't matter if she's lying what difference does it make if she worked longer on an article with them or not like like even in their version of reality what

0:22:57 Lydia: A good journalistic enterprise, yeah, is actually going to work on something. Yeah. Right, right.

0:23:17 Thomas: Would that be how does that make it different it doesn't even make any sense it's just language that on purpose is supposed to be inflammatory and make it seem this is designed for a lot of people who aren't very good thinkers to think something devious is going on it's all to signal

0:23:31 Lydia: And again, it also hurts their case against the New York Times when they're trying to talk about knowingly publishing falsehoods and stuff about them. But it clearly demonstrates that they were taking this article seriously by spending time on it. Let me pick up towards the end of this paragraph, paragraph four. Lively delivered the CRD complaint to the Wayfair parties over the Christmas holiday and rather than promptly file a lawsuit, Lively, on information and belief, leaked the typically private CRD complaint to the public, utilizing the New York Times as conduit for her revenge.

0:24:02 Thomas: That yeah, once again, you don't leak your own thing

0:24:05 Lydia: This CRD complaint, and upon Information and Belief, the false information delivered to the New York Times before the CRD complaint was filed, was rife with lies and doctored, quote, evidence. That was an emoji. Lively then waited 11 days to file suit against the Wayfair parties in what seemed to be a desperate move after the public questioned why she had never filed a civil lawsuit. On Information and belief, Lively never intended to file a civil lawsuit, which would have triggered the Wayfair parties' right to discovery, including obtaining evidence and deposing Lively under oath.

0:24:29 Thomas: What no you could have just sued her this very suit would trigger we already took this on it's fucking stupid this very suite they're doing would involve discovery this is stupid that's not right and we know she didn't she do the thing where you have to authorize to sue like to with the crd complaint do

0:24:49 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. The right to sue. Yeah. Immediately when she filed her CRD complaint.

0:24:55 Thomas: We ever know when she did that I can't remember do we actually know that? I don't remember how.

0:24:57 Lydia: It was in a Jed Wallace exhibit, I think, that it was included with. Yeah.

0:25:01 Thomas: Well, that's out in this timeline. Well, anyway, of course they say future Time Lords have told us that she did the right to sue thing. Like, had she not done that, then they would have started the CRD investigation stuff. So, like, the option with the CRD complaint is you either you're tipping them off and they investigate or you're just saying, hey, give me the authorization to just sue myself. And she did assume myself thing.

0:25:24 Thomas: And that was always what she intended to do. This is nonsense. I thought this was fucking absurd when they had it in their Times complaint, and the fact that they kept it is it just goes to show that like all they need is stuff that sounds conspiratorial or sounds bad they don't care that it's ridiculous like that's again ridiculous this

0:25:48 Lydia: In the New York Times.

0:25:49 Thomas: Next part is about the taking over the film, allegedly, and I think we got this in the previous Baldoni stuff. I think so — I think paragraph eight distills enough new stuff that maybe we'll maybe read that one

0:25:53 Lydia: Okay. Sure. When Lively faced significant public backlash from what was often referred to as her, quote, tone -deaf and insensitive press tour for the film, she doubled down on her false and misleading accusations against Baldoni. She seemed determined to make Baldoni the real -life villain in her story. Her publicist, Leslie Sloan, went so far as to propagate malicious stories portraying Baldoni as a sexual predator, a term Lively's husband Ryan Reynolds also used to describe Baldoni when he called Baldoni's own agent. Modern society justly reviles sexual harassers and abusers, and Lively knew full well that making those allegations would be a career death sentence for the Wayfair parties, especially given that Baldoni has lived his private and public life as an impassioned advocate for gender equality and healthy masculinity

0:26:39 Thomas: And that's why he hired a rapist as his lawyer and right with you you know, and the and the same. No, he's an admitted rapist. He admits that he did something that we now in today's day and age know is rape. He admitted that. So I guess what do you say? Do you say he's a mid rapist? I'd actually technically speaking, I don't know.

0:26:43 Lydia: Alleged yeah yeah yes yes and settled out of it and also paid for the other folks um and their settlement

0:27:02 Thomas: Yeah. And whatever. Oh, that's in the past. But he also hired Johnny Depp's fucking team and everybody connected to all of his defense and everything he does is right-wing adjacent people, like horrible, misogynist-adjacent people. So I don't know why that would all be true if he's this saintly feminist it also just real quickly it talks about how her publicist said something we don't have any proof for and Ryan Reynolds said something in a phone call we don't have proof for it and then it says lively knew that making these allegations but what that's not her she that's neither of those things are her? Does she? I don't know.

0:27:34 Lydia: Right. Well, she controls them, I guess. I don't know I don't think so, yeah.

0:27:38 Thomas: Like it's weird to do that. I don't know, yeah. I think you would have to prove that. Would I be automatically liable if my publicist says something? I don't think so.

0:27:46 Lydia: Doesn't that statement that or I guess those statements within that particular sentence also feel like it should be couched with upon information and belief like those are some pretty pretty intense claims

0:27:56 Thomas: I don't know what the rules on all that are. We can ask lawyers but like this is also this is all just narrativey crap that doesn't go in a lawsuit, so none of this really matters. That would be another thing — a question I have for a real lawyer and we will talk to real lawyers about this monstrosity at what point does this matter like I think it doesn't matter until you get to like the counts — like, how they actually decide to word those out and like what they use even though they say well we're incorporating all of the 400 fucking pages they all do that language we're incorporating that in you know I think there's a limit to how much you can do that. I don't think you can just incorporate in the corpus of the entire English language.

0:28:32 Lydia: Yeah well yeah it's not like the congressional record right

0:28:35 Thomas: So like, I think this is largely just like dicta. I don't really think any of this contains a whole bunch of accusations and language that I think is irrelevant to actual legal stuff. It's just narrative.

0:28:46 Lydia: Yeah. Do you think like Judge Lyman would even like read this part?

0:28:51 Thomas: Well, yeah, you have to read it, but it's, or, well, his clerks might write. I don't know. I'm curious how they handle that. Because if you get a, you get something this long, I mean, the clerks, I, I would assume you could trust your law clerks to be like, well, I've highlighted the four sentences that are law. If you want to check that out, you know, like, I don't know, but, but with a case that has gotten this kind of attention and gotten this big, I mean, I have to assume he read it

0:28:54 Lydia: Or his clerks would, I guess. Just like skim through it really fast yeah issue your order based on that Yeah.

0:29:15 Thomas: At some point. Maybe he skimmed through like the parts where he could see that the adjectives were absurd. You know, I dunno. I'm not sure.

0:29:20 Lydia: Yeah. I wonder. God, I wish I could have seen his face while he was reading it. I would have loved that. She did not expect, however, that the Wayfair Party's would be able to meet those allegations with concrete documentary evidence disproving her claims and demonstrating that they, not Lively, were the targets of a calculated and vitriolic smear campaign. That evidence, included in part herein, is the basis for the Wayfare Party's claims against the Lively Party's for their extortion, defamation, and further wrongdoing.

0:29:49 Thomas: That's all right. That's worth considering. Yeah. They have evidence that there's a smear campaign. Now, important to note, a smear campaign, I don't believe is something that's illegal. So

0:29:50 Lydia: The thesis statement correct I don't think so either.

0:30:01 Thomas: I think the whole thing, yeah, like there may be, sure, yeah. There may be defamation considerations and they mentioned defamation there. So sure. But I just think it's important to note, because this gets lost all the time. The reason the smear campaign against Blake Lively is unlawful is it's protected activity because she reported sexual harassment. It's a whole different thing. There seems to be this tu quoque, whatever — where it's like, well, she said this. Yeah, she can say whatever the fuck she wants about him, even though, I mean, there isn't really proof of that. But we'll deal with the proof. We'll look at what he has here. But like there is no equivalent unlawful conduct here, tortious conduct for her trying to smear him. Like you can say that it's not good and we'll see what it is. We'll see What he has. But yeah, like but if you're just looking at it this way, if your employer sexually harasses you and you file a report to the court, they can't intimidate and harass and retaliate against you for that

0:30:02 Lydia: As long as the information is accurate or believed to be accurate yeah right yeah right right yeah morally it's like you know pretty sucky but right

0:30:58 Thomas: But for them to be like well but the employee I sexually harassed was mean online about like that's not an equivalent thing those aren't equivalent things has nothing to do with each other okay so he claims to have all this evidence of their campaign their defamation but I mean extortion defamation well and further wrongdoing I don't know what that is but like extortion and defamation those are very concrete legal things those are big claims we'll see what that evidence is

0:31:20 Lydia: Paragraph nine um we talked about the book I I think if we skip to the middle of this

0:31:26 Thomas: Oh there's just, yeah, like this is just a quick example of stuff that doesn't matter. It's just when you're trying to fight back against something like this, I think there's a notable difference in the two sides of this. It'S not as though Blake Lively's complaint was like super nice to Justin Baldoni. And there, there were a couple things where I think I even said like, yeah maybe that's a little bit, you know, I mean it might be a little bit unfair. I think There was one, yeah

0:31:49 Lydia: Yeah I was uncomfortable with with the way that they characterized him am crying in her trailer and stuff. I did not like that.

0:31:54 Thomas: Yeah some of that was a little, yeah like okay.

0:31:57 Lydia: It was just unkind.

0:31:58 Thomas: But this one I think we're going to see contains as many many negative things about Blake Lively as a person that has nothing to do with the legal claims. Like at the very least you could still argue that was her legal claim. She was claiming that was part of the harassment was because he was crying over her being too fat. And that was what he was shaming her over. You know, it was a little, I was put off by that a little bit, but that's a whole different thing from just being like, and Justin Baldoni, who, by the way, is an ugly fucking dork.

0:32:27 Thomas: You Know, like just, it's just trying to throw out all this negative stuff that has nothing to do it's poisoning the well it's it's ad hominem kind of stuff let's look at this here we go just do paragraph nine

0:32:38 Lydia: All right. The film was the hotly anticipated adaptation of a worldwide bestselling book by Colleen Hoover, and by starring in it as Lily, Lively stood to enhance her already considerable star power. But she was not content merely to headline one of the year's biggest movies. Instead, apparently driven by overweening ambition and a need for control, footnote, In an early meeting with Baldoni, Lively foreshadowed what was to come, stating, quote, I'm afraid you have too much power, referencing Baldoni's dual role as producer and director.

0:32:49 Thomas: Footnote here let's read the footnote okay dual roles pretty oh was that what she was referencing not as a lead actor as well like that you're leaving out the most important dual role that is a problem and was a problem in this project is not director and producer it's director and actor because you're directing scenes that that you're acting in that involve intimate contact being a director and producer fucking who cares, whatever. Like all the actors are always producers or whatever. They're credited as producers that that doesn't matter. I just think this has got to be a lie. Like there's no way she said, I'm afraid you have too much power referencing producer and director. There's just no way.

0:33:41 Lydia: Well, and beyond that, this is not in text messages. So this is a meeting. So something that she stated. And, you know, we've gone after Lively for misremembering things. I mean, not gone after her, but, you know, kind of like been understanding that sometimes things aren't exactly what you remember them to be a year later, you know, eight months later, whatever. I think that's the case here, too. I really have a hard time. At the very least, there's context missing. But I have a really hard time with her saying, I'm afraid you have too much power. I think the concern from a reasonable person's perspective would be that he's caring too much, not about power, not Not about control, but about what he's having to bear over the course of this movie.

0:34:17 Thomas: Yeah, maybe. But I could also see that as an entirely legitimate. She could have just been making a very understandable and correct comment that he had too much power as the lead actor and director, especially if it, if this involved, I mean, it was an an early meeting, but like that could have been something she was anticipating or it could have been a joke or it can have been whatever. To go off of your point though, in legal complaints, people are going to quote conversations that they remember. There's nothing wrong with that. Like that's sometimes that's the evidence. Then you got to do that. But if this is the best I can do, the best he can do in his case about how her whole thing was actually to take over the movie is, well, I remember one time she said, I'm afraid you have too much power, which isn't, that doesn't mean if I say I'm afraid donald trump has too much power I'm not saying well therefore I should be president like maybe someone else should also so this is this is pretty much nothing so uh if you finish the footnote this is it's kind of just finish the photo it's funny

0:35:08 Lydia: Good point. Yeah. Mm -hm. This statement made an early impact on Baldoni, who felt compelled to reassure her the relationship would be collaborative and went above and beyond to make it so. This was not an invitation to sideline him and his producing partners.

0:35:28 Thomas: Okay man I don't yeah this statement where she said I'm scared I'm going to be president I'm afraid you have too much powerful by the way the big name we've gotten on our project who's a bigger fucking name look at this language Lively stood a chance to enhance her already considerable star power. Okay. What about Baldoni?

0:35:42 Lydia: Yeah.

0:35:43 Thomas: Baldoni is the fucking director and elite actor. And he stood a chance to already enhances considerable. Like it's, you could write the same fucking bullshit things. If anything, for one, it's funny that like all false victim stuff, they have to make the other person is both weak and strong. Like she, she needs this because she needs it to enhance her. Oh, but wait, we've already said she's so powerful that she could take over. She needs it. To enhance her already considerable star power. Those are contradictory things. But he actually does really need this. He did really need this, but we don't cast him in that. We don't put him. This complaint is going to be his side. Sure. But like societally, all we look at and all the internet looks at is her ambition. Oh yeah.

0:36:22 Thomas: She just wanted this. She Just want, why the fuck is he directing and acting in it? We never look at the dude. It's just assumed that the dudes can be ambitious. This nobody from a TV show that Lydia and a bunch of other people liked that who was, you know, a role in that TV show. Who's not a director, nobody ever questions like, why the fuck is he in charge of all this? It's only, well, she stood to enhance her star power. You know, it's just drives me nuts.

0:36:29 Lydia: How dare the woman. Mm -hum. Ha ha ha.

0:36:46 Lydia: All right, continuing on, getting back into the middle of the sentence, Lively eventually leveraged her power as a wealthy celebrity to wrest the reins from her co -star and the film's director, Baldoni, insisting on total control over every aspect of the film she could get her hands on, from wardrobe to marketing strategy to music, even creating her own cut of the the film yeah

0:37:05 Thomas: Total control? This is an interpersonal working relationship. This is normal Hollywood crap. We've already talked about this. I don't care. But the next part is what I really wanted to get to when I did that intro earlier.

0:37:16 Lydia: Not only did lively's power play cost numerous people their jobs but at every turn her wrong-headed creative

0:37:21 Thomas: Okay. What about the job of director? What about the job of actor and director that costs somebody a job Baldoni by you doing both that's never just it's assumed that this ambitious man could do whatever the fuck he wants sorry go ahead

0:37:33 Lydia: Decisions but at Every Turn Her Wrong -Headed Creative Decisions Reflected Her Fundamental Lack of Understanding of the Book the Film Was Based

0:37:43 Thomas: And that's why this movie was outclassed by Rango Isn't that the one that has the worst like box office opening ever it was like the average was like 13 per theater or something what was that was that Rango

0:37:56 Lydia: On oh Geez geez isn't Rango the animated movie Delgo

0:38:00 Thomas: It was something like that oh maybe it was like Delgo or something. Yeah, it's Delgo.

0:38:04 Lydia: Delgo bombed at the box office and is notable for producing at the time the worst opening ever for a film playing in over 2,000 theaters.

0:38:12 Thomas: Yeah. That's what it is.

0:38:12 Lydia: It was pulled from theaters after one week of release. Approximately two viewers per screening. Yeah.

0:38:18 Thomas: That's what I'm remembering. Honestly my heart hurts a little bit. There's a bunch of people are real people in this movie.

0:38:23 Lydia: Oh, I know Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt, Chris

0:38:24 Thomas: Freddie Prinze Jr. No not him. No I'm just kidding. Yeah 2008.

0:38:27 Lydia: Kattan, Val Kilmer.

0:38:28 Thomas: You would have thought that it was released in 1998 based on this cast.

0:38:31 Lydia: There's a lot. Burt Reynolds, Kelly Ripa. Wow.

0:38:33 Thomas: Yeah yeah they had real people. I mean part of it is they're just voice acting. I feel like it's maybe a little easier to get a bunch of people to do some voice acting but like that's why this movie was worse than Delgo the worst first fucking performance ever. Where is it? I remember reading like the average theater, you said two per theater. Yeah.

0:38:49 Lydia: Yeah. Two per theater.

0:38:49 Thomas: I remember hearing something like it was, you know, 13 bucks a theater or whatever.

0:38:53 Lydia: Yeah what was that? 2008.

0:38:55 Thomas: Oh God. Horrible.

0:38:55 Lydia: So yeah it could be. People saw matinees.

0:38:57 Thomas: No, it was really successful. You dork. How could you even say this with a straight face?

0:39:03 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:03 Thomas: What's your damages here? What'S your complaint? She took total control, but her wrong-headed creative decisions reflected her fundamental lack of understanding. So if she had total control. How much did it make? How much are we up to now on this one there's maybe there's some updated numbers 400 million or something yeah

0:39:18 Lydia: Or her creative decisions were right-headed.

0:39:21 Thomas: This is stupid all right so here's the part that I want to get

0:39:24 Lydia: This came as no surprise to her worried colleagues, given that, even well into production, Lively, in bold and italics, had not even read the book.

0:39:30 Thomas: To bum bum bum oh we get a text message here

0:39:36 Lydia: And a footnote, too. The footnote says Lively later claimed she read the books, but text evidence shows that well into the production she had not, and in fact expressed she had chosen not to read the book she even tried to google the color of her character's hair rather than pick up the book it's gonna be

0:39:51 Thomas: Obviously you would google what are you talking about this is an example every oh she tried to google the color I would do that if I had a book like if I wrote a book and I was like what did I put in it yeah if it was like famous or whatever a hundred percent you would Google it what are you talking about yes literally yes yes it's stupid shit look she hadn't read the book all right fucking whatever I don't know where's the proof of this so we get a text here september 14th 2023 text message from Baldoni to

0:40:02 Lydia: Faster you just google it yeah don't you think like george rr martin is gonna google like something about his book yeah yeah and it says it's cut off by the way so we get half of a sentence that says that we are rooting to see her fulfill we have don't know what that's about after rereading the book which had 150 pages to build their relationship we have combined scenes to heighten the stakes for ryle in pursuit of lily utilizing humor and his desire to sleep with her while I understand blake's reasons for not wanting to read the book the book does a very good job in getting in lily's mind during her interactions with ryle and setting up the why behind her attraction to him which ultimately helps us understand why she stays in the end

0:40:27 Thomas: Heath huh so we have him saying he that she didn't read the book at a certain time

0:41:01 Lydia: Wait and And why she stays in it, but she doesn't stay.

0:41:03 Thomas: Yeah she doesn't stay in the end but maybe it means the end of a scene or a certain thing.

0:41:08 Lydia: Huh, weird. Maybe he needs to reread it again.

0:41:09 Thomas: Yeah, I doubt that he made that mistake. I get that. I'm not saying this can't be evidence because sometimes the only evidence you have is when you told somebody something. Sure. But this doesn't tell us when. We don't know. This is September 14th. All we know is at that time, if we take this for granted, if We Take This Is Valid, Baldoni thought at that point, Blake hadn't read the book. It doesn't tells us for sure when she did or didn't. And also, what does this have the fuck to do with anything?

0:41:35 Lydia: Yeah, I also don't think it matters.

0:41:35 Thomas: It has nothing to do with anything. If she had total control, which she didn't. The decision she made wound up making, you could try to argue it would have made a billion fucking dollars or something, but like, that's a tough argument.

0:41:46 Lydia: What would be the expectation for something like that, too? Because, like, often we get movies that are based off of books, and I don't think actors are always reading the books that the movies are based off of.

0:41:56 Thomas: Yeah. They're definitely not. I think it's kind of case by case. Sometimes it wouldn't fucking matter at all. Cause when you're doing adaptations, they're totally different and you don't want to be, but, but also look, I don't care about this. Blake had her reasons. Maybe they're bullshit by the way. Maybe she's trying to get out doing homework. I don'T care. It doesn't matter. I will say that you, you do want someone involved who hasn't read the book.

0:42:15 Thomas: Cause like Like the one thing you don't want is everybody to have all these assumptions in their brain that they think we all know about, but then they forget that they haven't actually communicated part of it to the audience, you know? So you need somebody who hasn't read the book. But you know, if she used that as an excuse, maybe she's trying to avoid homework. It's neither here nor there. It doesn't fucking matter.

0:42:31 Lydia: Okay, but, you know, just kind of calling out some potential sexism here, too. It's like when we look at, like different acting approaches, right? Right. And like some people are like super method and like sometimes they're freaking jerks on set and stuff like that. Perhaps this is just part of an important approach for Blake Lively that she also wouldn't read books for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Like, I don't know. Like maybe she doesn't do that.

0:42:55 Thomas: Well, yeah, maybe he wants to make sure the character works in the movie, because a lot of people will not have read the movie. You don't wanna make a book movie where it relies too much on having read the story. Like that doesn't work. So like, I don't know, maybe, who cares?

0:43:04 Lydia: Yeah, it's just it doesn't matter.

0:43:07 Thomas: It's stupid. Again, it's just picking out all these little things to criticize her on that don't matter. Again, if this was fucking Delgo, then yes, throw me all this stuff. If this is Delgo be like, yeah, here's our problem. If this Is Enron, you know, if This Is Whatever, yeah. Here's the problem. She didn't even read the fucking book and she was making all the decisions. I am all goddamn ears for that.

0:43:26 Lydia: I think it might be it's obviously a lot of this is PR, but specifically, you know, the Colleen Hoover fan club and, you know, It Ends with Us, fan club, people who loved the book, just trying to kind of get them not on Blake Lively's side during this whole thing. Like she didn't even read the book. Yeah.

0:43:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the whole thing is poisoning the well with all these Little Criticisms. Okay, let's keep going here. They're gonna make the case that this was all organic backlash and we've done a lot of this it's the alcohol can I don't actually I don'T know if they did that did they do that before maybe we ought to read that part

0:43:57 Lydia: Yeah, I'm not sure. Okay, let's see. Social media commenters quickly pointed out that her tie-in of her alcohol beverages was in particularly poor taste, given the World Health Organization estimates that 55% of domestic violence incidents are linked to alcohol. Unbelievably, Lively made this harmful and irresponsible message worse by naming a drink at her premiere after party rile you wait after the character who committed domestic violence in the film the suggestion that Wayfarer caused the online backlash against her is absurd given the evidence of her own insensitivity the next paragraph I think here too sadly this backlash could have been avoided had she not refused to meet with the film's domestic violence partner organization nomore.org as baldoni had offered. Even a brief visit to their website or a simple online search would have readily uncovered this and other information on the topic of domestic violence.

0:44:48 Thomas: Are we really gonna mansplain domestic violence to Blake Lively like you don't think she knows this oh had she not refused why would she refuse to meet it's a bunch of stuff where you have to already have the well poisoned so much to believe here's how this goes once you have a reason to not want to believe a person and let's say a woman then you start getting stuff like this oh she didn't read the book oh she did this oh she did that and then like each one kind of stacks on itself to where pretty soon you'll believe anything sort of like how Fox News viewers will believe anything about you know San Francisco or whatever or just any liberal like once you just get fed this wealth of bullshit you'll belief any negative thing about her I don't believe that she refused to meet with the film's domestic violence partner on those terms like if that's how it's being represented I might believe that that A, this is bullshit, or B, she wasn't able to for some reason, or she had her reason, but she didn't refuse to meet with him. And then that's why she had no idea that alcohol was a thing. She doesn't drink, first

0:45:44 Lydia: Yeah she doesn't.

0:45:44 Thomas: Off, that none of this is anything. Here's the thing though, I want to grant, and I think there may be some people in Lively's camp who will disagree with me on this. I fully don't know how much of the backlash was organic or not. And I am willing to believe pretty extreme numbers either way, based on evidence, I mean. I'm willing to believe that like all this stuff got seeded by Baldoni's PR firms. And that is kind of the snowball effect where as the internet starts hating on someone more and more, like it gets out of control and therefore they would be, you know, largely responsible for it. I'm also willing to believe that it was entirely fucking organic entirely. Yeah.

0:46:19 Lydia: Entirely. Oh wow.

0:46:20 Thomas: Like I don't look, is there no other examples of internet just hating on women for bad reasons? Like, right.

0:46:21 Lydia: I think there's one. Yeah I wouldn't say that one seeded story was then like the beginning of the avalanche, right? I would say that it was among the mix of things that were organic and not necessarily like the root cause

0:46:40 Thomas: But I'm talking about this whole backlash. Like, I'm willing to believe that Baldoni didn't really need to do any, Because like, take the first example of the outfit. We know that he didn't do that. He didn't do any of the like wardrobe stuff, right? Unless I'm missing something. And that was a big backlash against her. And That Might Have Already Started the ball rolling of Hating Blake Lively in some circle.

0:46:50 Lydia: No no yeah Well and I think also her being cast in the role like there were there was a segment of the book loving population that did not like it because she was significantly older than that character is supposed to

0:47:03 Thomas: Yeah. So here's where there's going to be two questions. There's going to be, did they retaliate? And if so, what are the damages? I think, I mean, that's loosely speaking, because I think the retaliation, I don't know how that works in terms of damages, but largely speaking with her claims against Wayfarer and Justin Baldoni. In general, there's going to be like, did this happen? And if so, what were the damages? Like, that's just kind of a general legal thing, right? I mean, that's usually what you have to, even with, you know, with defamation, with all this other stuff, you usually have to prove damages separately. And I think it's pretty inarguable at this point. Although I've allowed for the fact that if the texts we've seen were incredibly selective, I could see maybe Baldoni was only ever preparing for stuff. I feel like we're past that point with what we've seen so far in the series. We can go back and review, you, but like, it feels like he kind of retaliated. Like it feels pretty certain that he retaliated, but like maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the jury would look at all that evidence and be like, oh, it just kind of looks like he responded and he had stuff ready, you know? And like, yeah. And I'd be willing to believe that. But what you don't have to prove is that he was the cause of all of the backlash against her. You don't have to prove that. Like that would be a question of damages maybe. But like in order for him to have done the unlawful thing of retaliating in relation to this sexual harassment claim, you don't have to prove that he caused the entire online backlash. And I don't know how, I mean, does she explicitly claim that? I know she does. She kind of implies that in her

0:48:01 Lydia: But they never actually had to drop anything

0:48:29 Thomas: Complaint and she does point to parts where she says like, look at the search stuff, you know, the Google trends and all that. And like, I see this as a valid thing for Baldoni to push back on. I think it's valid, but it's not valid. I think It's a bit of a trick, a rhetorical trick to get you in the mindset of, well either it was organic or not and that's all there is to it and if there's any organic part to it then Justin Baldoni did nothing like that's not the binary we live in the binary is did he retaliate or not? And then separately how much of the damages could be attributed to him which is a really difficult question they're kind of combining those two things and making it like heads I win tails you lose kind of thing because if any of this was organic then you know she's lying or whatever and we don't know like we don'T even know if we were to able to talk to Blake Lively right For all we know, she might be like, yeah, no, that part might've been organic, but not this part. Like, we don't know. Like we don, we don't actually know. Maybe she wouldn't. What I'm saying is logically speaking, her position, we don't need to consider her position being that every single bad thing said about

0:49:31 Thomas: Her was a result of Baldoni's smear campaign. That's just not her position. And legally speaking, that's not the standard that we're looking at. Do you have anything to say on the alcohol thing?

0:49:40 Lydia: I mean, I think when it comes to this is like a very Hollywood thing, right? People drink in Hollywood. I think it's probably expected at after parties that there's alcohol. I don't think it is evaluated movie by movie. If that's the case, I bet you all the animated films also do alcohol, even though it's films intended for children. They're going to have alcohol because adults are attending the after party.

0:49:57 Thomas: Is that all this is?

0:50:03 Lydia: So she has a beverage company that initially was just non -alcoholic like mixers. And then they launched the alcoholic drinks that kind of are under that brand as well, Betty Buzz. And so I think it was just the timeline of that product happened to coincide with the timeline. I think

0:50:23 Thomas: What's the actual tie -in? Because social media commentators quickly point out that her tie -In of alcoholic beverages was in poor taste. What's the tie -in?

0:50:31 Lydia: That she was promoting her new line of products for Betty Buzz at the same time that she Was doing press for the movie.

0:50:38 Thomas: So that's not a tie -In is it? Or, or so I guess I just want, I don't know. I'm asking you, is it just that these two things happened at the same time? Or is she like, and that's why my character would love this. And I'm, I'm joking, but like, it wasn't actually tied into the movie in terms of her promotion of the alcoholic.

0:50:54 Lydia: Yeah, not the movie, but her company's drinks were used in the after party cocktails.

0:51:00 Thomas: I just wanna look at that wording at her premiere after party.

0:51:04 Lydia: That Wayfarer and Sonny paid for.

0:51:06 Thomas: Oh, that one.

0:51:06 Lydia: Yeah, mm -hmm.

0:51:07 Thomas: Are you sure?

0:51:09 Lydia: Yeah I'm pretty positive.

0:51:09 Thomas: Oh, so sometimes it's a thing that he and Sony paid for, but other times it's her premiere your after part. No, that can't be right.

0:51:14 Lydia: I think it's I think the reason he's saying her premiere after party is because he was not allowed to attend.

0:51:27 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:51:28 Thomas: All right. Well, that is where we're going to cut off this first part. That was a chunky one. That Was a, that was a meaty chunk. Yeah.

0:51:34 Lydia: Meaty chunk, ew.

0:51:36 Thomas: We want to make sure people are getting their chunks worth here. That's not, that wasn't. Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, it's good for you. It'S healthy.

0:51:39 Lydia: Lots of protein. Lots lots of protein in there. Yeah.

0:51:45 Thomas: That'S it for part one here. We're going to continue on going through it. We 'Re cutting out as much as we can, but we got to go through it. So it'll take what it takes. Again, if you want to make sure you're getting this stuff right By the way, patreon.com/galvapod. Thanks so much to our supporters and also to the listeners. Share with anyone you think would find this interesting and we'll see you next time.

0:52:05 Lydia: See ya.

0:52:27 Thomas: Not for us. We're in hell. Paragraph five and more crap about whatever. I've highlighted the four sentences that are law. If you want to check that out. Bum, bum, bum.

0:52:42 Lydia: Okay side note did you see Scooter Braun and Sidney Sweeney might be dating?

0:52:45 Thomas: We can't date this like this. Come on. And I did see that though.