Inspired by Lively’s lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, Beckinsale is opening up about what happened throughout her career when she tried to speak out as a woman, including not being believed and enduring retaliation.
Kate Beckinsale can’t speak directly to Blake Lively’s lawsuit against her It Ends with Us director and costar Justin Baldoni, but the emerging conversation has inspired her to open up about some of her own negative experiences on film sets as a woman.
The actress shared her story in a new Instagram video shared Sunday, where she first made it clear that while she’s been following the legal battle developing between Lively and Baldoni, “I’ve never met either of them and I wasn’t on set.”
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Instead, her takeaway from the story is that it put a spotlight on what she described as “machine effect when a woman complains about something legitimately offensive, upsetting, harmful or whatever in this industry.”
She then opened up about some of her own experiences when she’s spoken up on film sets, including a time she shared her concerns about an unidentified costar whose constant drinking was impacting the film’s production, and her personally.
Beckinsale’s On-Set Experiences
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“I said, ‘I’m finding it very difficult — my costar is drunk every day and he’s obviously going through something and I have full sympathy for that, but I’m also waiting, as is the whole crew, six hours a day, for him to learn his lines. And it means I’m not getting to see my daughter in the evenings, ever, for the whole movie.'”
As for the reaction, Beckinsale said, “I was referred to, by the end of it, both over the walkie-talkie and to my face as ‘that c–t.'” She said she was ultimately given a bicycle to use during her downtime.
Additionally, the Underworld star recalled one time she was put on such a “strict diet-and-exercise program” that she wound up not having two periods.
In another instance, she said she felt “unsafe” during fight sequences “on two different films with two different actors.” She claimed that she actually had to go and get MRIs to prove that she was legitimately injured.
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The actress said she was further “gaslit and made to feel like I was a problem and blamed and ostracized” for speaking out, as well as “left out of cast dinners, [and] not spoken to as soon as I mentioned there was a problem.”
According to Beckinsale, though, the challenges she’s faced as a woman in the industry didn’t even stop with people she was working alongside on film sets, but extended even to people she’d hired.
“I was forced by a publicist that I was employing to do a photo shoot the day after I had a miscarriage,” she said.
Beckinsale said that when she pushed back, saying she didn’t want to have to changes clothes for a shoot as she was “bleeding out a miscarriage,” she was told, “You’ll have to or you’ll be sued.”
Calling for More Change
The actress noted that this is not an exhaustive list of what she’s endured throughout her career, but she is glad to see that not only are times changing when it comes to how women are treated, but women like Lively are standing up for themselves as an inspiration to others to do the same.
“I’m grateful to Blake Lively for highlighting that this is not an archaic problem that no one’s facing,” she said in her new video. “This is continuing. And then when it does happen, a machine goes into place to absolutely destroy you. And I’m sure that’s the case in other industries as well, and it’s just got to stop.”
In the caption to her video, Beckinsale added, “Everyone in EVERY industry should be taken seriously and not punished when something egregious happens to them at work.”
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She went on to explain the extra layer of having it “played out in the public sphere” in her industry, it can have even more far-reaching implications, including destroying “someone’s livelihood, mental health and reputation and that can be very difficult to recover from.”
“I’m not trying to say ‘wah poor actresses we all have it so difficult,'” Beckinsale wrote, “but I think this is a problem that affects every industry, it’s just that it’s a little bit more visible in ours.”
She called on every industry to stamp out retaliation — “complaining about abuse should not beget more abuse” — and for expecting “women who have been harmed, insulted, hurt, shamed or in any other way abused,” to just take it as “one of the boys” or face “retribution for having been abused in the first place.”
She also said she doesn’t want the next generation to face the same things she and her contemporaries did, as they’re already having to deal with the increased scrutiny of social media, which can “be weaponized to a literally nuclear level designed to eviscerate.”
Lively’s Lawsuit Against Baldoni
Lively filed her lawsuit on Friday, December 20, against Baldoni accusing him of sexual harassment on set and then orchestrating a “smear campaign” against her when she spoke out.
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.”
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.
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The following day, the New York Times published an article revealing alleged private messages detailing that alleged smear campaign against Lively, which were documented in the lawsuit.
Baldoni and his team have denied the allegations and called the suit an attempt by Lively to “fix her negative reputation.” 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.”
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.”
Over the weekend, Freedman didn’t explicitly confirm media reports that a countersuit was imminent, but told Deadline, “I am not going to speak to when or how many lawsuits we are filing but when we file our first lawsuit, it is going to shock everyone who has been manipulated into believing a demonstrably false narrative.
“It will be supported by real evidence and tell the true story. In over 30 years of practicing, I have never seen this level of unethical behavior intentionally fueled through media manipulation. It reminds me of what NBC tried to do to Megyn Kelly and Gabrielle Union and we all know how that ended up. Standby.”
