“Why instead of protecting Blake from the online hate that she was getting, why is he hiring a crisis PR team who famously has destroyed the credibility of other women?” asks Viall of Baldoni as Heard, former costars, and even critics stand in support of Lively.
As more come out in support of Blake Lively in the wake of her bombshell lawsuit, which was filed Friday and obtained by TMZ on Saturday, against her It Ends with Us costar and director Justin Baldoni.
Former Bachelor and podcast host Nick Viall was among the first to defend Lively, famously called out Baldoni back in August for hiring renowned crisis manager Melissa Nathan — of the same firm that worked with Johnny Depp during his ugly defamation suit against Amber Heard — as the public was turning against Lively amid their film’s release and rumors starting to leak of issues on set and tension between Baldoni and Lively.
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And Viall isn’t the only one speaking out after Lively offered a detailed take on her purported experiences while making and promoting the Colleen Hoover adaptation, with shocking details of alleged sexual harassment and a coordinated smear campaign against her. Baldoni and his team have denied the allegations and called the suit an attempt to “fix her negative reputation.”
Also on Saturday, the New York Times published an article revealing alleged private messages detailing that alleged smear campaign against Lively.
Heard also spoke out after her own ordeal on the receiving end of a PR campaign orchestrated by Nathan’s team in the wake of her divorce from Depp and his defamation lawsuit against her, saying in a statement, “I saw this firsthand” and “it’s horrifying.”
“Social media is the absolute personification of the classic saying ‘A lie travels halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on,” she said in a statement received by NBC News today. “I saw this firsthand and up close. It’s as horrifying as it is destructive.”
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Nick Viall Is ‘Not Here to Gloat’
In a new video posted to his TikTok, Nick Viall said he’s “not hear to gloat,” even though he did clock Justin Baldoni all the way back in August. In fact, as Blake Lively was getting trashed all over the internet, so was Viall for questioning Baldoni.
“I’m not here to gloat, I’m honestly just happy that the truth is out about this guy, and more importantly, how wrong you all were about Blake,” Viall said in his new TikTok.
He went on to challenge those who are still struggling to believe the actress “because she reminds you of someone you went to high school with or you’re just obsessed with his jawline,” to actually read her complaint.
“It is full of screenshots, proof, and in great detail paints a picture about who Justin really is and not who he pretends to be,” he said.
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For the reality star and podcast host, the first red flag happened way back in January 2023 moments before his own lengthy interview with Baldoni on a rainy LA day in August, and is why he latched on to that word “pretend.”
As Viall explained it, he’d stepped out for a moment and by the time he’d returned, Baldoni was back, but not quite ready yet. He was, per Viall, meditating … in the room with everyone present.
“I think meditation is fantastic … but as something you do for yourself, you know, you don’t do it for an audience,” he argued. “And it was clear he was doing it for an audience. I was thinking to myself, why wouldn’t you just do this in your car? It’s pouring rain, the vibe’s are great outside.”
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From there, Viall said he immediately grew suspicious of someone who would effectively perform meditation for others. “What else does he do for an audience?” he said he asked himself, and that’s the mentality he went into the interview with.
As with most of Baldoni’s appearances for the film, the director and star focused his approach on a women-first response to the book and film’s difficult subject matter on domestic abuse.
“So during the interview, I really wanted to see if he, like, believed in the stuff he was running about? Did he even understand it?” Viall said in his new explanation. “And honestly, I just felt like his answers were disingenuous.”
“My big takeaway is like, this guy kind of sucks. And I just left with the vibe that this guy is cosplaying as an ally and isn’t actually one,” he added.
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He then shared that he checked his take on Baldoni with some other people in his circle to see if he was maybe being unfair, and that’s when someone pointed him to an engagement video Baldoni had made for a previous girlfriend, which he said was still on the filmmaker’s YouTube page.
“It’s basically like 20 minutes of Justin making his then-girlfriend watch pre-recorded footage of him, like, acting and doing skits and it really had nothing to do with the relationship; it was literally just all about him,” Viall described the video.
He then went on, “Ask yourself, how does a man who made his whole career about platforming, highlighting, and celebrating women in his own proposal video to the woman he’s about to marry, how could he make himself the star of this video and make his future wife part of the audience?”
From there, he noted how the cast of It Ends With Us appears to have separated themselves from Baldoni in the wake of the growing and apparent issues between the two of them over the past few months and again questioned the sincerity of his public pro-woman stance.
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In August, Viall went viral for questioning why Baldoni had even hired a PR crisis team as stories were beginning to leak about filming of the movie. He wondered why he wasn’t instead out there protecting women — or at least one woman — from online attacks.
“Why is a man who constantly talks about listening and protecting women, why instead of protecting Blake from the online hate that she was getting?” he asked. “Why is he hiring a crisis PR team who famously has destroyed the credibility of other women?”
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‘Sisterhood’ Stands Strong in Support of Blake
It’s been almost 20 years since The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants helped make Blake Lively a big-screen star, and it looks like some sisterhoods truly can stand the test of time.
In fact, Lively’s costars in the film America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, and Alexis Bledel, penned a joint statement in passionate support of Lively after the shocking allegations leveled in her legal filing.
“As Blake’s friends and sisters for over 20 years, we stand with her in solidarity as she fights back against the reported campaign waged to destroy her reputation,” the women said in their statement shared on Instagram.
“Throughout the filming of ‘It Ends with Us,’ we saw her summon the courage to ask for a safe workplace for herself and colleagues on set, and we are appalled to read the evidence of a premeditated and vindictive effort that ensued to discredit her voice,” the trio continued.
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“Most upsetting is the unabashed exploitation of domestic violence survivors’ stories to silence a woman who asked for safety,” they added. “The hypocrisy is astounding.”
The statement continued, “We are struck by the reality that even if a woman is as strong, celebrated, and resourced as our friend Blake, she can face forceful retaliation for daring to ask for a safe working environment.”
“We are inspired by our sister’s courage to stand up for herself and others. For anyone seeking more information or engaging in this important conversation online,” they wrote, encouraging everyone to “please read the full legal complaint in the investigative reporting by Megan Twohey, Mike McIntire, and Julie Tate for the New York Times.”
The bond forged between the four women in the 2005 film and its 2008 sequel has never wavered, with the group most recently coming together in support of Ferrera’s Oscar-nominated breakout performance in Barbie last year.
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Blake Lively’s Brother-in-Law, Bart Johnson, Defends Her Amid ‘It Ends With Us’ Drama
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Brother-in-Law Calls PR Team ‘Gross and Disgusting But Highly Effective’
No stranger to the industry, Blake Lively’s brother-in-law, High School Musical star Bart Johnson has also known her for more than 25 years now, having married Blake’s older sister Robyn Lively — who also starred in It Ends With Us — back in 1999.
He was quick to defend his sister-in-law, but not just with a passionate response, but with facts to push back against some of the online narratives that have cropped up over these pasts months since the film’s August release.
“Her complaints were filed during the filming. On record. Long before the public conflict,” Johnson emphasized in a lengthy comment posted to a New York Times Instagram post about her suit. “The cast unfollowed him for a reason. Read this article before spiting ignorance.”
He then went on to give credit where it was due, such as it is, writing, “His PR team was stellar. Gross and disgusting but highly effective.”
“Read the article, their text message exchanges and his PR campaign strategy to bury her by any means necessary,” he noted. “No one is with out faults. But the public got played.”
He went on to paint a bit of a picture of the kind of pressure Lively was enduring at the time of the film’s release and promotion, writing, “And yes of COURSE mistakes were made. But just IMAGINE being a stay at home mom raising 4 kids, married to the busiest man in Hollywood and at the same time being a girl boss running multiple companies while writing, producing, running non profits and working 16+ hour days from home so you can be with your kids… launching 2 new businesses you been working on / developing for many years (launch scheduled by distributors, not you, btw) all while getting attacked by a VERY expensive PR smear campaign because you filed a sexual harassment claim for the very film you have to go out and promote with just the right tone or you get cooked!?”
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“Looks like she’s doing a hell of a job to me and trying to do good things for the right reasons. But yeah let’s post from our couch how much we hate her for making mistakes,” he lashed out. “That makes sense.”
“I mean, she’s been rude in these interviews that magically played on repeat. I saw it,” he continued. “None of us have ever been wrong or mean. Never. We should discount decades of good for those few bad moments. Glad the microscope isn’t on me every day of my life.”
In another comment to someone else, he called his sister-in-law one of his heroes, explaining that a “girl boss,” to him, is “a woman that is kicking a$$ as an entrepreneur and/or business owner in what has been previously dominated by men, and showing they are every bit as capable and qualified if not more so in that space.”
“She’s my hero as is any woman charging it like this. You’re free to define it as you wish, but that’s on you,” he added.
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It Ends With Us Author Colleen Hoover Shows Support For Blake Lively After She Sues Justin Baldoni
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Johnson’s wife Robyn was among those also sharing their support for Blake publicly, taking to her Instagram Stories on Saturday to post a series of quotes from the NYT piece, underlining several choice passages and captioning the image, “FINALLY justice for my sister @blakelively.” She followed that with a rainbow-hued heart and a plea to “Please red!” the NYT article.
Director Shawn Levy, who has worked with Ryan Reynolds on Free Guy, and is collaborating with Lively on an upcoming film, shared the headline blurb to his IG Stories, commenting, “Proud to call @blakelively a friend.”
On Saturday afternoon, Colleen Hoover — who wrote the book and served as an executive producer of the It Ends With Us film — took to her Instagram Stories to also shared her support for Lively. The author posted a photo of herself and Blake sharing a heartfelt embrace in a movie theater, where they were cheered on by the audience at what was seemingly a screening of the film.
“@blakelively, you have been nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient since the day we met,” Hoover wrote over the photo. “Thank you for being exactly the human that you are. Never change. Never wilt.”
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Interviewer Who ‘Called Out’ Blake Lively Denies Involvement with Alleged Justin Baldoni ‘Smear Campaign’
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Blake Lively Interviewer Who Criticized Her Denies Involvement in ‘Smear Campaign’
Even some of those people who maybe haven’t had the best experience with Blake aren’t necessarily supportive of the purported “smear campaign” she’s recently had to endure.
Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa went viral for sharing a video of an awkward 2016 Lively interview she said “made me want to quit my job,” but quickly pushed back against implications in the NYT piece she had any involvement in a coordinated attack against the star.
“I also read the article in the New York Times this morning. I’ve been reading through the lawsuit and I see there’s been so much dirty work going on behind-the-scenes,” Flaa said in an interview response to the lawsuit and NYT article.
“I just wanted to say I had nothing to do with it. When I read the text messages that were going back and forth between Justin Baldoni’s PR team, I was as shocked and appalled, like everybody else,” she said.
“I would never take part in anything like that. That’s such an insult to me,” Flaa added. “And I really hope if you have time, check out my video that I just posted on YouTube where I explain things, because I don’t want a part of this.”
“I posted a video. I showed how Blake Lively was behaving in my interview, and that’s it,” Flaa said in her video response.
Flaa first found herself tied in with the months-long feud growing between the costars in August 2024 — just as the fallout from It Ends With Us was taking shape — when she shared video from a 2016 interview she’d conducted with Lively she dubbed “‘The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job.”
In it, Flaa made a comment about Lively’s evident baby bump, which appeared to not go over well with the actress, leading to a tense rest of the interview.
Referring to the timing of Flaa’s video release in August 2024 amid the Lively-Baldoni feud, the Times wrote, “Meanwhile, an online backlash against Ms. Lively was underway. It is impossible to know how much of the negative publicity was seeded by Ms. Nathan, Mr. Wallace and their team, and how much they noticed and amplified.”
The article also noted, “It wasn’t the first time she had posted a video aligned with a client of Ms. Nathan. In 2022, in the midst of Mr. Depp’s legal battle with Ms. Heard, Ms. Flaa posted clips of her interviews with the actor, tagged #JusticeForJohnnyDepp.”
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Blake Lively’s Lawsuit Allegations Against Justin Baldoni
In explaining why she filed suit, Lively said in a statement to TMZ, “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, fired back at the lawsuit in a statement, calling all of the claims “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.”
Freedman said Wayfarer Studios “did nothing proactive nor retaliated” against Lively, slamming the lawsuit as “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation.”
He also addresses Lively’s alleged behavior on set, claiming that her “demands and threats” included “threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met.”
The suit itself alleges a series of inappropriate interactions with Baldoni by Lively and other female members of the film’s cast. Lively accused him of objectifying her and other women as ‘sex objects,” while also going “out of his way to message criticisms of her age and weight.” The lawsuit also alleges inappropriate comments about women’s clothing and appearances on set.
Additionally, Lively accuses Baldoni of a “social manipulation” campaign after an “all hands” meeting to “address the hostile work environment” on set. The lawsuit claims that Baldoni retaliated by “battering her image, harming her businesses, and causing her and her family severe emotional harm” with their “attack” on her reputation.
You can read all the details of the lawsuit here.
