Law&Crime Sidebar - 5 Most Crucial Pieces of Evidence in Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively’s Dueling Lawsuits

Episode Date: January 26, 2025

Celebrity actors Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, who starred alongside each other in the recent film “It Ends With Us,” are now dominating headlines with lawsuits against each other. Both make serious allegations of harassment, defamation, and extortion. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber spoke with celebrity defense attorney Brian McMonagle about the kind of evidence the two sides will need to bring to the table.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/sidebar to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist. The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. The Justin Baldoni, Blake-Lively legal saga continues. And after we've already broken down the complaints and the responses right now, we are going to break down the actual legal claims.

the legal challenges and what they will need in order to prove their arguments. I'm going to do it all with acclaimed attorney Brian McMonigal. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. The drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni has now escalated into a full-blown legal battle, with both stars suing each other over a tangled web of claims that revolve around their collaboration on the 2024 film. It ends with us. Lively, known for a roles in Gossip Girl and a simple favor.

Claims that Baldoni, the film's director, tried to destroy her career through a smear campaign after she brought forth allegations of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment against him. On the flip side, Baldoni says, Lively went too far by exerting control over the production, threatening to withhold promotion unless her demands were met. He also argues that she falsely portrayed their professional relationship to the public, tarnishing his reputation. And while Lively is suing Baldoni for sexual harassment, retaliation, and false slight invasion of privacy, among other claims, Valdoni is countering with a defamation and civil extortion lawsuit, claiming that Lively not only made false allegations against him, but weaponize

them to force him into complying with her demands. So what we want to do right now is do a breakdown of the claims that are being asserted by each party examine the legal challenges that they may face. where I'm going to bring on a special guest friend of the show, acclaimed criminal defense and civil law attorney Brian McManagal of the firm McMonigle, Perry McHugh, Michak, and Davis. Thank you so much for coming on. Listen, we're talking about something that's not Diddy related for once, so happy to have you on. First, I have to ask you, what do you make of Baldoni's team strategy, specifically Brian Friedman, his lawyer, of allowing so much of this to play outside of court? You know,

this is he's making the rounds on tv releasing footage from the set uh there's even talk about creating a website that will include all of the footage from the set all of the communications you know fighting this out in the court of public opinion arguably may be just as important as fighting this out in the court of law first your take on that strategy brilliant beyond brilliant quite frankly um from the complaint itself which reads like a tabloid where they tag into this complaint all of the text all of the photos all of the dirty laundry for lack of a better description before they even charged count one in the complaint and went on for a hundred pages to what they then followed up

with which is this public campaign to answer to retort to really turn the tables on the original complaint that was brought against them and I quite frankly thought thought and think it's a brilliant strategy and you can tell by some of the public reaction that it has worked that it is resonating with a lot of people who are paying attention to this stuff so a plus for the way this case has been defended so far hey by the way i want to quickly thank upside for sponsoring this episode of sidebar that helps to keep on bringing these updates in the baldoni lively story so upside's a free app that gets you cash back on daily essentials like gas groceries food i pump my gas i can use upside i go out to lunch

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Now, Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, who's also named as a defendant in Baldoni's lawsuit, they would have a different take on this. And they're being represented by Wilkie Far and Gallagher, very, very big firm, by the way. They have asked the court to essentially stop this, saying that what Brian Freeman is doing is wrong, that these out-of-court statements could materially prejudice a trial, that this violates the rules of professional conduct. And I will say that the lawyers for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, his production company and the other defendants in Lively's lawsuit, they say, wait a minute, Lively filed her complaint. The New York Times did a whole piece on this. They claim it was

coordinated that the complaint and the New York Times piece came out at the same time. And Baldoni, by the way, is suing the New York Times, too, saying that they presented a misleading story of what happened. But bottom line is they're saying, look, our clients, their names, their names, have been tarnished. We have a right to respond publicly since Blake Lively made this so public. But again, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds said this is not the way a lawyer should operate. You should not be presenting this evidence in the public right now. It could inappropriately and materially prejudice a trial. Who's right here? Well, legally, Lively's right. I mean, since this case now is a federal case. Lawyers are bound, quite frankly, to avoid at all cost these kinds of

public statements, interviews, et cetera. I think they're going to get their gag, at least on the participants, which would obviously be the lawyers and perhaps Mr. Baldoni. That's not going to stop it. Emissaries, third parties, friends, other colleagues will bring up the, carry the torch in this regard. But I think they got a really good legal argument on trying to stop it now. The problem is it might just be too late. You know, the first shot was fired and then they nuked back. But I got to think that some judge is going to now corral everybody, bring the lawyers in and said, you're done with this. I'm gagging you and I'm gagging the clients. you know maybe it'll all get sorted out at a initial pretrial conference that's set for

february 12th so we'll keep our eyes on that one but now i want to get into the claim so i wanted to get your perspective on that now i want to get more specific here because we're talking about the law we have to get a little bit more specific about what the claims are and what the legal challenges are so if you have one party claiming defamation you have another party saying sexual harassment brian does this all boil down to and the end of the day what actually happened on that movie set. And whether or not Baldoni or Lively were acting inappropriately, was Justin Baldoni sexually harassing Blake lively? Doesn't it all come down to what can be proven about what happened on that set? Well, there's no question about that. And then, but the key to

that is how do you prove it? How do you, how do you defend it? And we've already seen, you know, the allegations against him are very serious. They come from a. significantly respected member of the national community and artist with a great reputation. Serious allegations of sexual impropriety today are taken seriously. You know, the pendulum has swung in that regard, and everybody, when they hear such a claim, are going to look at it. But proofs in the pudding. And that's what I was saying earlier about this, the answer, the new complaint, for lack of a better description by Baldoni, is filled with text messages is filled with um you know correspondences between the two on social media

um a lot of stuff that you would never see in a complaint that seems to suggest if we're really going to look at what happened on the set we're not just going to take anybody's word for it and that there may have been a relationship here that um went alongside of the acting um that led to some of these allegations and led to some of these denials and i keep thinking The first thing I thought about, Jess, when I looked at this was Johnny Depp and that trial and how that took a life of its own. And you know, the problem you have, particularly with celebrities, when they get into these kinds of trials, all bets are off. And it gets real interesting once you go back and forth in everybody's dirty laundry. And you wonder at the very end of this, Jess, does anybody win?

There's going to be no cameras, right? if it's a federal case, there won't be any cameras. So we won't have Johnny Depp Amber Hurd 2.0, but look how much we're already seeing before there even is a trial. It makes me wonder if they're going to settle. Yeah, I think, quite frankly, what the defense has now done has inspired a settlement because they basically said, listen, if we're going to do this, we're going to do it. And you better get ready to duck.

So I think it's fascinating. I think it's really good lawyering on both sides. but they picked a fight and they now have one. How hard is it to prove defamation? So if you're talking about Baldoni accusing Ryan Reynolds and Blake lively of defamation or accusing the New York Times of defamation, he is saying these claims are categorically false. How hard is it to prove that? Defamation is tough to prove.

It's tough to prove because it's multi-tiered in terms of what you have to prove. But the key to it is truth. You know, truth is a defense to defamation. And what is the truth here? And it's gray here. You know, what was said that was defamatory? What was said that was half true? What was said that may have been true from the eye of the beholder?

So, you know, you think of defamation as well, you know, you said this about me and that's untrue. Do we have that here? You know, do you have the ability to prove? that something was said, alleged that simply can be proven to be false. And that, I think, is going to be a chore here. That's what I want to get into. So let's start with Blake Lively's sexual harassment claims. Now, we're not going to be able to go through everything,

but I'll give everybody a general context of what you're saying. So Blake Lively's lawsuit, which, by the way, it was first initially a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department and then expanded into a full lawsuit, a full complaint. she alleges that after raising concerns about Baldoni's inappropriate behavior, alleged inappropriate behavior on set, he retaliated against her by launching a smear campaign against her in the public and in the media. Now, Lively's complaint centers around allegations that Baldoni engaged in unwanted physical

contact during intimate scenes, and even that some of this was improvised without the presence of an intimacy coordinator. That's a big point of this. According to her complaint, quote, Mr. Baldoni improvised physical. intimacy that had not been rehearsed, choreographed, or discussed with Ms. Lively with no intimacy coordinator involved. And Lively says this even further led to him improvising kissing scenes with her. For instance, Mr. Baldoni discreetly bit and sucked on Ms. Lively's lower lip during a scene in which he improvised numerous kisses on each take. According to Lively's

17-point list of demands, which she had presented or allegedly presented to Valdoni before filming had resumed during the writer's strike, the presence of an intimacy coordinator, was non-negotiable. Now, there's two sides to every story. So this is a he said, she said. Baldoni says, this isn't true. He disputes this. He asserted that there was an intimacy coordinator that was hired and that Lively

had refused to meet with this intimacy coordinator. And Baldoni's lawsuit includes a text message exchange or seemingly a text message exchange where he writes to Lively saying, just hired an intimacy coordinator who I love will set you up to meet with her next week for intro, to which Lively seemingly responds. I feel good. I can meet her when we start. Thank you, though. That message is shown as a screenshot that Baldoni allegedly sent to a producer, where the producer responded with, seemingly suggesting that Blake lively wasn't going to meet with this coordinator. You'll just have to walk her through what you and intimacy coordinator are thinking, meaning that Baldoni then became

the middle person to work out these scenes. And so Baldoni argues that he did in fact take Lively through the necessary coordination steps, but Lively later misinterpreted the coordinator's suggestions as these personal sexual discussions. In fact, Baldoni claims he has handwritten notes from his meetings with the coordinator, though they're not included in this lawsuit. So Brian, to make sense of this, it would essentially be Baldoni saying, look, I wasn't improvising because I'm a creep. I was doing what the coordinator told me to do. Blake Lively chose not to meet with the coordinator. But Blake Lively has a different, you know, interpretation of this. Is it possible? You know, there's multiple explanations for this and how do you think it's going to

play out? Yeah, I mean, you've just provided it. I mean, you've got two different statements on what happened. It's interesting to me, you know, when you're a lawyer and someone comes to you, providing you information about a lawsuit, you know, they tell it their way. They describe it their way and then when you get into the details and you get back with text messages and and emails etc it may not be the way it was described to you um what you just described to me would be a headache for me if i was a juror if i was a juror listening to this i'd say to myself you know the world's coming to an end out there why are you bothering me with this nonsense he's two we're filming a sex scene and they couldn't and they were all thumbs um so i i i find it to

to be interesting from the perspective of what kind of jury would I pick and what would a jury think about all this having again going through and seen some of the jury reactions in the Johnny Depp lawsuit. And you know, it's just some of this stuff I got to tell you may not fly. Well, look, I mean, look, she's making she's making serious allegations that she was sexually harassed and this is a hospital work environment. He's saying it's not true. And I think this leads to one of the most publicized allegations, and it centers around this slow dance scene that was filmed for a montage. Now, lively claims that during the filming of this scene, Baldoni broke character, made physical advances that were completely inappropriate for the moment. She states in her

complaint, quote, at one point he leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, it smells so good. None of this was remotely in character or based on any dialogue in the script and nothing needed to be said because, again, there was no sound. Mr. Baldoni was caressing Ms. Lively with his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with their roles. When Ms. Lively later objected to this behavior, Mr. Baldoni's response was, I'm not even attracted to you. Now, Baldoni counters that, says that it was Lively who broke character first. He was simply trying to maintain control of the scene, and the footage from this moment that was captured on camera was later released by Baldoni's team. And you could see a part of that moment for yourself.

I'm probably getting a great fan on you. That sounds good. Well, it's not bad. It's my body makeup. So, Brian, it's a little awkward, you know, actors playing parts, but both are breaking character, because, again, this is all captured for the visual component. It's not the audio. There's more to it. You know, she comments on his nose.

He was saying, you know, it smells so good talking about maybe her tanner. She mentioned that she just put on body makeup. They're talking about their respective spouses. What do you think this proves? Well, I'll tell you this. The defense doesn't flush the video unless it's helpful and it's helpful. You know, videos don't lie. And while it may not tell the whole story and while Ms. Lively may be 100% accurate in her accusations,

you know, you always have the creep factor in these cases. And, you know, I don't know enough about this guy. I don't know what people on the staff. the set the witnesses to these events you know these are these are you get whispers down the alley and then you get people that are watching it and i i wonder what will happen it would seem to me that knowing um the strength of some of the people we're talking about here the power the wealth of them that they wouldn't have brought a lawsuit in the first place if they didn't have witnesses lined up to corroborate these allegations.

If this stays, is a he-say-she-say case, you know, the plaintiff's in a lot of trouble. My guess it's not. My guess is they've lined up witnesses that there were prompt complaints made by Ms. Lively and that there are witnesses to corroborate this. Without it, it's a long shot. That is a great point. So first of all, she could look at this and make the argument. I'm an actor.

I had to hide my discomfort. I was very uncomfortable with what was going on. That's why I was trying to say, you know, let's take the audio, you know, the dialogue out of this. You know, it's getting a little weird. But I wonder how much does this actually this case rely on the cast and crew? Why? Because her co-stars in the movie, Jenny Slate, Brandon Skelnar, have come out publicly supporting her after she filed her complaint. If you get the cast on your side and they were with her at the premiere, I believe, I mean, that's significant.

That's a home run. I mean, you know, because in real talk. you know people are human beings they're reacting she's an actress she's reacting people on the staff on the set on the staff are watching you know nobody makes these kinds of mistakes once if this guy did this then he's then he's done it before that may play a part in this whether they've got other instances of misconduct on his part I think it's gonna be real interesting to find out what the other people who aren't pointing the

anger have to say just as you've described. When we're talking sexual harassment or hostile work environment, I am curious. It doesn't even matter the context of the reasoning. If comments were made or things were shown, you know, that's it. That's the end of the case. Why do I say that? So lively claims that Baldoni and Jamie Heath, who is one of the executives at this Wayfair company, the production company, they discussed pornography addictions. She says that made her uncomfortable. Now, Baldoni doesn't deny discussing his past pornography addiction, but he says he only admitted that after she admitted to him that she never watched pornography. And he complimented her on that, told her about his issue in the past. She claims that he actually

revealed that fact about her to the rest of the cast and the crew. You could say two sides, but whether they're talking about the context of a scene, and obviously we're not talking about an accounting office, you have people who are getting intimate as part of the scene. But if he's bringing up pornography or talking about his pornography addiction, does a court look at that and say the fact that he brought that up, he's the director, he's your co-star, you bring that up in a work environment, that's hostile work environment, that's a clear sexual harassment claim. What do you think? Well, there's no question. If they are the facts, then you are 100% right.

There are things that you simply do not do and you've just described one of them. The question will be here, though, what's the truthful chronology? of events. If you and I are close friends and we also happen to be in a film together and we're talking about everything under the sun before the, you know, the lights go on, that's one thing. But if you're in the kind of relationship that lively describes in her lawsuit, where he is directing this, where he is in the workplace, bringing up his pornographic tendencies, his issues regarding sex making sexual overtures of any kind he's in a world of hurt there's also the allegation you know it was inappropriate uh for jamie he to show blake lively this video or attempt to

show her this video of his wife giving birth like a natural birth because it related to the context of a scene i agree with you i think that could be problematic for baldoni but here's the larger question right uh there are more things here right like the he said she said so for example she claims he was fat shaming her. He says, I wasn't. I was genuinely concerned about her weight because in a scene, I have to lift her up. I have back issues. She claims Baldoni objectified me by calling me hot or sexy. But in one instance, I'll tell you what, this is what Baldoni says. I was talking about how hot it was on set, the actual temperature and what she was wearing could make her overheated. Or if you talk about sexy, she was the one who introduced the term sexy about

what her character would be wearing. And I wasn't being creepy about it. I was referencing the term she used. And so I guess Brian, the big question is, is this all lively, deliberately or accidentally, misreading everything that was going on? And if she really did put forth a bullet point of list of things that needed to change on the set for her to continue, and Baldoni and his team agreed to it, is it all, she's making all of it up? Is it all she's misreading? It's it all an accident? Or did he really just agree to all this because he did do all of this? He was scared of it coming out. Or is it, you know, I'm going to agree to it. I didn't do any of this, but I'm going to agree to sign off on these things and just acquiesce to let the production

move forward. I mean, what makes sense to you? It might, it might not be an easy answer. First of all, it's not an easy answer, but I will tell you this. Chronology will dictate. And that's why I brought up prompt complaint before. If you've got instances after alleged misconduct with Ms. Lively is making requests, is making complaints. If those complaints are being communicated to other people, she's got a very strong case. Without those kind of complaints, without those kind of interruptions, without those kind of, I don't know, responses that most jurors would say I would make if I was put in a hostile environment.

I mean, this isn't, you know, somebody who's some, you know, innocent, young, inexecutive experienced secretary that has this boss that is taking advantage of her. This is an acclaimed actress, a very brilliant woman. We're going to see what she was doing after these things happened. And that's where the details become important because Ms. Lively was complaining about it. Ms. Lively was taking issue with it in real time, talking to her husband about it, talking to other people and the staff about it, making demands of him, her case gets a heck of a lot stronger. And it will be interesting how much is actually all captured on camera and audio and how much could be shown. So now that's one part of the case, right?

That's the sexual harassment bar. Then there's the retaliation claims, which I don't know if a lot of people are talking about this as much as they should. Because the idea here is namely, this is according to Lively, that Justin Baldoni had plotted this smear campaign to get back at her or protect himself for exposing him for the alleged misconduct on set. So Baldoni hires this crisis manager, Melissa Nathan, who worked alongside this PR representative of his Jennifer Abel, and arguably the texts that were presented in Lively's complaint could be bad for Baldoni. For instance, Baldoni appeared to initially express concerns that he didn't feel protected enough, as evidenced when he said, according to Lively's complaint, quote, not in love with the

document they sent, not sure I'm feeling the protection I felt on the call. A text from Jennifer Abel, his publicist, read, He wants to feel like she can be buried. With Nathan, remarking in part, we can't write that we will destroy her. Imagine if a document saying all the things he wants ends up in the wrong hands, you know that we can bury anyone,

but I can't write that to him. Now, Lively says that all of this negative press, the articles, the social media comments against her from last summer, was a result of the work that Baldoni and his team were doing behind the scenes. For example, when a critical article came out, about Blake lively in the Daily Mail, Abel allegedly wrote Nathan, wow, you really outdid

yourself with this piece, to which Nathan allegedly replied, that's why you hired me, right? I'm the best. And there's also this one. Abel had texted Nathan at one point. I'm having reckless thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week about how horrible Blake is to work with just to get ahead of it. She's putting us through hell. So Brian is this. That was the most, that was the The most damning thing I read, I will tell you, in all of this. That piece right there and the retaliation piece right there, I think, are the strongest arguments for lively. Chronologically, it sets up perfectly for me and if I'm a juror that this was all orchestrated

in a way to get ahead of the biggest problem he had, which was the sexual allegations. That's a great argument. The counter argument to that could be, well, listen, I wasn't deliberately trying to, this is Baldoni, what he could say? I wasn't deliberately trying to smear her. I'm protecting myself because Lively's coming at me with allegations about me on set that aren't true. She was trying to take control over the film from script writing to editing. I'm protecting myself.

I'm not trying to hide a misconduct on set. What do you make of that counter argument? Because I agree. Before he came out with his lawsuit and his defense, when I read those messages, I'm like, this is game over, right? This is really bad stuff. but he said I'm protecting myself from somebody who was bullying me. Yeah, I mean, they flipped the script beautifully in that complaint. And I give them kudos for it.

But I think if you do a timeline on it and you look at specifically when and where he's making these comments, he's going to have a hard time explaining that to a jury that that was simply him protecting himself. You know, there are words you can say to protect yourself. There are things you can do to protect yourself. You're protected by the truth. You know, you're protected by facts. Those statements that were highlighted just now by you and that caught my attention and the complaint are his biggest problem moving forward.

Although I will tell you, it's going to be fascinating and interesting because there was a brilliant retort in this complaint. They did it right in terms of trying to even the problem. playing field with some really bad facts. How important is it for him to prove that Blake lively was taking control over the film? What I mean about that is there are messages that he provides in his complaint with editors and others where you can argue she was getting her way, right, with the script, with the wardrobe, with editing. Is it she was leveraging false allegations to do what she wants? Or is she leveraging real allegations against him to get what she wants?

And also, I also have to say, if she is so powerful and she's able to take control of the film set, she's married to Ryan Reynolds, friends with Taylor Swift, A-list actress, I don't know if this is fair to say, but she could, would it be, should it, if she really was being harassed and bullied on set, shouldn't she have the ability to speak up, stop production if she wants, if she was being harassed? I mean, again, I think that's another complicating factor. So let me break that down to two parts. if he can prove that she was, you know, getting control of the set and she was getting control over the production and the film and the script and the editing, how important is that to the

case? And I guess it couples into, you know, what power she had versus what power he had. Well, you know, you just put it the right way. Where was power here? Because if he's able to convince a jury that power always vested with her, that she was the actress that was the actress that going to make this movie period successful or not that she had power completely over everything every decision that was made in this case she's going to have a real hard time playing uh the person who was victimized in this case i don't know how he's going to be able to do that um if he can do it i think he's going to be successful if he can't do it i think he loses because the one thing is for sure um at the end of the day he's going to have to

answer why on earth he is trying to come up with ways to destroy her long before there are any accusations made there are any lawsuits filed what was what was he doing there um it doesn't sound to me like it's going to be an easy case for him once he's confronted with those specific comments that he made. I have to tell you. Well, the fact that he presented images in his complaint of him and his family and friends in the basement of the movie theater during the premiere, not with the rest of the cast, that he was relegated to the basement. His narrative is, Lively banished me. I wasn't even allowed to go to the premiere, but she eventually allowed me, but I had to go to the basement. Now, on one hand, he could say, look, I'm the victim

of Blake Lively. On the other hand, if he really was engaged in misconduct on set, that wouldn't it be appropriate for him to not be with everybody else? Those pictures, which are a big factor in the complaint, how do you see it? Well, you know, I think, I think quite frankly, if she had been victimized, she'd have every reason to put him in the basement. She'd have every reason to make sure he was nowhere near her in any way. And that's why I say look to what these individuals are doing in real time after the, after the incidents of misconduct and what they do moving forward. You know, they put a lot of text messages into their complaint, the second complaint that is, in the federal lawsuit, that tried to show a good relationship between the parties, a rather casual relationship between the parties. When did that stop?

When did it become apparent that she was no longer dialoguing with him as a friend or as a colleague? That timeline is going to be crucial. I see her putting him in the basement as really a non-event in terms of providing a problem to her lawsuit. That's exactly what one would do. You wouldn't want him within a million miles of that premiere. You wouldn't want him within a million miles of her. Flip it, though. What are we seeing in terms of text messages, in terms of dialogue on the scene during the set, in the set, you know, during relevant times where she's saying she's being sexually exploited, where she's,

she's being injured in the workplace. That will determine this case, not what they say, you know, on a witness stand. You saw with Johnny Depp what cross-examination can do to both sides in a case like this. The devil's always going to be in the details. Look to the text messages. Looked at the timeline. Looked at whether she made complaints in real time. And I think you'll see who's going to win this thing.

I want to end with this. the Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Swift of it all. So obviously we could talk more about the claims, and there's also a claim that she was engaging in extortion. You either go to my demands or I'm not going to promote the film. I won't be able to get into everything, but I want to now finish with Ryan Reynolds, who again, co-defendant in this action, Taylor Swift, too, who appears to be involved, but not a party to this action. She's not a plaintiff. She's not a defendant. But Baldoni asserts that Ryan Reynolds confronted him at one point, chastised him for allegedly asking about his wife, Blake Lively's weight. He apparently was her representative in a meeting before

production resume where they addressed all these alleged issues of misconduct on set. And then there's this. So there's a text from Lively to Baldoni that addressed when, or seemingly addressed when Ryan Reynolds and Swift allegedly told Baldoni how much they loved Lively's version of a scene because she rewrote a scene. Baldoni claims he felt pressured by these, you know, these megastars to accept her revisions. So Lively writes in this message, or seems to write, They, again, assuming it's Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift, also know I'm not always good at making sure I'm seen and utilized for fear of threatening egos or fear of affecting the ease of the process. They don't give a bleep about that.

And because of that, everyone listens to them with immense respect and enthusiasm. So I guess I have to stop worrying about people liking me. I don't know, emoji face. Now, Brian, as we're talking about witnesses here, what role, if any, do you think Taylor Swift plays in this? And what do you make of the claims against Ryan Reynolds? Because Baldoni also claims that Reynolds had tried to get his talent agency to drop him. Yeah, I mean, I'll separate them. I didn't see the Taylor Swift move, quite frankly, as making much sense.

Bringing her in this, who is a dear friend of hers, who seems to have a pretty decent reputation to say it mildly. I didn't I didn't see I wouldn't I wouldn't have I wouldn't have made her part of this party let me just let me just say that right get a back just clarify if he doesn't actually identify her by name but what ends up happening is her name is mentioned in a text message so it's not you know yeah I get it I get it but I wouldn't want her within 100 miles of this courtroom if I'm on the defense side of this the husband's a different subject I don't know that they had a choice but to bring him in if they were going to answer this in the way they've answered it why if

they have evidence that he in some way tried to destroy his career after the fact it's helpful um what i'm going to be interested in hearing is what is ryan reynolds saying about what was happening in real time with him what is he being told by as welsh what is she saying to him about problems on the set about allegations of sexual impropriety if he builds a you know a coherent timeline in terms of When she's making these complaints, that's a second witness. That's a prompt complaint. And so I'm not so sure that they had, you know, that won't have any choice but to try and make him an enemy because quite frankly, if he's going to testify to what I would expect

him to testify as a husband who's receiving these complaints, he could be a compelling and devastating witness. Another guy with a preeminent reputation. Yeah, should be an interesting few weeks, few months, maybe years to go. Brian McMonagel really enjoyed this. conversation with you. I'm glad we had the opportunity and had the time to go through these different points. One of my favorites, thank you so much for coming on, sir. Jesse, thank you for having me. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so

much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.