Lively v. Baldoni 57 - Don't You DARE Grab Your Friends. AND PUT DOWN THOSE FLORALS

Transcript

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

0:00:25 Thomas: And Gavalin, Gavalinos y Gavalleros, as Matt added. Yo soy Tomas. Buenos dias. How are you doing?

0:00:30 Lydia: Yeah. Oh, boy. Oh boy. Bueno.

0:00:35 Thomas: We've used that one before.

0:00:35 Lydia: You too? Okay. Well, then cut it.

0:00:38 Thomas: I'm going to cut all mine too. We're going to have a silent start to the show.

0:00:39 Lydia: Yeah. Hello. It is I, Lydia, a Gavalista, and I'm happy to be here and to join you on our odyssey, really, through 224 pages of narrative and 100 and whatever, 168 pages of exhibit, and to continue making our merry way through it.

0:00:44 Thomas: Yeah. Good day.

0:00:59 Thomas: This might qualify as the most I've ever read, just of anything. The longest book I've never read.

0:01:03 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, you're like, is this available in an audiobook version? Yeah, we are the audiobook. Exactly. You need a Gavel Gavel for you

0:01:07 Thomas: Oh my God. Yeah, we are the audiobook version. That's the only, yeah.

0:01:12 Lydia: To prep for our Gavel Gavel.

0:01:14 Thomas: Be the Gavel Gavel you want to see in the world. That is really what I'm doing. It's funny how like I feel so much better having gotten through that brutal section and I'm just like excited for more, you know, see what else is in this in this bizarre story.

0:01:23 Lydia: Yeah, It's like, like marathon runners, you know, like when they, they always say they hit, like, a point where, exactly, and then, and then you stop feeling your muscles and your body just kind of carries itself the rest of the way. I feel like we might be there. Are we there?

0:01:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, we broke through that plateau.

0:01:39 Thomas: Yeah, I think that's what separates marathon runners from the rest of us, because I only got to the point where it was increasingly more and more pain. Just like, this is, it was bad. Now it's worse. Now it's even worse. And now it's getting worse. The only time I'd be not feeling anything would be the hospital if I passed out and distance

0:01:46 Lydia: And you were like, well, I'm done with that. Yeah, airlifted out of there

0:01:56 Thomas: Running. I don't get it. I don't have the body for distance running. I think it really is like you either have the fucking But it's the where I think it's where your weight is, you know? Like, I think, I think you gotta have a certain body for that distance running and it's not mine, because I tried hard. I did cross-country in high school, trained hard. It sucks too much. Shoulders, they don't help you running. It is my head's a little too big too. I'd say I gotta let you, you want to, you want like a, yeah, your distance runner, you want like a narrowing on the top, you know, we want to be a

0:02:01 Lydia: Or the mind like it's hmm yeah Yeah, you have a lot of shoulders, you have, yeah, it's a lot to carry. Yeah, I could tell you that, I'm just kidding, yeah. Yes, lean.

0:02:27 Thomas: Pair of legs and then just like as little after that as possible, yeah, just a head that sits on your, on your hips.

0:02:30 Lydia: Long legs and then, yeah, and then bones the rest of the body, I think.

0:02:38 Lydia: You need arms, I think arms are helpful.

0:02:38 Thomas: That's it, yeah, for the counterbalance, yeah, you would need a little, little bit of counterbalance, that's true. I'm the opposite of that, I'm just a torso with little tiny legs below it, so that's why I was never good at running. I could sprint, I'm a sprinter, actually.

0:02:49 Lydia: Yeah, but You have, you have really strong quads and, and calf muscles, yeah, as they usually do.

0:02:54 Thomas: Why, thank you. This is, this has gone off the rails. Point is, I'm feeling bad, yeah, can't wait to get more into this. We are thankful that you're here, all three of you, and we're excited to carry on and we'll go to our first break here. Support the show: patreon .com slash gavel pod. Get the extras, we've got so much coming your way, so many different things. I can't wait to get back to the sandwich trial, so excited for that. We've been delayed a little bit on that, but it's gonna be fun, that'll be a really fun one. We also have some, there's other court thingies that we really want to do. And we'll find a way to incorporate either here or away. I don't know. Yeah. The world is throwing too many fun court thingys at us too fast, but we're going to work our way through this. So we'll take a break. We'll continue on.

0:03:16 Lydia: Oh, I know.

0:03:26 Lydia: Like quite a few there, man.

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0:03:43 Thomas: Okay. So we were going to go back in the timeline a little bit here. Again, we're on August 9th, but we're not dipping back into that stuff. There's just a, there's an entry here in the Timeline that I think is kind of interesting with, with Heath calling Jones. I wanted to touch on real quick.

0:03:55 Lydia: Yeah, Heath calls Jones to clarify that due to the sensitivity of the situation, he feels more comfortable with Abel leading communications rather than Jones. Heath reiterates that Jones should refrain from taking any action on behalf of Baldoni or Wayfair until further notice.

0:04:04 Thomas: I love that bullshit corporate language. Hey, due to the sensitivity of the situation. We're going to have, you know, the person with way less experience who's not as good at it handle it, you know, rather than rather than you. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

0:04:18 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. At the time, Heath was in Chicago with Baldoni and Abel, and they all agreed that Abel with firsthand knowledge and the most up -to -date information was the best person to handle communications. Jones does not take this well and launched into a tirade insisting that she will speak to whomever she pleases, and that Wayfair cannot stop her from, quote, clearing her name. The day prior, Heath had texted Jones demanding that she not communicate with anyone on behalf of Wayfair or Baldoni.

0:04:48 Thomas: No, we were there. We saw that. And then this was the unbeknownst paragraph that we did in the previous stuff. So I think we can skip through this.

0:04:49 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, and the PR debacle. So now we're going to talk about at the premiere, red carpet interview at New York premiere, Lively stated, quote the iconic rooftop scene. My husband actually wrote it. Nobody knows that. This revelation regarding Reynolds' purported contribution to the script raised eyebrows at Sony, who told Wayfaire that that they, quote, certainly needed some clarity on public comments made about Ryan Reynolds potentially contributing writing services for the rooftop scene.

0:05:16 Thomas: Yep. And like we've touched on this, was a fuck up obviously. She said something to the point where Sony legal affairs is like, uh, what's going on? Yeah, yeah.

0:05:21 Lydia: Yeah, totally fair for legal to chime in here. They email Wayfair's counsel. This is what it says, and it says we certainly need some clarity, yada, yadda, yedda. Can you provide additional information on this as there are no contracts, his services are not in the chain, nor is his name anywhere in the credits. Thanks for clarifying. If services were rendered, obviously we require signed documentation immediately. And Wayfair team responds, your email was shared with me by blank. We are not aware of any writing services rendered by Ryan Reynolds. Regardless of what is being said publicly, this is not something we are aware of. We're learning about these allegations in real time. Please let me know if you have any questions.

0:05:37 Thomas: Yeah. So She messed up, put her foot in her mouth, happens. You have cameras on you 24 7. We've talked about this. She messedup, is it related to anything important here? I don't really think so. I think this is a mess up, and then I think she tried to correct it pretty quickly.

0:06:01 Lydia: Yep. And here's the other thing. And not just that. If anything came of this, if Ryan Reynolds truly did contribute writing services here, they would have cited that in their complaint. It wouldn't just be like, yeah, this is the only time we're hearing like Like, they would have dragged that. Like, yes, Ryan did write X, Y, and Z, you know, come to find out. And here's the email where we had to do additional documentation with Sony Legal because it put us through this. You know, if there was actually something there, that would have turned into additional emails that we would have seen and narrative that we could have seen here. But it didn't because probably what happened, which we've talked about extensively, is that she was sharing her ideas for this scene. They were kind of doing, like, talk back and forth like you would over dinner as, like a married couple. And sharing ideas and that she put her foot in her mouth and maybe expanded

0:06:12 Thomas: Right, oh, like, yeah, yeah. I

0:06:54 Lydia: The role that he played in coming up with some of those lines. And that was that.

0:06:57 Thomas: Want to know what the point of this is. Like, what does this prove for your legal claims? It's just, she, she fucked up, said this. What's the next step in that? Like, does that do anything? And I wonder, is this actually in the complaint or do they just put it in the timeline? Cause I don't know. Well, I was going to say, cause I don'T know what this would contribute to legally, but then having said that the whole complaint is bullshit. That's yeah. So nevermind. That'S not even worth thinking about, but I DON'T know what point this is.

You know, I guess you could, if it's, if you're trying to make the conspiracy theory point that, like, oh, that was part of the taking control of the movie was him secretly writing it, but then she let it slip, then she had to take it back. But like, what did that amount to? Because you can't mind control Justin into putting something in the script that he didn't want in the script. He had control over the script. And so if it was like an idea or an improvised line, unambiguously she said the wrong thing here. You to say he wrote the scene is insane. Like, he didn't write the scene. She just said the WRONG thing. She's speaking loosely and said the WRONG thing. So

0:07:07 Lydia: Yeah. Hmm. The whole thing is. Yeah, yeah.

0:07:42 Lydia: Right. Yep. Yep,

0:07:55 Thomas: Whatever. That should be a mess up. Like, I don't know how Madge could or should be at her for that. What's the legal significance of that? Nothing.

0:08:02 Lydia: Mm -hmm. Okay, so now we get to the Sony emails that we kind of talked about from the narrative. So we can fill in some blanks here.

0:08:09 Thomas: Yeah, I'm curious if we get, yeah, if we Getmore emails. So the way it presents in the timeline is on the day of the domestic release of the film, Heath shares observations with Sony Marketing, urging them to take the topic of domestic violence more seriously as part of the film's rollout. This was a concern that Baldoni, Heath, and Wayfair had long expressed to the team, except not. But what's interesting is this is August 9th. And in the complaint, I think we only got August 11th, right? Let me go back and check. Oh, no. Okay. Sorry. The first one was August 9th. And then the second two, the two after that were August 11th. So I did forget about that first one. Okay, so that's probably the same one. And yes, I'm looking at it. It is the same One. Always been a concern of ours. It won't hurt the movie by being more deliberate in embracing the DV aspect. People need to know that we too recognize the gravity and sensitivities of this subject. Cool.

0:08:55 Thomas: And what else do we get? Do we get anything else? Nope, that's it. Okay.

0:08:33 Lydia: Mm -hmm, right. Yep uh no well then then we get some PR stuff.

0:09:00 Thomas: Tag and Abel continue to monitor online chatter about the film.

0:09:04 Lydia: So this is another example where they're trying to highlight what we saw in the New York Times lawsuit where they do the included excluded. So I think they put the red box around what was included in the New York Times and then like trying to give us more context of the entire flow of the conversation I guess is what's happening here.

0:09:20 Thomas: Yeah. And this is, and I've said this, I think this is like the worst example for the New York Times. I think they have every right to be mad about this particular one because it's like, he doesn't realize how lucky he is right now. We need to press on him just how fucking lucky the whispering in the ear, the sexual connotations like Jesus fucking Christ, other members feeling uncomfortable watching it. I mean, there's just so much.

Doesn't matter if it's not true was the part they didn't include in the New York Times. And then Jen says, I know, I don't think they get that. They think the truth wins. Melissa says, no, it doesn't. Which is like, yeah, I think that's fair for them to be mad about that. We've gone through all that.

I think the reason is that ultimately the New York Times had so much other evidence that demonstrates their motive here that they didn't see that as a significant omission because the other evidence they had, I think, corroborates the overall feeling there. But I think I think I don't blame them for being mad about that. It literally doesn't matter if it's not true.

0:10:13 Thomas: They should have included that. Is it defamation? No. But, you know, there you go. Especially because we know there's other texts of them saying he's like complaining about him and like he's creepy and weird and they aren't saying it's not true there, you know.

0:10:13 Lydia: Yeah yeah yeah yeah. I want to highlight I don't know that we need to read through all these texts. I don' t know what you you were thinking.

0:10:29 Thomas: No. No, no.

0:10:32 Lydia: But I do want to a little bit further down here. Melissa says, let's give it a day to calm and let's call Jamie together tomorrow and we can explain to him a few things together. And socials are really, really ramping up in his favor. She must be furious. It's actually sad because it just shows you it

0:10:50 Thomas: Just shows you have, yeah, we've done this one so many times.

0:10:52 Lydia: Just says you have. Yeah, you just shows your people really want to hate on women. And then Jen Abel says, I know it is sad, but then like, don't be a cunt. I just fucked herself by doing the unfollow thing and insisting no photos together. And then Melissa says totally.

0:11:07 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, think about how like victim blaming that is. How dare she not want to be associating with someone who sexually harassed her? She's so, it's so egregious that she did that. Not only is it bad, she deserves all this abuse for it.

0:11:17 Lydia: Yep. Yeah, exactly. This is deserved She brought this upon herself because of this. And if Jen Abel, if you ever listen to this, I doubt you will, but if you never listen to this, I would want you to like reflect on is that the kind of workplace that you would want to be involved in where someone is harassing you and you just have to smile and just pose and pretend like nothing's happening and just deal with it. I don't think any woman would want that at all. I think that we've been fighting for so long for that not to be okay.

0:11:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:52 Thomas: Yeah, I think Melissa, yeah, I like, you're talking to Jen because Melissa is like without conscience. Yeah, I do think there's a chance Jen, I mean, Jen just seems like not super bright and just kind of led around a lot. I wonder how she feels after all this. So fucking lucky right now, he has no idea the shit we know that they want to pull. I think this is even more interesting having done the hard time that we did of going through like how bullshit Melissa was in this moment and making Jen think that Steph Jones did something and then also making Jen think that like, you know, there's this attitude that like oh, Leslie and Blake are really trying to hurt him in the background based on not really much, you know,

0:11:56 Lydia: Melissa, I don't, I can't get through to her. Mm -hmm. Mm -mm, yeah. Mm -hm.

0:12:35 Thomas: Like I don't, I don' think that was based on a whole lot. And so there's these texts here that like we are so fucking lucky right now. He has no idea the shit we know that they want to pull. And then, yeah, this is kind of interesting. Jen says he's like what's the harm in having people say good things and I'm like no because then they will search and search till they find someone to say something bad. Melissa says and what's good about this? Is that if anything comes out she will know it's us and we will know it's her.

It's kind of interesting and then jen says it was a constant fight all day uh jen's talking about like jamie I should have read the thing before that jamie wanted to have the crew reach out and give positive things to combat the stories and I'm like why why give this fuel so that's that's what she's talking about yeah yeah and we are all on the same page now so everybody is watching everyone exactly wait what is that then it goes to no no fucking way I swear to god I will call him I'm gonna have a shower but can you call me later about this stuff oh my god oh

0:13:00 Lydia: Mm -hum.

0:13:12 Lydia: Yeah, and they might still be in Chicago at this time too because this is August 10th when they're doing this and Jamie had said, you know, August 9th that Jen Abel was in Chicago with them. Yeah,

0:13:33 Thomas: My omg yes you will die I don't know if that was a new thought or if they were still like trying to convince Jamie not to do something or

0:13:41 Lydia: I think the no-no fucking way is probably related to Jen Abel saying

0:13:45 Thomas: There seems to be a bit of a space there you know so I don'T KNOW IF THAT MEANS IT HAPPENS A LITTLE LATER OR NOT LIKE MAYBE THEY TALKED ON THE PHONE OR MAYBE YOU KNOW LIKE I DON'T KNOW OR THERE'S AN EMAIL THEY BOTH GOT OR OH

0:13:47 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. I, so I think it's that Melissa Nathan is typing and not reading what's happening in between. I think she's saying we're so fucking lucky right now, he's no idea the shit that we know that they want to pull, and what's good about this is that if anything comes out. I don't think that is in response to what Jen Able says there, right? She's continuing her train of thought, and then now that she stopped and Jen Able wrote exactly, she's probably reading the other things that Jen Abel said and responding to that, like the he's like what's the harm

0:14:01 Thomas: Maybe No, it's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

0:14:20 Thomas: Yeah, that's fair. Yeah that could be it. Makes sense.

0:14:22 Lydia: Because I'm also one of those people who like sends a bunch of messages, you know, short. I know, it drives some people crazy, but that's who I

0:14:27 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah. And then there's this, uh, this ends up being important, I think, we've talked about, but when Jen says, I'm like, we are dealing with a psychopath who literally called you a sexual predator, let's all be happy with difficult," and Melissa says, "I have it on text message, by the way." Jen says, "Unbelievable." That was a lie.

0:14:37 Lydia: Am. Yeah. Right.

0:14:45 Thomas: But that text message I think though is James saying yeah what

0:14:51 Lydia: We can't, we can't go back down that road. Yeah.

0:14:53 Thomas: No we're not going back back down that road, but like that one might've been on James. Like, you know, this isn't all Melissa. It's mostly Melissa, but James also really fucked this up and was a liar.

0:15:03 Lydia: It's the game of telephone and people with, you know, trying to get, get scoops and

0:15:09 Thomas: And now we get in the timeline again, we're getting a lot of the stuff we've kind of covered in the New York Times lawsuit, but it's like, they do the whole included excluded, but the excluded stuff is like, oh, my dog just took a shit. You know, it's Like nothing. And you're like, why would they include that? You know? There's the one where it's Oh, want a zoom meeting? Oh, I'm not going to be on camera. No one wants to see that. Why would they?

0:15:17 Lydia: Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah.

0:15:27 Thomas: Yeah. They excluded that. That's nothing. But But I mean, there are some things we've covered this, but but a few highlights here just to quickly go through it. You know, the majority of socials are so pro -Justin and I don't even agree with half of them. And that's as excluded. But I thought that that was in there. Maybe not. Maybe it's in Blake's complaint, but not in The New York Times article or something.

0:15:48 Lydia: Yeah.

0:15:48 Thomas: Or it's In The New Yorke Times. One way or the other. I guess I want to, again, in fairness, make this point. And it's another reason why I'm a little unclear everything that went on here is because these messages between Melissa and Jen here, like it, I mean, it does strongly indicate that they're just trying to not get stuff picked up by outlets, you know, because like, just keep giving nothing, nothing, not one thing from those pieces. I mean that was just a lot of work just talking everyone off the fucking ledge for those two pieces. And then after the weekend people are going to completely move past. It's boring. Nothing new came out for anyone. So I do want to in fairness acknowledge that a lot of this is, you know, good evidence for them that like they're not planting stuff, maybe I don't think that's all the evidence, but that, you know, there is good, there is evidence in their direction here. So now we get to 134. This is August 11th.

0:16:39 Lydia: And So this is the, the text that we've talked about before from Justin saying, I feel like what we should do is make sure to emphasize the voices of the survivors. It's going to be a lot of buzz how much money the movie made, but I want, I want to be the one that always directs it back to the survivors. So we talked about that previously, and then we get that Heath email to Sony. It says, it just says, Heath follows up on his email to, to Sony from August 9th, expressing his gratitude for the team's efforts and making the film a box office success. Dang.

0:16:39 Thomas: Again Yeah, okay, we've done that. Yeah, so we didn't get any additional email there. Darn. So now we have aligned, we've caught up, we've crossed the streams.

0:17:10 Lydia: So we go back to the narrative and kind of

0:17:11 Thomas: I guess, yeah, I guess we'll will go narrative first and inch our way

0:17:16 Lydia: But once the backlash started on social media without any effort by Lively Decor's correct and entirely without any involvement or effort by Baldoni, it rapidly spread to mainstream media. And now we get a page of links of

0:17:19 Thomas: Up Yeah. And we don't know how organic these are. They're claiming they are, but I don't, I don't know, I'm not sure we know that for 100% sure, but that's a matter for discovery.

0:17:37 Lydia: Right. Indeed, while Baldoni just to close out, this is section G. Again, indeed, while Baldoni sought to focus on the film's central premise, Lively incensed audiences with seemingly flippant and thoughtless remarks, encouraging viewers to, quote, grab your friends and, quote, wear your florals. Embarrassed and enraged by this self-induced backlash, Lively now seeks to vilify Baldoni in a dubious attempt to resuscitate her public image.

0:17:40 Thomas: Probably fuck off, flippant.

0:18:01 Thomas: And thoughtless remarks, like the thing they agreed was the marketing line months ago.

0:18:05 Lydia: Yeah, that you have an entire Sony marketing team that is helping to develop and sign off on.

0:18:09 Thomas: Grab your friends, wear your florals, that's not a flippance, whatever, just fuck, fuck you. So

0:18:13 Lydia: So now we're on section H. Lively seeks to push the blame onto the Wayfarer parties.

0:18:17 Thomas: Annoying. Okay, and we are, this looks like this is going to backtrack in time a little bit, but don't worry, we won't, we won' get sucked in

0:18:23 Lydia: Oh, God. Yeah, I see it already. So this is about Lively directing her Team to quote from their complaint here, frame herself as a martyr and pin the blame on the Wayfarer parties. So we get stuff about Leslie Sloan, known for her tendency to leak sensitive stories to provoke public controversy. Controversy footnoted. Guy Adams, a divorce battle, a PR war with the Independent

0:18:46 Thomas: A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!

0:18:56 Lydia: And then calling out here about her firm

0:18:58 Thomas: Allegedly arranged paparazzi photo shoots and push stories about Scientology to sway public opinion for Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise divorce yeah was that real

0:19:04 Lydia: Being backed by Harvey Weinstein, because they got to put Harvey Weinstein then in the complaint. I think it's that there is funding related to his companies to develop this firm, but I don't think it's like necessarily Harvey Weinstein himself cut a check or anything like

0:19:16 Thomas: The harvey yeah the weinstein live division of the Weinstein Co. Is backing the new venture oh in 2014 I was gonna say like, okay, okay. 2014.

0:19:23 Lydia: That. I mean, because if we want to start talking about who's funding, you know, know various businesses, I think Tag has some stuff to talk about being funded by HYBE? HYBE, yeah, it's a Korean firm, and Scooter Braun is like a majority shareholder or something like That and so he paid, like, to create TAG basically. And then when we were talking about Scooter Brawn and the incident that happened, the the death that happened of Camilla Starling

0:19:28 Thomas: Yeah. What? Hybe? Oh God. Jesus.

0:19:54 Thomas: Yeah, if you want to do a Who's More Evil tag or Leslie Sloan, and also I don't have to defend Leslie Sloane. I don' t care. It doesn' t matter. I don'' t, you know, like, yeah,

0:19:59 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. We're on record not liking PR firms. Like, we've said multiple times on the show.

0:20:09 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. But like, I would just, from what I know, I would put my money on Leslie Sloano coming out ahead in that particular, like, if you were to look look at and and also if you're trying to look at, like, well, what is the what is negative about being funded by this, like, branch of the Weinstein Company? It's not, doesn't seem to be Harvey Weinstein at all, but like, yeah, okay, that's a negative connotation. You would want to look at, like, okay, how's that reflected in the work? Because when I look at TAG, I see that funded by people who take down women a lot, and I see TAG taking down women a lot. And I see Leslie Sloan. I mean, even that example. Oh, she arranged paparazzi photo shoots and push stories about Scientology to sway public support for Katie Holmes. Right.

0:20:16 Lydia: Yeah.

0:20:40 Lydia: Yep. Yep mm -hmm mm -hm.

0:20:54 Thomas: So like, yeah, like I see I see her trying to do stuff to kind of help women who are being attacked by the public more, which is not like what you would think with Harvey Weinstein.

0:20:54 Lydia: Yeah so Katie Holmes is her client. Especially when there is an organized infrastructure behind the man.

0:21:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Like Scientology. Yeah.

0:21:10 Lydia: So here Scientology is huge, and, you know, we haven't gotten into it or anything with regard to this case, I don't think, but Baha'i, you know, like, there is a lot of interconnectedness, that people are going going to show up for their people. Scientology obviously has like a ton of money, a ton of influence. So I don't know. I don't really begrudge a PR person for trying to go up against Scientology and getting creative in some of those ways.

0:21:33 Thomas: Yeah, I just again, I don't endorse any PR person ever. But yeah, from what we know, like Leslie comes off way better than fucking tag. Then if we go down to because we're skipping a lot of stuff we've already done and 189 in the complaint, I guess I think I think I might have said this was only in the timeline, but it's in the complainant to just nine minutes later. Sloan breached your agreement with Nathan. So that was the time zone thing they fucked up. Yep. Yep.

0:21:43 Lydia: Yeah.

0:21:52 Lydia: Mm hmm. Right. And so that is inaccurate.

0:21:59 Thomas: Wrong. Interesting. And they, I mean, this is like, let's, we're not delving back into it, but now knowing what you all know, why don't you read 189 and see how dishonest it is?

0:22:10 Lydia: Yeah, just nine minutes later, Sloan breached her agreement with Nathan by engaging with a reporter at the Daily Mail.

0:22:16 Thomas: Nope. The reporter, first off, wrong in the time zone. And also the reporter engaged with her.

0:22:19 Lydia: Yeah Right, right. The reporter asked to speak with Sloan, quote, "regarding problems, uh-huh, on the set involving Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni and the fallout over that, with Blake being labeled difficult and a power struggle existing." Sloane, without consulting Nathan, promptly responded, quote, "That is 1000 untrue," and further, quote, "Your info is totally off." Those are perfectly fine things to say.

0:22:24 Thomas: Well, you already said it in your thing, engaging with a reporter, but you said the reporter asked to speak. Okay.

0:22:45 Thomas: And now read this, knowing that the time was wrong and this happened before for the agreement with Nathan. Yeah. Wow. So she should have known in the future they'd have an agreement before she responded to a text from a reporter that,

0:22:48 Lydia: Right before the truce. Yeah, yeah, it is evident that Sloan never intended to honor her agreement with Nathan. Instead, she exploited the arrangement to gain a strategic advantage in the media. Yeah. Jack off motion. Crazy.

0:23:09 Thomas: By the way, Melissa Nathan had screenshots of mysteriously. Isn't that weird? So this is all fucking complete lies and bullshit. So this Is the Sloan -Petushka texts.

0:23:12 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Yep, get to skip ahead.

0:23:19 Thomas: I don't think we need to go through them again.

0:23:21 Lydia: We get the unbeknownst to Nathan again, page 126.

0:23:24 Thomas: Again. And I love this. Again, look at how dishonest this is. This is actual lies in a lawsuit, in a complaint, read 192.

0:23:31 Lydia: Yeah 193 caught my eye, so I'm excited to do these back to back. "Despite their agreement, Nathan was completely unaware that Sloane had provided the reporter with information that significantly altered the narrative of the published story." Yep.

0:23:38 Thomas: She sure wasn't. She had screenshots, everybody. How do we know that? It's in this very stuff.

0:23:47 Lydia: Yep. Yeah, they gave them to us. Yeah.

0:23:51 Thomas: They showed us that she had screenshots. So she's lying. I want, like, if, look, if I had infinite time and energy, I would do a series that's entirely, here's why these people are lying, only using their own documents. And you could have a good hour, I think, just on that, easily.

0:24:05 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, indeed. "The reporter originally sought to publish a story about, quote, Blake being labeled difficult on set after the reporter's discussion with Sloan. However, the story changed to, quote, we have learned that Justin Baldoni caused issues on the set." So quick comment here: how do we know the original intention of the story, that Blake being labelled difficult? He said to Leslie Sloan, "Hey, we're hearing that, that there are problems on set, that there might be creative issues, that Blake might be kind of difficult." We don't know the intention of that story exactly. Right.

0:24:18 Thomas: Oh, that's interesting.

0:24:37 Thomas: Well, yeah, she knows it from the screenshot, from being in touch with Vitushka, which we've seen here. So I guess you could argue that, okay, they're writing that in retrospect, like allegedly, except we know that wasn't just in retrospect. She knew that at the time.

0:24:41 Lydia: Exactly. Yeah.

0:24:52 Lydia: Not only did Sloan breach her agreement with Nathan, but she planted false and defamatory information about Baldoni to distract from Lively's numerous missteps and throw Wayfair and Baldoni on the defensive. Yeah, they can't point to anything. Yeah! There's nothing specific! Yeah, you should should be pleading with specificity.

0:24:58 Thomas: Oh. What was the false and defamatory information? Weird. Hold on. This is a legal complaint. If you're saying there was false and defamatory information, what even is that? Yeah.

0:25:12 Lydia: Name it. Yeah. Now, paragraph 193. Following the release of Lively's administrative complaint on December 20th, 2024, the same Daily Mail reporter informed Nathan that Sloan had lied to portray Baldoni as the foe. Yet still, Sloan escalated the false narrative by telling the reporter that Blake was, quote, sexually assaulted, an unsubstantiated accusation that not even Lively had gone so far as to claim, designed to destroy Baldoni and his his reputation. But here's the thing. Do you remember where this comes from? James Fetushka saying she didn't claim this back at the time, but now that she was sexually assaulted, yada, yada. There's zero proof that Leslie Sloan ever said that. Ever. It's his characterization of it. Right.

0:25:19 Thomas: Oh, wow. Oh. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

0:25:50 Thomas: So, so we can look at, it's the very next page, so this is later, I think, because she's saying, or the complaint is saying, "Following the release of the administrative complaint, right, the same Daily Mail reporter informed Nathan that Sloan lied." Okay, so we look down and we get some screenshots, we get a screenshot, screenshot with Vitushka. We know it's him. And then we get, yeah, we get screenshots of Vitushko sending the

0:26:01 Lydia: It is. It was. It wasn't. It didn't. And it's the ones. Right.

0:26:16 Thomas: Conversation with Leslie. And all we get is, like I said, the reporting is that blah, blah, bla. So here, so what's important is the thing that Leslie said in these screenshots, right? So I promise she is lying. This will not look good for your site. The entire cast, I will have gone record.

0:26:28 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, this is when she was on the plane trying to get them to hold on the story.

0:26:33 Thomas: Yep. Yep, this entire, I'm on a plane, this needs to stop. So that's entirely what she said. And James said, she said the whole cast hits Justin.

0:26:41 Lydia: Yeah it's. Yeah right.

0:26:42 Thomas: This has nothing to do with Blake. And now she's saying that Blake was sexually assaulted. So where?

0:26:46 Lydia: Right. Where?

0:26:48 Thomas: You would think that by implication, that means that James is talking to Leslie right now in December or whatever, way after this and saying, now Leslie is saying that she's sexually assaulted, but even if that were true, let's say that were True. That didn't happen then. So you can't say that Leslie Sloan said that then, which is what they're claiming in the lawsuit, or they're saying it happened now. I guess they don't say when the time is, they just say yet still. So I guess if we interpret it as now, then you would wonder, wait a minute, if we have all these text messages that Vitushka is clearly providing for this lawsuit, wouldn't the response be, wait, Sloan is telling you that Blake was sexually assaulted? Can we get those screenshots?

0:26:53 Lydia: Mm hmm. Mm hmm, right. Mm hm. Yeah. Happily. Yeah, Right.

0:27:29 Thomas: And then we'll put that in our complaint and

0:27:29 Lydia: Or did she say it on the phone, like, get more specifics, and and what's crazy to me is that instead they just take his word for it. Now she's saying that Blake was sexually assaulted, so then they use that to say, by telling the reporter that Blake was sexually assaulted, an unsubstantiated accusation. Okay, so you didn't, you also didn't do any effort on your

0:27:39 Thomas: They put that in their complaint. Yeah. That this even happened.

0:27:48 Lydia: End to substantiate the, yeah, that those words even came out of Leslie Sloan's mouth. That seems pretty insane.

0:27:55 Thomas: Yeah, you would need to get, you'd need to do more diligence than that. There's more diligence that is due, and so 194, if you want to read that the good faith of already behind her back, having had these screenshots and not telling her about it. It's just like, fucking, what a

0:27:58 Lydia: Right. Sloan ruthlessly took advantage of Nathan's good faith. As a result, Nathan was forced to combat the negative press that was both planted and propagated by Sloan. Ultimately, the actual smear campaign was orchestrated by Sloane at Lively's direction. Oh, we finished another section. All right, Right. Section I. I like how this one starts. I'm not going to read the header because I just want to read this line from 195. Enter Stephanie Jones. So good.

0:28:20 Thomas: Psychopath. Sure. Wow, go us. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, if this is, this seems like it might be fast forwarding. So maybe we need to look at the timeline.

0:28:47 Lydia: Let's peek.

0:28:55 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:28:55 Thomas: So in the timeline, I think we're at the apology thing. I know we've already covered that, so we won't go through it again, but August 12th and the timeline... Yeah. Why don't you read those entries for August 12? We don't have to go too in depth on this, but I just don't think we've seen that exact language before. Yeah.

0:29:07 Lydia: Yeah. Full picture for sure. WME, Abel and Heath discuss yet another conversation between WME and Reynolds. WMe shares that Reynolds and Lively are furious with Wayfair and Baldoni for positioning them as promoting the film as a, quote, Barbie film, while elevating Baldoni to speak on the more serious messaging. Now, WME, the way that they're framing this makes it sound like it's the agency itself. This is Baldoni's agent that they are talking to. Reynolds and Lively purportedly believe Nathan is responsible for this positioning and demand that Wayfair release a statement of contrition, taking accountability for the negative press toward Lively and Reynolds. They warn WME that absent compliance, the, quote gloves will come off. In turn, Reynolds tells WME that he would personally draft a statement for Wayfair to release immediately. Heath and Abel are astounded that Reynolds and Lively blame Baldoni and Wayfaire for their self -inflicted PR nightmare.

0:30:03 Thomas: I'm sure you are.

0:30:05 Lydia: Heath

0:30:05 Thomas: I am sure you're very astounded that the thing you tried to do is what they're calling you out for doing.

0:30:09 Lydia: Had consistently communicated that neither Wayfairy, Nathan, nor anyone on their team was manipulating the internet, using bots, or seeding stories about Lively's or Reynolds' character. All press stories were organic and directly resulted from Livelys' own tone -deaf marketing approach.

0:30:15 Thomas: That's interesting, because that's not even what they said.

0:30:26 Thomas: Yeah, that one time where she said, grab your florals and tell your friends, which is nothing.

0:30:28 Lydia: Yeah, the same day, that evening, two WME executives, Heath and Abel, participate in a call to review the statement drafted by Lively and Reynolds on behalf of Baldoni, Heath, and Wayfair. Upon review, WME concurs with Wayfairy 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.

0:30:54 Thomas: I don't know about that.

0:30:55 Lydia: In response, Wayfaire, Baldoni and Heath reject the demand, and firmly refusing to issue any statement falsely assuming responsibility for non -existent issues. Yeah.

0:31:03 Thomas: Non -existent? That doesn't make sense. They are existing issues. What are you talking about? Okay, so we've gone through this, and we've emphasized before, this was a while back, but I think the name of the episode is like the, you know, the apology that could have avoided it all or something like that. And this was so overwhelmingly magnanimous and fair of Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.

0:31:06 Lydia: Mm -hmm. Mm.

0:31:23 Lydia: I also want to say that the only proof that we have that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds directly drafted this at all is the red font that they put on here that says, Statement prepared by Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds on behalf of Baldoni, Heath, and Wayfarer.

0:31:36 Thomas: Oh, is there some doubt that they did?

0:31:38 Lydia: I think so. I think there is some stuff that's come out with all the unsealed thing that it's not... I don't I don'T WANT TO GET AHEAD OF MYSELF BUT YEAH BUT I I DON'T KNOW THAT WE DEFINITIVELY KNOW THAT

0:31:42 Thomas: Oh, they didn't like literally write it. That's all right. We can note that. But yeah, it's a good point in light of that. I don't necessarily see anything that directly says it other than Blake and Ryan want Justin to put out a statement. Interesting.

0:31:59 Lydia: AND SO THE STATEMENT AGAIN 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 SEPARATEL Y AND UNDERSTOOD WHY WE HAVE ALWAYS SAID WE 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

0:32:53 Lydia: And dedication.

0:32:53 Thomas: Now, I think this would reflect really well on Blake and Brian if they wrote it. So it'd kind of be like, oh, okay. If they didn't write it, it's like, Oh, nevermind. Cause like, I think that would, that reflects incredibly well on them to me if they wrote that pin in that, I guess. But what do you think it means when it's like, okay, they were on with two WME executives who agree that they're like, you can't do that. Like, what do, what'd you make of that?

0:32:58 Lydia: Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:33:17 Lydia: WME executives.

0:33:19 Thomas: Cause WME represents like all of them. Right. So what's their incentive? So, like, WME's incentive is probably to do the thing that disrupts the careers the least in proportion of the money that they earn from them, you know? So, I don't know. That's just interesting. We don't have any proof on that. It's just asserted.

0:33:21 Lydia: Yes. Of all their folks. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And also, like, the way that this is phrased isn't necessarily – like, I would be really surprised if a WME person said, you know, this statement implies culpability without substance. I like I think there's probably like a more casual.

0:33:52 Thomas: Yeah, but that's what you would do, though. Like, these statements do that.

0:33:55 Lydia: But but what I'm saying is like that also sounds like a more serious, you know, concern with the statement itself as opposed to just like the casual back and forth that would be happening on a phone call, I would think. But I don't know.

0:34:06 Thomas: Yeah, I know. It sounds like complete bullshit to me because concurs with Wayfair that the statement was vague. Yeah, that is what it would do. Like if you were going to make a statement, I think this boils down to just like all reduces down to they disagree with what the problem is. Like because it's weird to be like, oh, that's vague. That doesn't address the issue. Well, yeah, because it is a different issue. This is written from the perspective of, you guys need to apologize for the fact that you are drawing bad press to Blake Lively because she separated herself and the cast separated themselves from you.

0:34:41 Thomas: That's on you that that happened. Happened, and they want, or somebody wants you to say, "That's on us, don't blame Blake," essentially, but then for them to say, oh, it's vague and fails to address the issues at hand, what are you talking about? That does address the issue at hand. It's, I don't, I don' know what, like, I wish we had any evidence from WME because I don''t, like, it's just their assertion and I feel like it''s bullshit.

0:34:23 Lydia: Mm hmm. Mm hmm, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:35:03 Lydia: Yeah, well, and here's the other thing, like, fails to address the issues at hand, like, we see what Wayfair does when they're trying to address what, in their mind, the issues that hand. We end up with 400 pages of nonsense. Like, if we're trying to get, this is specific to the thing that is blowing up

0:35:15 Thomas: So this statement is short by at least 443 pages.

0:35:23 Lydia: The actual crisis at their feet right now, right? Like, you don't have to get into the specific issues on set, that's okay, you don'T have to, it's about protecting the people, protecting the property of the film, and that is perfectly fine. I think a lot of people would have read that and it would have, people would have stopped writing about it after reading that.

0:35:34 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I'm, I wonder what would have happened. I think that would have pretty much prevented most of what happened, assuming that Baldoni and Heath quit their bullshit after that, you know, like if they left it at that. Yeah.

0:35:48 Lydia: Mm hmm. Yeah. And then directed any like further press inquiries to that statement and then it's done and then no one has anything else to write. It's addressed.

0:36:01 Thomas: I think that would've helped. It wouldn't have stopped everything because people were on the hate Blake train already and it's, you can't undo that once people start hating a woman, it's, they're stuck, they're locked forever, apparently. So that's interesting. But why don't you read the text exchange between Jen and Melissa, because I just feel like this is kind of like, I don't know, it's. It's kind of weird to me. Why don't you read this?

0:36:09 Lydia: Yeah, so this looks like it's August 12th at 652 p .m. I'm guessing New

0:36:24 Thomas: Something. It doesn't matter when it was. Yeah.

0:36:25 Lydia: York. I guess it doesn't matter. Blake and Ryan want Justin to put out a statement. This is unbelievable. That's from Jennifer Abel.

0:36:29 Thomas: Why is that unbelievable? Okay.

0:36:31 Lydia: I don't know. Yeah. Melissa Nathan, call if you can. Career killer for them and Wayfair. No. Have to fight it. At what point do you fight? It's now. Lawyer up. Now.

0:36:41 Thomas: Question. Has Melissa seen the statement? Because like Jen said, I mean, I guess it's unclear, but Jen says Blake and Ryan want Justin to put out a statement. This is unbelievable. And the response seems to be immediate career killer from Melissa Nathan. How do you, how could you possibly say that not knowing what the statement is?

0:36:46 Lydia: Yeah, it's unclear. Yeah. Yeah?

0:36:57 Thomas: Melissa, again, it's just every incentive on Melissa is to create more problems so that she has a job, you know?

0:37:03 Lydia: Mm -hmm. Yeah. That there will continue to be a crisis. Yeah." Jenna Abel responds, this is so crazy. So crazy in all caps. Melissa and Nathan, honestly, I've never had anything like it. Can he please hire a lawyer? You know, because she wants to get her buddy Brian Friedman in here. He needs to. He has one, but he needs a litigator, says Jen Abel.

0:37:18 Thomas: Yeah, Someone call.

0:37:21 Lydia: And then Melissa Nathan says, yeah, I have the bat phone. Get BF. He's waiting and will also take on WME.

0:37:25 Thomas: Right, we'll also take, wait, wait, yeah, what does that mean, which is so interesting, because if that fucking day WME agrees that the statement is vague and applies culpability without substance and blah blah, what are we talking about? Because that seems like, w, you just said the WME executives in fact agree with you. You're on the same page. And then Melissa's like, get BF, he's waiting and will also take on WME. What? What? It's almost like you're leaving something out there. I don't know what it is, but I think you're leaving something out. I think maybe WME might have been like, hey, yeah, you should do this because you fucked up. Maybe. I don't know.

0:37:31 Lydia: So was this when Baldoni was dropped? When was Baldoni dropped?

0:37:42 Lydia: Mm-hmm. Right. It sounds like they're on the same page.

0:37:53 Lydia: Huh. Yeah. And if you can't agree to this, then our business relationship might be in trouble.

0:38:16 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:38:16 Thomas: So I just had the intuition that, wait a minute, the complaint, I think, because like the complaint went to, we saw in section I that we paused on, went to like Stephanie Jones, and it seemed to go way forward in time. And then I realized like, wait a minute, I think this just does a Stephanie Jones section and then we'll connect the timelines again.

0:38:29 Lydia: Yeah.

0:38:38 Lydia: See.

0:38:38 Thomas: And so it turns out as we skip down to just check, it actually does. So if we skip all the way down, there's an I and a J section that are just the Stephanie Jones thing. I think we should kind of go through it on our own to see if there's anything new there. But K, paragraph 250, on August 12th, Heath and Abel had a call with two executives from their then talent agency

0:38:51 Lydia: If we need to touch on it again, yeah.

0:38:58 Thomas: So that is actually, so now we do need to go to that because that links us in time, and then I think maybe we sit, maybe we save the Steph Jones thing for after because like, it, if it's totally, let's, everybody remember, yeah, let's all remember that we need to go back. Okay, no one forget. If we forget, because you know us, we could forget, we'll try to make sure we don't.

0:38:58 Lydia: Yeah.

0:39:07 Lydia: Yeah, I think so too. It's a separate issue, yeah. We're looking to you all to keep, yeah.

0:39:22 Thomas: Accountability buddies. And we will make sure you go do that workout you need to do or something. I don't know.

0:39:27 Lydia: Yeah, of course. I've been working out.

0:39:28 Thomas: Accountability, but yeah, you go practice that. I'm talking about the audience. Go practice that instrument that you want to learn, the new skill that you've said you would. And they, yeah. And oh, wait a minute. Hold on. We got, we got a different sponsor for away

0:39:32 Lydia: Oh, they should work out too. Hop back on Duolingo. That owl misses you. My owl misses me. It's like freaking dead owl now.

0:39:48 Thomas: Not Duolingo. How dare you. It's Uh, one of the other ones. Babble, that's it. Get on Babble, everybody. Opening Arguments, I don't know, something. There's some offer or something.

0:39:48 Lydia: Oh. Okay. Babble. Yeah, what's their icon?

0:39:59 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, it's not an owl. I don' know. So now we're back in the time, we're trying to keep them together, the timeline in the, in the legal complaint. So we skipped fucking like 30 pages of out of time stuff. It did, but we're gonna have to still go

0:40:09 Lydia: Oh, it felt so good too. It felt so good.

0:40:12 Thomas: Do it. I'm actually, I'm excited because I saw when we skipped through that, I saw a lot of messages and stuff, and I'm not

0:40:13 Lydia: Well, on our own time we'll see.

0:40:18 Thomas: Sure, if we've seen them. So we'll see. But anyway, so now we get sort of a different, actually this gives us more detail, so you should read

0:40:18 Lydia: Okay, okay, all right. On August 12, 2024, Heath and Able had a call with two executives from their then talent agency. One admitted that the root of Lively's problems was focusing the promotion of the film on frivolities like fabulous premiere dresses, Hollywood glamour, and the commercial benefits for Lively's brands, while Valdoni had always maintained his public focus on amplifying the voices of domestic violence survivors. The executive communicated the demand from Lively and Reynolds that Wayfair, Heath, and Baldoni make a public apology that day, and that if they failed to do so, the quote, "gloves would come off." Stunningly, the executive even told Heath and Abel that Lively & Reynolds objected when Baldoni spoke kindly of Lively in public, claiming that it misrepresented their relationship.

0:40:28 Thomas: 250 I don't know, man, that's his version of it. Who

0:41:10 Lydia: Yeah, I don't know. If it bugged them, it bugged them. Like, I don't know. The talent agency executive told Heath and Abel that Lively believed Wayfair, Baldoni, and Heath were waging a shadow campaign against her.

0:41:16 Thomas: Knows. Interesting. Yeah.

0:41:22 Lydia: Abel quickly disabused the executives of that notion, conveying her belief that she and Sloan had reached a kind of truce, while Nathan had not come on the team or taken a proactive role until they started getting press requests. What?

0:41:33 Thomas: I don't really understand that because, yeah, because Nathan and Sloan reached the

0:41:33 Lydia: That she and Floan had achieved a kind of truths? Right. Huh. Okay. The second executive admitted on the call that, quote, no one pushes back on Lively and Reynolds. That's so freaking weird.

0:41:44 Thomas: Truth. Admitted on the call that, quote, no one pushes back. Okay, they're trying to, that strikes me as very out of context and selective to try to make it sound like they're so, hey, look, no one goes against, no one goes against Lively Reynolds. Just stupid.

0:41:51 Lydia: Yeah, sure. Yeah. That's just not the world we live in. Give me a break. The next day on August 13th, 2024, Abel and Heath had another call with talent agency executives. During this call, one executive told Heath that the agency had spoken to Lively and Reynolds by phone about the overwhelming tide of negative publicity that they had faced over the past days. Heath clarified that Wayfair, Baldoni, and Heath had no connection to the negative publicity but they told Heath that Lively and Reynolds had demanded that Wayfair put out a statement, quote, accepting blame for the problems during filming with an express threat that they themselves would attack Wayfair in the press if Wayfair refused. The executives told Heath and Abel that Reynolds and Lively dictated a statement that they required Wayfairs to put out, calling It Ends With Us a, quote, troubled production, and forcing Wayfaires to take, quote, accountability for the problem in the production. Wayfarer, Baldoni, and Heath would have to acknowledge and own their, quote, mistakes, and, quote, own all negativity being aimed at Reynolds and Lively. I

0:42:09 Thomas: Yeah, okay. Hmm.

0:42:46 Thomas: It's interesting. So there, it does say that they dictated the statement, or is it saying dictated in a dictator way, to Lively dictate a statement that they require? Okay, so that's saying that the executive said they wrote that, right? That the executive says that Lively and Reynolds wrote the statement

0:43:11 Lydia: Could also see that being them, you know, on a call with folks at WME and saying like, here are the things that we'd like to see, and that someone at WME kind of drafted it with, like, that being their

0:43:21 Thomas: Essentially, I mean, I guess, but if it said the executives told Heath and Abel that Reynolds and Lively dictated a statement that they required Wayfair to put it. I don't know if it comes out that there's other evidence. I'm just saying if we're in the here and now with the evidence we have, it's entirely implied and almost even said directly that they essentially wrote the statement, or at least Reynolds and Lively could have, like, gone to someone else to say, hey, construct us as possible statement for them to write and then relate it.

0:43:35 Lydia: Input, put, yeah.

0:43:51 Lydia: Fair.

0:43:51 Thomas: But like we have what we have right now. It's also interesting that's on the 13th because they already had the thing on the 12th. So I don't really get.

0:43:53 Lydia: And didn't they say the 12th was that day also? Like, they needed to do

0:44:00 Thomas: Yeah, it says August 12th statement prepared. And it says, like, you need to do it that day. And then the next day it said, like you still need to Do It or something. I don't get it.

0:44:08 Lydia: It, yeah, like, you didn't do it yesterday when we said you had to do it that day, so here's another chance, do it now.

0:44:13 Thomas: This is stupid, too, because 255, Abel and Heath asked that the executives clarify what exactly Wayfair, Baldoni and Heath were being asked to, quote, take accountability for. They admitted, I guess the executives, they admitted that Lively and Reynolds were simply upset by how social media had turned against them. Yeah, fucking obviously. Why wouldn't they be? What else would? And then it goes on. Stunningly, in bold italics, the executive admitted that Lively and Reynolds brought the backlash on themselves but that they were beyond reasoning with. He admitted that making constant threats was Lively and Reynolds' well-known modus operandi and that their demands were not based on reality but on finding someone to blame for their social media crisis besides themselves. Well, that's a lot to admit. I would want to see more evidence of that, but I think what's annoying about that, and who knows, maybe there is a WME executive that took their side, I don't know, but like, the same is very clear that they need to take accountability for the problems on set, like, I don't

0:44:42 Lydia: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Right. Exactly. It's not saying we're taking accountability, like we're behind this, mirror, like the stuff that's been happening. They don't have to say that at all. All they have to say is like, there, we struggled with this production, there were some things that people weren't happy with, and we're going to be reflecting on that and seeing how we can improve for the next time we bring on, we tackle a movie, you know, because it's important to us that people feel safe on our

0:45:08 Thomas: Get, yeah, yeah. Doesn't say that at all.

0:45:28 Thomas: Yeah, and the flow of logic is that Blake separated, Blake and the cast separated from Justin, then knowingly willingly and on purpose tried to find a way to differentiate, to explain why they're separate. That way he found was to exploit, either, and we don't know to what degree this is organic, but to exploit a perceived difference in how they were marketing, and that, whether organic or not, was leading to him being looked at more favorably and he her being just completely shit on in the press. And her point, which I think is entirely fucking valid no matter how organic, even if you thought it was all organic, her point is, hey, you need to take accountability for the fact that, like, the separation was not because of our fucking philosophy on marketing.

The separation was because you done fucked up on the set. And so you need to take accountability for that, which even if you want to grant them that this press stuff is 100% organic, had he not been a piece of shit on set and there was no separation, maybe that never would have happened because there aren't a bunch of people looking to explain why he's separated. So that's what's going on. And I think they're on purpose not understanding that. I think that either they're stupid or they're more likely on purpose not understanding them.

0:45:51 Lydia: Sets.

0:46:00 Lydia: Yeah. Right, exactly. Yep, yeah, yeah.

0:46:41 Lydia: No, I think that's 100% right. August

0:46:43 Thomas: All right, well, conveniently enough, the complaint then jumps ahead to the New York Times, essentially, so we skip like August Like September, October, and December, unless there's another time jump, we'll see, we'll have to find out next time on Gavel Gavel. This is fun, I'm loving this, having a good time. Thanks so much for listening, everybody, and supporting. Thanks, Lydia, for being on the show.

0:46:50 Lydia: 13th until, yeah. Hmm.

0:47:01 Lydia: Whoo, all.

0:47:02 Thomas: Love it, this is good times. We're getting through it, we're going through it. Will see everyone next time. Always lead through the, no, all, is that what, am I trying to say? Always toward Their lead through finishing, finishing this complaint. Well, I can't. I was going to say all roads lead to finishing this complaint, but that's not like we're in the road finishing. I don't know. You know what I mean? What am I thinking of? There's no way out but through the complaint. That's it.

0:47:33 Lydia: Roads.

0:47:43 Lydia: Hmm, there you go, that's what it is.