Lively v. Baldoni 36 - The Apology That Could Have Prevented ALLLL of This

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, everybody. It's episode two of Wayfair. What are we doing? Of the thing we've done countless hours of. Of the air that I breathe. I don't know. I can't. Wayfairy be lively. And we've got another interesting chunk. We, uh, oh, uh. How are you?

0:00:28 Lydia: Whoop whoop. Yes, that's the one. I am well. My name's Lydia, for anyone wondering.

0:00:47 Thomas: Lydia, everybody?

0:00:48 Lydia: Hello. How are you, Thomas?

0:00:51 Thomas: I'm doing well. Excited to get more into it. But this one begins with a bit of a deep dive, started looking at Reddit, trying to track something down, and we discovered some interesting stuff that might have implications on the whole bot thing. It was kind of fascinating. So that's where we begin, and then we'll keep going on with the complaint. And then in this one, we get to talk about the apology that Blake and Ryan drafted that they wanted Baldoni to endorse or say or whatever. That is really interesting. First time I'd seen that.

0:01:27 Lydia: Yeah, that'll be fun.

0:01:28 Thomas: Can't wait. Wait, thanks so much for listening. Be a patron, patreon .com slash gavelpod. Join the ranks, support the show, get the, not the ad. Nope, don't do that. I was going to say get the ads and not the early stuff. That would be weird. Don't get the adds, but do get this episode ahead of people. All right, we'll take a break and then we'll get to it.

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0:01:52 Thomas: So this is interesting. We're getting sidetracked a bit here, but I think it's actually important to the whole case. So I kind of want to talk about this. So we're tracking down the alcohol thing and we're kind of refreshing on how that went down and there's a reddit post blake lively's alcoholic drinks company being promoted during premiere of it ends with us a movie about domestic violence and that comment just says can we not and this is in faux moi or whatever it has a link to the instagram that insta was deleted I think there's several different questions there's what was the actual promotion of alcohol whatever however he put it which was her tie -in of alcoholic beverages was was in particularly poor taste.

0:02:32 Thomas: Lively made this harmful and irresponsible message worse by naming a drink at her premiere after party while you wait. So there's how much of it there was. Now, from what I can tell, there's nowhere where she's doing an interview for It Ends With Us and she's like, and that's why you should drink this alcohol. There's none of that. So she has this company that does, well, it seems like it's two different ones, right?

0:02:51 Lydia: Yeah, right.

0:02:51 Thomas: It's one that does the mixers and one that does alcohol. She doesn't drink herself. Does she own both of them though? Okay.

0:02:56 Lydia: Yes. Yeah. So Betty Buzz was the first one, and then they just launched Betty Booze, which is the alcoholic beverage.

0:03:01 Thomas: Just launched when? Okay.

0:03:03 Lydia: Around the same time, I want to say May.

0:03:05 Thomas: So she, like many, if not all celebrities, has other products she's selling and ways she's using her name to profit. And that's a thing that we could object to, I think, either across the board or not. I don't think it's anything we can just single her out for. Are we putting a microscope on someone because we want to or is this something that every celebrity does? This seems to me like something that Every celebrity who has the ability to has the star power to do tends to do so She has these products and there seems to be now companies like this We don't know who runs the company day -to -day for per se I guess we could try to look into it But I don't if we want To waste time with that But these come she doesn't usually these celebrities lend their name to things and use their name And if they own the company are profiting off of their name Doesn't mean they run the day -To -day operations of the company like that's a lot to do do. She's got a bunch of books she has to read, you know, by Colleen Hoover. So she can't do that. You can still, I guess, hold her accountable, I suppose, even if she's not involved in these decisions and the running of it. So there's that question. In terms of the question about what this actually was, I don't know. There's a couple articles I see. Let's see. What do I see? There's an article from August 12th. So that's right around this time. That's just kind of one of these typical promotion -y things that's like, here's Betty Buzz. It's got A Range of Flavors, blah blah blah and now there's also Betty Boo's snack pairings or Betty Buzz cocktails and it also says Blake Lively stars in the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's best -selling novel what better way to celebrate them by watching the new film while enjoying Blake's own drinks brands Betty Buzz and Betty Booz. Betty Booze for some reason launched in the UK I'm not really sure why that is it says and then this article has the drinks Lily Blooms is a drink Atlas Corrigans Ryle Kincaid's drink Betty Boo sparkling tequila so it's got that and then it has Betty Buzz Buzz. Cocktails. Blooming Betty. Rally You Wait. It ends with Buzz. Tom. Colleen's. So that's kind of a promotional article. I don't know who read that at the time. Like who fucking read it? I have no idea. It's from the Arcadia Online. Is that a big thing?

0:03:51 Lydia: Mm hmm. Mm hm. Arcadia Online? No. Mm mm.

0:05:07 Thomas: Yeah, I've never heard of it. So here's an article. All right. Sure. It seems like these booze companies or these mixer and booze companies, which have Blake Lively's names, are doing what they can to promote. And they're utilizing the fact that she's in a film premiere to promote. Here's the thing I I want to say though I think it's kind of unfair to say that because men do horrible things to women sometimes under the influence of alcohol that therefore this woman who doesn't even drink by the way is doing something wrong by having a company that sells this stuff and tying it in with her movie like doesn't that feel like holding a woman accountable for men's actions like not like we're two steps of that because on one hand I can get as drunk as could possibly be and I would would never lay a hand on Lydia. Like that's just not, it's not something that could or would happen.

0:05:43 Lydia: Yeah for a lot of men's actions. Mm hum.

0:05:56 Thomas: Feel free to contradict me. You're in a safe place. We record from different rooms. She's in it.

0:05:59 Lydia: We do. We We do. I can lock the door.

0:06:02 Thomas: No, that just wouldn't happen. The people who get physical with women who hurt women, that's a very specific thing. Just speaking as a man, that's very specific. Very specific thing that you have, or you don't like, it just, like, I don't think there are that many things that work like that. Like maybe you could construct a possible marginal situation situation where like a dude who wouldn't normally do it maybe some sort of scenario but like I think that's going to be really tortured that's gonna explain 0 .0001 of these instances most of the time men who somehow have learned or think that it's okay to hit women or even if they don't think it is but they can't stop themselves that's a certain type of man there's no amount of drinking I can do that leads to that that's just not yeah all it can do is alcohol can lead to men who are shitty but but maybe kind of contain it most of the time, losing that ability to contain it.

0:06:40 Lydia: Yeah, it's just that alcohol lowers their inhibitions. Yeah.

0:06:52 Thomas: Now, we're going to blame Blake Lively. We're going hold her accountable and say all these vitriolic things online against her because of her, like we're blaming her for that. That's already two steps removed. And the theory, the World Health Organization estimates that 55 % of domestic violence incidents are linked to alcohol. That's half. Okay, we already, you're at half. Also, they're linked. Like, does that, again, I don't think, you can't blame the alcohol. Yeah, yeah, I believe that that happens. I believe that there are men who are marginally containing themselves who are shitty, who then lose that ability under

0:07:15 Lydia: Someone consumed a drink. Yeah

0:07:24 Thomas: The influence of alcohol. I think that happens. I mean, people seem to lose inhibitions. Alcohol doesn't make a person out of nothing. It doesn't makes desires to harm people out of nothing. It might lower inhibitions of people who already kind of suck. And again, maybe you could construct some marginal scenarios where it might lead someone to make some bad decision somewhere. But for men, the idea of hitting women is just something that you have or you don't. Like it's just not even, there's nothing, there is no amount of angry I could be at you. It's not connected. There is no connection of that.

0:07:57 Thomas: Like it is just not a thing I would think. Same with the kids. That connection is not in my brain. No amount of drinking does that. And so we are going to hold this woman accountable. Now there is another question though. In full fairness, do I believe that it is possible that people on the internet want to hold her accountable for this in an organic way? Yes, actually.

0:08:15 Thomas: Because I do think people onthe internet are sexist and unfair. Fair. And if they want to take her down, this is an excuse to take her down. And it's not, it's an insane concern. Like I think it's, I think it's valid to be like, eh, you know, maybe you don't want to promote alcohol tied with it. Like it's a valid thing to think about. I just think this is so far removed. This is her premiere. It's her premiere thing that the Betty Buzz company did an Instagram reel on. Like that's, that's the company, you Know, like it's I don't know, it feels a little flimsy. So in a moral sense, if you and I are judging her, I don't judge her for this at all, because I think think it's fucking stupid. I think men are responsible for hitting women. I think they're responsible. The alcohol is not responsible. And Blake Lively is not fucking responsible for advertising her product. That's lightly alcohol and a ton of sugar.

0:08:56 Lydia: Four and a half percent but mostly sugar yeah

0:08:57 Thomas: Yeah. So on a moral sense, that's where I am in a, do I believe the internet could have flipped out about this sense? Yeah, I do. Actually, I believe the internet would have used this as a reason to flip out organically or not. Best we can tell this was on the Betty buzz Instagram. If the idea is that this is a bad influence, like this is, this is going to cut again, taking taking away all the agency of the actual abusers. If you go to Betty Buzz's Instagram, every single picture is alcohol.

0:09:25 Thomas: So like, if you're already seeing the Insta, you're just seeing alcohol all the time, but then on this one time, it's an alcohol post that also has the movie premiere in it, then that would do something different. You know, like, what is that? Like, what's the marginal effect? Picking out this one Insta post on an Insta that is all the same alcohol all of the time. That's all it is. Like, every picture is them promoting their product because it's a product promotion page like that's what it is but now this one post has the movie in it or something and so that makes a difference does that is that an invalid thing you're the one who's more up on the social media is it something about the way that would have I don't know tagged or interacted with her or something that would've mattered okay

0:10:03 Lydia: Yeah I mean it could be if she was tagged in the reel then it also shows up on her Instagram or if she shared it to her stories you know then it's on her Instagram, which I imagine she probably had to do to cross promote.

0:10:20 Thomas: Yeah so we don't know that I think if she did I think this reddit post would have linked that don't you think or would have pointed that out maybe because it would have been the better case I guess we can't say for sure so maybe she shared it on hers fair enough okay so that would make it a bit of a different thing I think one thing that's interesting is I'm just going back through Betty Buzz Instagram and it still has like Betty Blooms still has that stuff. And what's interesting is there's a specific date where you can see all the trash talkers coming in and it's not when the post was. So like this post was from August 8th, for example, that just says Betty Bloons introducing New York City's latest pop -up Betty Bloums inspired by Blake Lively's character in It Ends With Us movie. We opened last night with a private floral making class catered by some person. With Betty Bloems, we wanted to show how special it is when flavor meets florals find us in chelsea until august 20th so again this is just corporatey fucking stuff but this post was august 8th all the shit talking comes in august 17th so I don't know if that's when a specific like hate brigade happened august 16th august17th uh

0:10:27 Lydia: Maybe. Yeah, yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah? Hmm. That's when a Daily Mail article came out said is Blake Lively set to be canceled?

0:11:23 Thomas: Point I want to make is this we saw somebody on that faux moi post one commenter caught my eye not at random but because of what they were saying which was someone saying on august16th 2024 this is why why this caught my eye one person says omg give it a rest is she her own pr team too you know suggesting that like you shouldn't blame her for this and this person commented if she shoehorned her way into the directing writing and editing of the movie she surely can do and has done the same for this movie's pr rollout and I mean it's her booze company she's profiting off of this why should we give it arrest and I just thought that was weird because like on august 16 2024 where did we have anything that she had shoehorned her way into the directing writing and editing of the movie and so our first inclination was like who is this reddit user is this an example of someone not real you go to that reddit users page and it seems impossible to believe that this isn't a real person and so then I'm like how did they already have that storyline you know it just seems really early to me so then I was backtracking like okay how did this user who I'm gonna take as real like it would be pretty I mean if this person isn't real it's a five -year -old account with like a a ton of stuff that actually looks like real people stuff and like a full storyline about their breast reduction surgery. Like this is, it would be impossible for me to believe that this isn't real. So this person's real. And so then I think like, okay, maybe can I find the first time this random user picked up this idea? And I go back and I see in the comment history, they responded to an article though. Oh, this is the one, the people magazine one that said it ends with us. Director Justin Baldoni suggests Blake Lively should direct sequel better people for that one and then someone comments says it all right there sounds like she hijacked his set worth noting that justin and colleen connected years ago after he read the book and really connected to it proceeded to option it and direct it and then got asked to play ryle and

0:13:15 Thomas: Then we have a reply that's deleted which we could probably track down but I haven't yet then we have someone apparently he made positive changes to the dv plot when I click on that user they're the kind of person who deletes all their reddit activity so there are no comments or posts or anything anything listed under their activity but they are someone who is an eight -year -old account so I don't know and then there's another by that same deleted and then There's our beloved user saying absolutely Savage and 100 correct in response to the deleted comment so we don't Know what that is I know this is convoluted the comment on the Reddit post that said says it all right there sound like she hijacked the set when I click on that person it says the account has been suspended so like I don't make is that a bad account like you could get suspended for all kinds of reasons I suppose But like, this just goes to show the nebulous nature of this. Let's just say, what if that account were suspended because of some suspicious activity that could lead you to believe that maybe it was artificial? And this is tracking down just this one Reddit user where they got that idea. And that was August 9th that that person said that.

0:14:17 Lydia: Wow, that's early.

0:14:17 Thomas: Sounds like she hijacked his set.

0:14:19 Lydia: Yeah that's really early. The inside info was like August 13th on Reddit.

0:14:23 Thomas: Yeah, I'm not saying that this, I want, yeah,

0:14:25 Lydia: It's before Kirstie Flaw's video.

0:14:27 Thomas: I wanna be very clear. I'm Not saying this means that I've caught them red handed. I'm saying it is not unreasonable to believe and to be suspicious of this and say, well, what if that was seeded? And it is a suspended Reddit account now. Could have been if that were seeded. And we can see in just this one user I picked, I didn't go through a bunch of them. I just literally picked one here. We see how that comment led to this person taking in that information. And then later, this organic person commenting if she shoehorned her way into directing and writing and editing. You know, like that's the way this can all look, where it's really difficult to tease that out. Now, maybe that's all organic. I don't know. Maybe that person somehow had that first thing and they also got suspended for unrelated reasons. But at the very least, that's worth looking at, you know?

0:15:02 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right?

0:15:15 Thomas: And it goes to show the way these things can snowball. And maybe it only takes that little first initial thing to get a whole hate storm going.

0:15:29 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:15:29 Thomas: So long story short, tying that all together, other. I do think that for one, it's sexist and silly to be holding Blake Lively accountable for the fact that in 50 % of domestic violence cases, they're linked to alcohol and they're, you know, so it's like, I just, the sexism involved in holding Blake lively accountable for that to me is crazy. But I do want to, in full fairness, separate two different things because I do believe that's the level of sexism that our society has. And so when you're talking about like, yeah. So when you'RE talking about like, what's an organic response, it'S entirely possible that was fully organic, even though I think it's stupid and morally wrong to be holding Blake Lively accountable for this. It's so tenuous. It is like 17 degrees of separation. Someone's probably in charge of the marketing for this company. It barely, you know, anything in terms of like the, it's not advertising like bathtub gin and, you now, it is just like these, it is so many degrees of separation, not to mention the fact that domestic violence being linked to it as though Blake Lively is responsible for men doing something wrong. It just, it It's a bunch of degrees of separation, and it's silly. Having said that, I could believe that if people in this society wanted to hold Blake Lively accountable for that, that doesn't take a lot of work. Because of that, I think it also lends itself to the idea that maybe if somebody under Baldoni's employ, I could see this being a thing that would also work that way,

0:15:54 Lydia: Yeah just naturally right yeah yeah no

0:16:45 Thomas: Because it's kind of a plausible thing to be mad about, but would anybody care absent somebody having seeded it? I think that's stuff that you just got to find evidence for. I think in Discovery, it'd be the kind of thing that you'd point to the jury and say, hey, look, they started this post. If they did. Let it suffice to say, when I see these accounts that like, it just was interesting clicking down this random rabbit hole of Reddit accounts to where it might not be so simple as, oh, this account is bashing Blake Lively, therefore fake. That's not it. It's like, oh ,this account saw this post and saw this posts and that account that was on that earlier post is suspended now. So that could have possibly been a fake account, but then it starts that that chain of causation downstream, you don't have to prove that everyone who hated Blake Lively is a bot. That's not anywhere near it. If anything, it could be very few that were these bots or these seeded stories that then led to a wave of backlash that eventually feels organic and kind of is organic in a way, but started from a seed of a fake post. So that could be.

0:17:43 Lydia: Or or fanned by a fake post

0:17:46 Thomas: I'm not saying I know this to be true or anything. I'm just saying these are possibilities. And it's not absurd in my mind for Blake Lively to be suspicious of a lot of this at all. And it'S not absurd for her. I think it's fully valid for her to put it in her complaint. And, you know, Baldoni is pushing back. I think that to the extent he wants to push back, I get it. But it's where he does things like obfuscating on the argument that bothers me to where he's trying to present this false binary of either it's 100 % organic or either it'S not. And that'S not the binary we're in. And so I see that as like a cheap argument, like a fallacious argument.

0:18:15 Lydia: But before we turn away from reddit I want to bring up this one comment that was making the round or I guess it was a post this one post that was making the rounds on a variety of reddits including the colleen hoover subreddit where they say specifically this is a throwaway account but that they know someone who worked on the movie for most of the run and they say who would have gotten these details piping hot not some grapevine situation they told me firsthand what they know and then they have a series of bullet points this is posted august 13th again on multiple subreddits and I just want to read through some of these because I want to get your thoughts on like

0:18:48 Thomas: So anyway, yeah, I don't think I know this.

0:18:49 Lydia: What in the world is happening here so it starts supposedly blake felt that justin made her uncomfortable on set one instance in particular they said was that justin told blake she looks sexy in what she was wearing on set. I don't know the context around it. The second one, apparently Justin wasn't happy with the original editor's cut of the movie, so he hired his own team to do his version of the move. Blake wanted to do her own version of a movie as a result, but Sony said no. I think that's true from what we've seen. Blake goes to Sony and threatens to go to the New York Times with the story that says Justin was sexually harassing her on set if they don't let her have her own vision.

0:19:21 Thomas: What? No.

0:19:23 Lydia: Yeah, this is from August 13th, last year. Months before the the New York Times, there's no way. There's no way, right? So Sony freaks out and says okay, whatever you want. Justin is banned from the Sony lot, I don't think forever, just for the run of the movie, but I could be wrong. Blake hires Taylor Swift's music video editors to do her version while she's filming in Italy for something. Blake has a friends and family screening to get thoughts with lots of A -listers. Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, I think, etc, etc. Everyone is like, question mark, question mark. This movie makes no fucking sense. Blake realizes she needs to hire an experienced film editor to fix it. Blake uses a T -Swift song in the movie that that the studio loves having in there. T Swift finds out that the original composer for the movie is someone she worked with in the past that was mean to her, and she says it's either me or him. Sony fires that composer to keep the T Swift song. I think that's everything I know.

0:20:10 Thomas: What is this user like if you go to their thing?

0:20:12 Lydia: Oh, it's a complete throwaway. They're motorcow9806, and all they've done is posted this, yeah, in, oh, I guess just the Colleen Hoover subreddit, and then I think they chimed in on on pop culture chat.

0:20:19 Thomas: That'S it. That strikes me as someone who has enough of what's real information that something's going on there

0:20:31 Lydia: Yeah. It looks like the earliest they posted this was as comments in a post on pop cultural chat, August 12th.

0:20:38 Thomas: Yeah august 12th there's no way a lot of that is true and a lot of it is it seems very slanted toward justin whoever's giving them that version of the story I think is on justin's side

0:20:47 Lydia: Yeah, and there's also stuff that's not accurate at all. Blake hires T -Swift's music video editors. No, she didn't. It was the editor from Deadpool, right?

0:20:51 Thomas: Mostly I don't know I don' t remember but I do know that there I mean there was enough that was something about the composer right I don''t know if that was exactly true

0:20:59 Lydia: To do her version. Yeah no. Yeah yeah I don't think we know. I think we have have allegations and rumors.

0:21:10 Thomas: I guess at that point what did the public know those when I'm like in August 12th before any of this yeah like all of this seems like they have some source of information so this strikes me as somebody who got information somewhere that's real and through a game of telephone or two is telling a story that is definitely slanted toward Baldoni for sure because like that all that like oh they had a screening everyone's like this movie makes no sense like there's no way there's nobody Blake said it made no sense it's not like she did it you know

0:21:15 Lydia: Not any of this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that she had an editor and then the screening and then changed an editor, and got a different editor at that point to fix it. That's not, yeah that's not what happened.

0:21:47 Thomas: It doesn't make any sense yeah so it seems like like rumors that are very pro -Justin mixed in with the game of telephone, but it's definitely real, like some real source, which is interesting.

0:21:58 Lydia: I know. It's so strange.

0:21:58 Thomas: Okay. So we'll keep an eye on that. Cause I don't know if that'll come up in the, in the lawsuit, if like alleges that's anybody, anybody talked to, I don'T know. I guess we'll have to see later.

0:22:06 Lydia: Yeah I mean it had on the Colleen Hoover subreddit, it had 1300 upvotes or net votes I I guess all right so going back to the complaint right

0:22:17 Thomas: We're on paragraph 12 trying again, we've got so much we're trying to see what we can skip through. He makes it out to be like, well, meanwhile, since he was, you know, excluded from Baldoni was excluded from all the marketing. Kidding. He was safeguarded from the backlash. Sure. Baldoni's sincere efforts were well received even more so in contrast with Lively's campaign to downplay the premise of the film and sell hair care and alcohol products. All right. Okay. But read, read that sentence.

0:22:41 Lydia: Lively enraged that her plans were foiled and armed with quote proof of alleged sexual harassment in the form of a 17 point list of demands she had required the wayfair parties to sign just months earlier focused her rage on baldoni blaming him for the consequences of her own

0:22:58 Thomas: That is so funny to me. You signed a confession and this isn't out of nowhere. There is no, this is just going to be a fundamental difference. I think if people are so anti -Blake or anti -women that they want to to believe that she made up a 17 point list that then turned into a 30 point list or whatever that involved hyper specific things that Jamie Heath signed that lawyers were involved in. Lawyers, lawyers are shitty, but in specific ways, like you're not going to come up to a team of lawyers and be like, Hey, here's all this made up stuff.

0:22:59 Lydia: Missteps yeah yeah yep Yep. Yeah, yeah.

0:23:30 Thomas: Just, you know, like that's just doesn't happen. You want to believethat like Blake Lively lied so well that she convinced lawyers that stuff was was happening that wasn't and got them involved and got them to threaten Sony the studio that everybody and everybody just bought into it. Like it's just it's nuts. Nobody that's nobody it's not real the best you could possibly believe if you are anti Blake is that she genuinely believe these things happen, but she's just like too sensitive or something like that's the best.

0:23:57 Thomas: You could do if you were anti Blake, but importantly that still compromises everything because if she really believe she was harassed you it can't then also be a plot to take Like, that just isn't, those two things aren't really compatible unless you really shoehorn it in. And so saying, well, armed with quote unquote proof in the form of their signed fucking confession.

0:24:21 Thomas: It's like, yeah, that's proof. And now we go to Stephanie Jones and we've talked, we've already covered this so much.

0:24:27 Lydia: I know but I have to read some of these sentences.

0:24:29 Thomas: Sure, sure. We'll skip as much as we can.

0:24:31 Lydia: So speaking of Stephanie Jones, her increasingly erratic behavior had driven away not only high -profile clients but also her right -hand woman Jennifer Abel who oversaw the Jonesworks Los Angeles office. Jones's behavior grew more and more bizarre as she lashed out at loyal clients like Wayfair in rage -filled rants and veered away from professional experience and strategy when making critical decisions affecting JonesWorks clients.

0:24:48 Thomas: What do you sorry lashed out at wayfair and rage -filled rants

0:24:57 Lydia: Yeah. And then the evidence that we have for that is those emails where she says, I can call this is a nothing burger. What? After a final outburst against Wayfair in which she outright refused to comply with their direct instructions, Wayfair had no choice but to cut ties with Jones and JonesWork rather than leave their public image in the hands of what appeared to be an out of control

0:25:14 Thomas: Yeah that's stupid yeah yeah we covered all this so

0:25:19 Lydia: Jones. Oh, I know. Let me finish the sentence whose actions were not aligned with Wayfair and Baldoni's worldview and wishes yeah so

0:25:24 Thomas: Okay worldview sure jones was filled with impotent rage at way it's just so silly oh okay the last the last part is so

0:25:31 Lydia: Great yep I know jones was filled with impotent rage at wayfair and at able who a month before had announced her decision to leave jones works to form her own company jones saw an opportunity for revenge she took it

0:25:48 Thomas: Dramatic it's so funny it's so dramatic. Okay. We've been through all that.

0:25:51 Lydia: It is so dramatic and

0:25:56 Thomas: No, they found it.

0:25:56 Lydia: Miss their calling as you know fiction writer I know

0:25:58 Thomas: This is it. Oh my God. It's hard to not read all this. Cause it's so funny. Ah, what are we going to do? It's going to be 11 D hours. Just read 14. Like it's So fucking crazy. Like, yeah. And especially now that we've armed our audience with the facts on a lot of this, you know, on a law, the Jones stuff. Yeah. So like, listen to how hollow this rings now

0:26:13 Lydia: Yeah especially with the jones stuff yeah on information and belief jones lively reynolds and leslie sloan lively's publicist and others concocted a plan whereby jones would seize abel's phone upon her departure yeah footnote while it is not entirely uncommon to request that an exiting employee return company property it is NOT often the case that personal phones phone numbers and communications are or seized, made public, and weaponized against the employee and the company's own clients. Yeah, it wasn't her personal phone. Right.

0:26:27 Thomas: And a footnote that wasn't, that didn't happen. That didn't happen. They weren't made public. It wasn't. Yeah, it's. Oh, my God. We know that's a lie. We know that to lie from not only Steph Jones, but Jen Abel, Jen Abels own counter complaint, which we've gone through, reveals that like this was all her idea to combine her phone. And it's so bad.

0:27:02 Lydia: And mine it for messages that, stripped of context, could be used to concoct a false narrative that the disastrous press coverage of Lively's callous and opportunistic comments and the public reaction to those comments were not Lively Spauld at all, but the result of a calculated, though in reality non -existent, smear campaign by Baldoni and his team.

0:27:23 Thomas: So clunky to just like cramming so much intrigue and conspiracism into into one sentence. Yeah.

0:27:30 Lydia: So mysterious.

0:27:32 Thomas: Yeah, this is sort of valid on information. I believe Jones's role in the scheme accounts for a conspicuous absence from Lively's retelling of events. I mean, like kind of like I did note that early on, like Jones isn't mentioned at all in Livelys complaint. And I do think but again, there's nothing nefarious going on. Like, I think that all makes sense. Somehow or another, Jones tipped off Lively and said, hey, subpoena me. Me, probably. People try to take on this enraged moralistic stance about whatever that is. And all they're doing is saying, hey, it's not fair that, you know, these people got caught in their misconduct.

0:28:09 Thomas: That's not really the important thing to focus on.

0:28:11 Lydia: Yeah, focus on the misconduct, maybe.

0:28:13 Thomas: Yeah. Like if anything, you can maybe be like, well, that's a little, but I don't even know how shady that is, honestly. And I think that if any one of these people, any one these people on the internet were in Blake Lively's role in in reality. And there was evidence of a smear campaign against them. And Jones was like, hey, can't tell you what, but I have some information related to some possible offenses against you in my possession. The idea that like any one of these people on the internet mad about this whole thing and the subpoena that we've talked about, the Van Zandt, all that, the idea that anyone in that position wouldn't do the same exact thing is just, it's nonsense. I don't even even know, like, if that's unethical. Like, I think that's kind of more ethical than not. It'd be weird to be like, no, the more ethical thing is to let someone get away with a smear campaign against someone they sexually harassed.

0:28:47 Lydia: Van sham. Yeah, yeah.

0:29:05 Thomas: Is that the more ethical thing?

0:29:06 Lydia: Yeah Yeah, I know.

0:29:06 Thomas: Like, I just don't even, it's silly.

0:29:08 Lydia: I also think like, I'm not really that caught up about Jones not being named in the lawsuit. I mean, like, what would have happened there is like, she probably would have filed a motion to dismiss and claimed, you know, all the things that we've seen in her complaints anyway that she was not involved in that account and that even when she tried to offer advice and stuff they shut her down they iced her out of contributing to the account and stuff so how could she be held responsible for a rogue

0:29:15 Thomas: Oh yeah, no. Not at all. Yeah. And imagine if she were named, then she'd just probably go to Blake Lively. Their lawyers would talk and be like hey, we are not responsible for this. We'd love to help you out and take us off the lawsuit. This This is just normal. Yeah, this is all normal.

0:29:37 Lydia: Employee yeah yeah there'd be a little meet and confer and yeah yeah yep

0:29:49 Thomas: I mean, it's weird. Like it is crazy, but like it's none of it is like the unethical shadowy stuff.

0:29:50 Lydia: Yeah but she would have fallen off no matter what

0:29:54 Thomas: It's just not. So 15, I just want to say we've said this at the beginning. The lively claim Baldoni was the one smearing her. The reality is that it was lively and bold Italics and her team who carefully planned and implemented a vile smear campaign against Baldoni and Wayfarer to deflect attention and blame for lively's disastrous misjudgments. Again, that doesn't make sense. Sense. Think of it from Lively's point of view in the world in which Baldoni is telling the truth.

0:30:19 Thomas: In that world, there's no reason for Lively to think this was Baldoni. Like there's not all Lively would do is be like, what is happening? She would fight against the bad press. She would just fight against that as best she could in normal PR modes.

0:30:32 Lydia: Or push through it or whatever and it would die off kind of thing

0:30:36 Thomas: Yeah. The reason she did this is because there's a whole lot of evidence that it was Baldomi. That's the only thing that would account for this. You don't randomly, like a response to bad press isn't, I'm going to find Find someone who's not responsible for this, frame them as responsible for it. And then that's going to get me out of this press. That doesn't make any sense.

0:30:53 Lydia: And again that it's connected to protected activity from her perspective and her her legal team's perspective

0:30:59 Thomas: That's all really coincidental, isn't it? Yeah, it's like it's very convenient. It's like the far more parsimonious explanation. Occam's razor. Maybe this guy sexually harassed her and then tried to smear her. That just explains everything really neatly and easily.

0:31:13 Lydia: Imagine a world where there was no sexual harassment they just didn't get along on set and you know maybe his team you know planted a couple like jerky stories or whatever about her and those sped off I don't think she would have done this because like what would the claim be like you're being mean to me like that that's not that wouldn't be a legal

0:31:28 Thomas: Yeah, doesn't make sense. The only reason I stopped here is because a vile smear campaign, again, it is not anything thing unless you could prove it was defamation or libel or if it was connected to protected activity, which it's not. So like they're just doing the two quoque, but it doesn't make sense because it's not the same thing. They can't, Lively can't be in trouble for a smear campaign because Baldoni never filed an HR claim against Lively. It's not symmetrical.

0:31:38 Lydia: Suit right right yeah yeah Right.

0:31:54 Thomas: So that's, but they don't care. They just think that's a, that's way they can convince a bunch of people who don't read very well and want to be mad at a woman that there's something there.

0:32:10 Lydia: I don't think we've talked about this much in paragraph 16. Yeah.

0:32:11 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:32:14 Thomas: Yeah. Let's, let's talk about this good that's

0:32:17 Lydia: Shortly after the film's premiere and the public backlash against Lively, Lively together with her husband Ryan Reynolds demanded through their talent agency, which also represented Wayfair and Baldoni, that the Wayfaire parties publicly apologize for so -called quote mistakes during production in order to deflect the avalanche of negative media coverage of Lively. Reynolds and Lively drafted He drafted a statement and demanded that Baldoni, Wayfair, and Heath issue that statement, requiring them to apologize to the public and fall on their sword, despite having done nothing wrong, or else the, quote, gloves would come off.

0:32:50 Lydia: Yeah. Multiple WME executives acknowledged that in their experience, Lively and Reynolds' threats were not to be taken lightly, though admitting to false, vague, and unspecified, quote mistakes would be tantamount to admitting to career -ending misconduct. Baldoni, Wayfair, and Heath refused to apologize for sins they had never committed. They took a stand, knowing full well that Lively and Reynolds would bring the full might of their celebrity artillery against them, and that is precisely what happened.

0:32:50 Thomas: A quote okay well that's weird because before as a story they never thought they'd have to tell and then whatever now they know it all is gonna happen

0:33:21 Lydia: Yeah, I think we do have the apology.

0:33:25 Thomas: Yeah this is interesting that we have this why don't you read that entry august

0:33:29 Lydia: Yeah. That evening, two WME executives, Heath and Abel, participate in a call to review the statement drafted by Lively & Reynolds on behalf of Baldoni Heath and Wayfaire. Upon review, WME concurs with Wayfairer that the statement was vague, implies culpability without substance, and fails to address the issues at hand. Furthermore, if the goal was to mitigate negative online attention directed at Lively, the statement would have the opposite effect. In response, Wayfaire, Baldoni, and Heath reject the demand, firmly refusing to issue any statement falsely assuming responsibility for non -existent issues.

0:33:50 Thomas: 12th

0:34:03 Lydia: Non -existence issues. Okay.

0:34:02 Thomas: Okay so that's that's how yeah okay sure now what's here's the statement they give us

0:34:07 Lydia: All right. It ends with us was a troubled production which we take full accountability for we are very sorry to everyone we caused upset to privately and publicly blake lively colleen hoover the entire cast and crew led with professionalism every step of the way any negativity aimed at them is ours to own we mutually agreed that the cast would be promoting the film separately and understood why we have always said we are not perfect and even if unintentionally make mistakes we will always own them we hold ourselves accountable it's not anyone's job but ours and that's part of being quote man enough we will practice what we preach we are learning and growing from the experience and we thank everyone for their patience as we find a better way to proceed we are very proud of the film and the welcome arms that it's been received part of our work is to have uncomfortable conversations for public growth the film is doing that on screen and we are doing that off screen thank you to the cast crew and public for the opportunity to be imperfect and to be given the space to learn and grow with humanity and dedication oh

0:35:03 Thomas: Boy that's the first time I've ever seen that

0:35:05 Lydia: Really yeah

0:35:06 Thomas: Yeah I cannot believe how kind that is of blake

0:35:09 Lydia: I will tell you on you know which subreddits. They obviously feel the exact opposite.

0:35:15 Thomas: Yeah so if you've come up with a theory that Justin didn't do anything wrong and whatever, sure. But like, think about it from even if there's anyone listening who's on Justin's side. I've argued, and I think it's right, that the best you could do for Justin's site is say that Blake Lively genuinely believed these things, but she was just too sensitive and wrong. That's the best you could Do. I think that's still completely wrong. But you cannot argue that she didn't really believe these things happened based on the facts based on I'm not talking about just this. I'm talking about all everything we've looked at. And so look at this from Blake's point of view. From Blake's points of view, there are some major problems on the set. There's sexual harassment on the sets. Major complaints. She, I was going to say she got, I don't know how this happened, but one way or the other, do you understand how insane it is that Blake Lively and the rest of the cast, like all of the casts, agreed to cut Justin Baldoni out of their promo and to just do it separate? You know how insane that is? You know,

0:36:12 Thomas: How bad it has to be for them to do that? I'm sorry. People are not just going to do that because you get to say, well, Blake Lively is so powerful. Blake Live is so powerfull. Blake Liley. No, they wouldn't do that. Like they just wouldn't. In reality, what they do is is they would probably try to kiss Blake Lavely's ass. Like if that were what was happening, they'd be like, oh, yeah, no, totally. But, you know, my agent says I should still just kind of do the whatever. Like they would find some way to smooth it over. There's no fucking way that if this is all made up, Blake Lively is getting the whole cast and crew to go along with the idea that Justin should be shut out of it. I mean, that's insane. That's so bad that you and I were like, gosh, I feel a little bit bad for Justin in that moment. Like maybe it was too far. I don't know. That's how bad that is. And so what I'm saying is something pretty extreme must have happened or something that at least, even if it wasn't super extreme, it was at least that the whole cast and crew pretty much understood that Blake was not going to be okay being around Justin and Blake was in the right for the most part. And so going from that point of view and evaluating this apology they wrote, I think this, like take, I'm trying to think of an example. Imagine any other Me Too story. It's hard because I don't think, I don' t want to say that Justin, anything Justin did was like, you know, it's not fucking Weinstein. It' s not like, it' s nothing that bad. I' m not trying to say it at all. But imagine any of the times that were like me too stories that were not quite to a sexually assault degree but like a harassment degree if those people were given this statement like here's the statement you can make to make this better they would have taken this in a

0:37:30 Lydia: Right, of course not.

0:37:45 Thomas: Heartbeat I think if they had any sense this gets to be them like hey we're learning and growing it's all positivity it's not like this isn't like hey мы fucking suck we're assholes I would say this this wasn't a poison pill I don't think this was anything that ryan reynolds or blake lively gave to them in in order to be like, yeah, why don't you eat this shit and then like intentionally have them not do it so they can be fighting or whatever. Like this seems to me like a genuine effort at something that is pretty kind to someone that they think sexually harassed her. Right.

0:37:45 Lydia: Yeah, I think so. And also, as I'm reading through it, there are some sentences that feel a little clunky. I'm sure they could have responded with some edits. Yeah and like, you know, but it's a starting point. I think it's fair starting starting point. And instead, it sounds like Baldoni, Heath, and Wayfarer were like, absolutely not.

0:38:21 Thomas: I mean, yeah. They would have workshopped on it. Yeah.

0:38:34 Thomas: Here's what's clearly happened and this much we know, but it's taking a little more shape in my mind here. They were going to do the promo separately as I've covered. That's an extreme thing, but Blake and everybody, like we mutually agreed, The whole cast and crew, everybody mutually agreed, essentially, that they're going to promote separately. And that's extreme. But then what happened was, as we know, Justin Baldoni, and I almost don't blame him for a lot of this, in the situation he's in, like starting from there, I mean, starting from that spot where it's like, well, how the fuck are we going to explain this?

0:38:36 Lydia: Yeah.

0:39:05 Thomas: You know, like, how are we gonna explain this, it is an interesting question, what crosses the line into retaliation, and I actually don't know. And it might be that he technically rode that line, And I don't know, I'm not sure how, how much legal advice he was getting at what times about that, but he took advantage. They took advantage, I think kind of adeptly or they planted these trends, but one way or the other, once they found an angle to differentiate against Blake, they took advantage of that as the reason and the thing that would justify them marketing separately, which in the world in which Blake was making this up. Okay, fine. I kind of like, whatever, touche. In the world of which they are the sexual harassers who created an unsafe work environment. No fucking way. Like I understand why Blake would be enraged because they took what was essentially like, for lack of a better word, like kind of a punishment, like, hey, I don't want to be involved with you. They took that and they turned it around to be further like abuse against Blake Lively, further ways of trashing her. So turning that around, someone you've accused of this thing and them turning that round into being more of an attack on you. I get why Blake would be pissed. And this statement is a pretty fucking tame, dignified way for Blake to be like, you need to take accountability for the fact that like the division is not because we're shitty and don't understand domestic violence. And you, Justin, a saint do like if that's not why we're divided on this promo, this film promo, you needs to make this statement to say that. And to your point, like maybe they could have argued back and forth and got something a little, but like, this is their opening salvo. Like this is not that, this isn't like we're sexually harassing assholes who did, you know, like,

0:39:05 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. It's vague, but to their benefit, right? Because

0:40:39 Thomas: Yeah.

0:40:39 Lydia: Even in their own text messages, they acknowledge that there were problems on set. Justin says, it's going to be better. I'm so sorry for making you feel this way, et cetera, et cetera. And not just to Blake. We We know that he sent that to another person who had complained. So it's one of those things where this could have honestly been to their benefit, but ego and hubris, I think, got in the way, as it so often does. And unfortunately, they made a different choice. And so now here we are.

0:41:09 Thomas: And check out this text message after that's still in this timeline now.

0:41:13 Lydia: I think we talked about this one before, didn't we?

0:41:14 Thomas: Uh, no, I haven't, I haven't seen this only vaguely then. Yeah. Yeah.

0:41:16 Lydia: Oh, OK. Well, I'm having a hard time because I've read all this stuff. I've write all this up. So essentially, immediately after this, it sounds like Abel shares with Nathan that Blake Blake and Ryan, quote, Blake and Brian want Justin to put out a statement. Both are shocked by the request and state that they have never encountered anything similar. Nathan advises Baldoni to retain legal counsel immediately.

0:41:36 Thomas: This is August 12th.

0:41:36 Lydia: And so, yeah, August 12th. So Jen Abel says, Blake, and Ryan want Justin put out a statement, this is unbelievable. Melissa Nathan, call if you can. Career killer for them and Wayfarer. No, have to fight it. At what point do you fight? It's now. Lawyer up, now. And then Jen Able, this is so crazy, in caps, from Melissa Nathan. Honestly, I've never had anything like it. Can he please hire a lawyer? Jen Abel, he needs to. He has one, but he needs a litigator. And then Melissa Nathan, get BF, Brian Friedman. He's waiting and will also take on WME.

0:42:05 Thomas: What's that comment by the way, will also take on WME. Is that about him being dropped or something?

0:42:08 Lydia: At this point, yeah, at this point I don't know if he had been dropped. No, I don't think he had been dropped.

0:42:16 Thomas: Thing there's a sense in which like you can see all this is a bit of a tragedy in that like I think that James Vistuca really contributed to the bullshit by I think he kind of lied to both sides and made it seem like Sloan was saying things she wasn't and then you take this and obviously Justin's PR people are not going to like this but like this is where when I talked about Andrew and I talked about him having hired someone to tell him the things he wants to hear It is on Justin and Heath and Wayfair to realize, well, OK, our PR people, they are kind of just going to hear what they want to hear and to have the wherewithal to be like, well. Which is worse, PR making this statement or, by the way, maybe countering because it doesn't even seem like they countered, which is weird to me because they could have countered with something that's like, hey, we had some disagreements on the set. And I think you gave that example of that other set and those other celebrities who I already forget instantly. Yeah, I won't worry. Just tell me what what is it? I don't remember.

0:42:59 Lydia: Right, exactly. They just flat out said Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, Don't Worry Darling. Yeah with Florence Pugh and Shia LaBeouf and Harry Styles, all that.

0:43:16 Thomas: Somebody and somebody. Yeah, right. And

0:43:20 Lydia: Yeah Olivia Wilde.

0:43:21 Thomas: That doesn't seem to have caused any catastrophic damage that it wasn't already. I mean, I know Shia LaBeouf obviously had already had some stuff, but like, yeah, but that incident in itself doesn't seemed to have done all that much, right? Because they kind of just agreed that they had differences, is my memory of your telling of it. I don'T know the fucking details. But what I'm saying is they could have countered with something that's, you know, more to their benefit in the language, and they could've bargained. But for one, Jen Abel is just not very fucking bright. Like, we've seen in everything things we've done, she's not very bright. Melissa Nathan, she has her own incentives. Because think about Melissa Nathan. Melissa Nathans incentive as a crisis PR person is going to be crisis.

0:43:27 Lydia: Separately. Mm -hm. Yeah yeah mm -hm yeah. People to be in crisis. Yeah yep.

0:43:57 Thomas: Yeah. She wants people to be in crisis. If Baldoni resolves this conflict in a way that's kind of amicable for most people, as much as possible for everyone, that's not good for Melissa Nathan and Jen Abel's kind of an idiot.

0:44:07 Lydia: Her job's done then. Yeah and

0:44:10 Thomas: And like it's on ultimately, as much as I do think there's a sense in which sort of this was inevitable, it's also on John Baldoni and Heath and whoever to recognize the incentives of the people giving them information and giving them advice.

0:44:23 Lydia: Also like that reality check of like you know we're talking about this is August 12th everybody already knows that something

0:44:29 Thomas: Yeah, they already know that something happened.

0:44:29 Lydia: Happened like like the entire public is talking about this and people are not stupid and so can you come forward with you know a version of the truth that also protects everybody

0:44:42 Thomas: And knowing in their minds that they have signed this thing and there actually were problems. They know there were fucking problems. It's like people who are on their side read this as like they were clueless the whole time and this hit them out of nowhere. It's Like, no, they signed a confession.

0:44:56 Lydia: Yeah and like the comments about like guess I missed the hr meeting or like oh hr is gonna call me because I'm hugging too much like that could be the extent of the problems on set like you could be honest about that and it's like yeah okay that's uncomfortable and creepy you don't even have to get into like the more egregious examples and that could have been it they could have even given an example to kind of like help temper the the rumor mill that probably would have started after something like this came out if you give an example that's kind of where everybody's mind goes instead of spinning out and so they could have chosen an example like that that's like you know pretty not a huge deal but also understandable why that would be an uncomfortable experience for people and that would have been

0:45:01 Thomas: Yeah, it's insane. So next we go on to, it'S a lot of repeated stuff about, and they fabricated, they work with the new york times uh they haven't bowled here in this paragraph 17 neither their own evidence their own wrongfully obtained evidence proved that neither the alleged sexual harassment nor the accompanying smear campaign against lively ever existed uh okay sure and so next up is a bullshit that's so bullshit that we have to stop we gotta do an episode about it we gotta talk to a lawyer we gotta get some insight because this is one of the it's not like it's not super consequential in that it's Not like it doesn't involve Blake and Justin and sexual sexual harassment, you know, it doesn't involve any of that stuff.

0:45:52 Lydia: That proved is yeah

0:46:13 Thomas: But on the bullshit scale, it's to me, it's one of the biggest because it's so obviously fucking bullshit. And it amazes me that these people think they could just do it and get away with it.

0:46:13 Lydia: Right yeah Yeah, it's a pretty frustrating one. Mm -hmm.

0:46:26 Thomas: So that's next episode, folks. We're going to deep dive into what that is both with a lawyer and then even longer after the lawyer has given up on us. No, it was after that interview. So, that's what to expect next Next time, that one, oof. Be ready for some shouting, perhaps.

0:46:37 Lydia: Looking forward to it.

0:46:44 Thomas: I like how you said that. Do I sense a connection here?

0:46:49 Lydia: Wow.

0:46:51 Thomas: All right. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Yeah, I just, I haven't gotten over that. Thanks for listening everyone. We'll see you next time.

0:46:52 Lydia: All because I asked you how you were doing at the beginning of the episode.

0:47:22 Thomas: Sorry, I took a bite of something.

0:47:23 Lydia: Okay. Van Sham.

0:47:28 Thomas: We're sexually harassing assholes.