Law&Crime Sidebar - 9 Disturbing New Details in Blake Lively's Sexual Harassment Complaint

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

Shocking new details are emerging about the behind-the-scenes drama between Blake Lively and It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni. What started as subtle on-set issues and odd behavior during promotional events now appears to be part of a much larger, hidden conflict. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down the explosive claims from Lively’s recent legal complaint, shedding light on the escalating tensions that were kept out of the public eye – until now.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If your child, under 21, has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, visit https://forthepeople.com/food to start a claim now!HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and 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.

Wonderly Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wonderly 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 off-screen drama is heating up just as much as the story on screen in the latest chapter of the Blake lively Justin Baldoni Legal Saga. As explosive details have now merge from sexual harassment claims to accusations of a full-blown smear campaign, we're going to break down everything we know about these jaw-dropping revelations shaking up Hollywood and the future of it ends with us with a lawyer who specializes in this area. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

Hey, before we go any further into this, this is just so scary, but did you know that children are being diagnosed with serious conditions like type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and the research is potentially linking ultra-process foods to this? Yeah. Well, Morgan and Morgan is stepping into fight to hold food companies accountable. With decades of experience fighting large corporations, they are ready to stand up for the families who deserve justice. So if your child under 21 has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, visit www.4thepeople.com slash food to learn more. So no surprise here, but Blake Lively's complaint against her,

It Ends With Us, Co-Star, the director, Justin Baldoni. It is just rocked Hollywood, raising questions about harassment, workplace culture, the power dynamics on movie sets. And this complaint, which was filed just over the weekend, it marks the culmination of months of rumors and accusations and media speculation regarding what was going on behind the scenes. these behind-the-scenes tensions during the production and promotion of the movie, which, by the way, was all based on Colleen Hoover's best-selling book.

In a nutshell, the legal complaint, which is actually a precursor to a formal lawsuit, accuses Baldoni of sexual harassment, misconduct on set, and then organizing a retaliatory PR and social media campaign against Blake lively, should she ever have come out and spoken publicly about what allegedly happened on the production. all of which are detailed in an explosive series of allegations from lively and her legal team. Again, this legal battle culminates months of behind-the-scenes drama where what initially seemed like just a simple tension between two major Hollywood figures, it has evolved into a complex web of accusations and legal action. As things continue to heat up, we are going to break down

the most significant developments in the case, including the latest details that have. emerged. But before we do that, I have to quickly give you the backstory here. So in 2019, actor and director, Justin Baldoni announced that he was going to adapt Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel. It ends with us into a film. And the book, which tells the story of Lily Bloom, a florist who finds herself in this toxic, abusive relationship with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid was a major, major cultural phenomenon because it rose to the New York Times bestseller list back in 2022. In January of last year, here, Hoover announced that Blake lively would be taking on the role of Lily while Justin Baldoni

would star alongside her Israel. And the Today Show reported that Hoover, who had been deeply involved in the film's development, took to TikTok to express her excitement about Lively and Baldoni's involvement, though I will tell you, she has since privated her TikTok account in the midst of all these rising tensions. By August, as it ends with us, was nearing its release, there was speculation that began to swirl about possible behind the scenes drama. Why? Because the initial clues came in when fans noticed that Lively and Valdoni were rarely seen together at public events. At the film's New York premiere on August 6th, they didn't even attend joint interviews, according to NBC News reporting. Lively, in fact, posted on the red carpet with her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and other

cast members. Valdoni was seen separately with his wife, Emily. Valdoni also didn't attend the London premiere. That's according to reporting from the BBC. And the outlet also reported that, even more strangely, neither Lively nor Hoover followed Baldoni on Instagram, despite following other members of the cast, which again led to further speculation about a strained relationship. And then you couple that with questionable comments from Blake Lively that she made on this press tour and also just her casting and the resurfacing of an old interview, which we'll all get to. There was this intense backlash against her. The question now becomes, was it her own doing or was it the fault of Baldoni and his team?

As criticism mounted, rumors of a conflict between the lead stars, it became harder and harder to ignore. Some fans began to speculate that Lively was making tone-deaf remarks and Baldoni's apparent absence from the promotional events that it was connected to something deeper on the set. And then you go to December 9th. It Ends With Us, was released on Netflix, quickly became one of the top films on the platform. This is according to reporting from Forbes. But just days after this, tensions between Lively and Baldoni would reach a point of no return. Because at a shocking turn of events, Blake Lively filed a formal complaint on December 20th, accusing Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment during the film's production and then launching a retaliatory campaign against her. Want to get into it.

I'm not going to do it alone. I want to bring on trial attorney litigant. Ritch Schoenstein, friend of the show, Rich with one of the best backgrounds to date that we have seen while doing sidebar. Happy holidays. Great seeing you. Great seeing you. Thank you so much for coming on. Got to get your just general thoughts on this. What is your legal take on the dynamics of this case? I mean, first of all, she is represented by Manat Phelps and Phillips and Wilkie Far and Gallagher. Those are two very prominent, very high profile law firms, very expensive. of law firms. She is not messing around. That complaint that she filed or put out is detailed.

It has something like 10 causes of action, everything from harassment and retaliation to negligence and invasion of privacy. It's very well written. It's very detailed. I don't know how they got a hold of all the texts and emails that are set forth in that. But it is very well prepared. Well, well, they got it through a subpoena. So one of the things I was interesting about that, it's the little note that they got all those texts, which we'll get into some of these messages. Let me tell you what, tell you what, let me just give you some of these messages. So some of these texts are between, just for an example, Baldoni and his PR representatives, or they're between the PR representatives. And they are arguably quite problematic, like this text between

two of Baldoni's PR representatives. It's embedded in the complaint. There's a screenshot of this. It says, I'm having reckless thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week of how horrible Blake is to work with, just to get ahead of it. Then when it came to suppressing bad stories about Baldoni, there were some articles that started to come out. But in a text message between these PR reps, it says, I can tell you've done a lot of work here. Nothing about being unsafe, fat comments, sexual. So first, Rich, the idea that all of this came out, I was talking to a legal analyst about this, where they said they never put a turning client, you know, they never had an attorney on there.

So none of this is privileged. Through a subpoena, all this is fair game, right? Right. It's not privileged because there is no attorney involved. And in fact, there are some messages where they acknowledge that we don't want to put all of this in writing because it could come back to haunt us. But the amount of stuff they did put in writing

would seem to make it clear that this was a designed, orchestrated attempt to trash Blake lively publicly, to destroy her in the social media, that this was all intentional and premeditated. I mean, it's pretty damning stuff. And by the way, I mean, you're talking about messages say, hey, untraceable. Let's make it untraceable or communications where they say, look, I can't tell him. I just want to bury her or something to that paraphrase it. I did a whole episode, by the way, yesterday. I broke down the complete complaint if anybody wants to check it out. But just going to the message I'd mentioned, where they essentially say nothing about being unsafe or fat comments or sexual,

those are all allegations that Blake lively made. Them putting this in this text, doesn't that seem to corroborate her account, or at least maybe not even corroborate what happened, but corroborate what Blake lively accused Baldoni of. Yeah, I think I think it does arguably. Now, we haven't seen the defense yet. All we've seen is this complaint. We've only seen the story told by the lawyers Blake lively. I'm sure the defense is going to say that this is all taken out of context, that she was coming after them, that she was threatening the film, that she was going to tell stories out of school. So we'll probably see a vigorous defense that will come back at this. And we'll talk about that. By the way, this is not a lawsuit yet, right? This is a complaint

that was filed with the California Civil Rights Department. It's a precursor to a lawsuit. Yeah, you have to file with the Civil Rights Department before you can file in court. That's true in many states. You have to make a complaint to like the Equal Rights Commission or whatever the state equivalent is before you can file a lawsuit. And what's the next step if you know? Do we wait for a response, a legal response from Baldoni? Or is this just they need to get permission in order to officially file a lawsuit? They need to get permission.

get something called a right to sue letter, which is where the agency that's reviewing the complaint. Look, the agency reviewing the complaint sometimes makes an effort to resolve the situation. Sometimes they try to have everybody in for a mediation or otherwise try to reach a resolution, but if the agency thinks they can't and it's a valid complaint, they will give the plaintiff a right to sue letter and then the plaintiff can go ahead and file presumably in federal court. So there are two components of this. They're the allegations of what happened on the set during the production, these sexual harassment claims, which I'm about to get into. And then there's the alleged retaliatory campaign if Blake lively came forward publicly with what happened on the set.

So first let me talk about the sexual harassment complaints. So this complaint, which was, again, submitted to the California Civil Rights Department, includes disturbing allegations of Baldoni asking lively about her sex life, revealing she doesn't watch pornography, crying in her. trailer, also allegedly crossing professional boundaries during intimate scenes. And by the way, it's important because he was the co-founder of the production company, Wayfair Studios. He was also the director on this film. So there's a level of responsibility there. But according to the complaint, Baldoni allegedly improvised physical intimacy scenes that it hadn't been rehearsed. And this included unexpected kisses. According to the complaint, Mr. Baldoni does, discreetly bit and sucked on Ms. Lively's lower lip during a scene in which he improvised numerous

kisses on each take. Mr. Baldoni insisted on shooting the full scene over and over again. And also in this complaint is these details that Lively was allegedly pressured to simulate full nudity during a scene where her character was giving birth. It was a request that was deemed inappropriate, unprofessional. The complaint reads, Mr. Baldoni insisted to Ms. Lively that women give birth. naked, and that his wife had ripped her clothes off during labor. He claimed it was not normal for women to remain in their hospital gowns while giving birth. Ms. Lively disagreed, but felt forced into a compromise that she would be naked from below the chest down.

Not to mention the fact there's an allegation that Baldoni had his friend play the part of the OBGYN. Rich, let's talk about this. How, when we're talking about actors, it's a different environment, it's different industry standards. How often do we see these kinds of legal actions based on, you know, intimacy violations? I can't recall another case where the allegations stems from the way intimate scenes in a movie were filmed like these allegations. So I think that's pretty unique.

I mean, the way it's detailed in the complaint, the allegations that set forth would seem to me to constitute harassment if it was true, which is, you know, for another day. But I can't recall. It's a very interesting question, right? because they're artistic, they're filming a movie, they're doing scenes that have baked in intimacy, and at what point does that cross the line where the people involved or the scene go from making a movie to committing acts of harassment? Yeah, it's an interesting line, and it makes me wonder, how will she prove it?

How will she prove, A, that this happened, and B, this is actually illegal? Well, so it's different, right, so that's the classic problem in this kind of case. we always talk about it he said she said right she's going to say one thing he's going to say another thing but in this case the other aspects of her allegations help her allegations of harassment because if she can prove that there was this substantial effort to trash her and discredit her because they feared she would come forward with these charges and by the way her proof about them agreeing to a number of items before going back to film the end of the movie that they had to agree to do.

I mean, that's a long list of stuff. Just to put a bow on that, I mean, I guess if you look at the script and there's no nothing about biting the lip and there was no intimacy coordinator on set, I guess that would help her, her claim. But the complaint, it alleges that Lively was forced to confront these issues during production and she called a meeting with Baldoni and producer Jamie Heath to address what is clearly disruptive behavior, allegedly disruptive behavior. And her representative at this meeting was.

Ryan Reynolds, her actor husband. He was reportedly president at the meeting. And it was at this point that additional measures, such as hiring an intimacy coordinator, they were introduced to ensure a safer working environment for Lively. And the complaint reveals that Lively had to set clear boundaries for her. So one of the demands was, no more conversations involving descriptions of genitalia, no more mention of Baldoni or Heath's past pornography addiction, no more sexual content or nudity involving an underage character, which Lively claims. was inserted into the script without her consent. And then an intimacy coordinator should be present during any scenes involving nudity in

Valdoni. And I will also say in a contract writer, it was alleged that Valdoni would not only agree to stop all of this, but he would agree to not engage in retaliation. So one of the causes of action here, Rich, is a contract claim, breach of contract. I think it's about they're saying you agreed to not retaliate and you retaliated, right? Right. or you agreed to do all of these things and then you didn't do them. So you're exactly right.

There is a breach of contract here buried in all the harassment and retaliation and failure to investigate claims. The fact that they had that list is pretty good proof that that kind of activity was going on before the list. And we can talk about it being a movie set. We can talk about it being creative and all of that. It is a workplace. That is a workplace.

It is governed by law and at a workplace, you can't be talking to your co-workers about your genitalia. That is out of bounds whatever your workplace is. And if that was going on, it is harassment. And there was also allegations that he was commenting on her weight and her appearance. They tried to contact her fitness trainer behind her back to get her to lose weight. But it's a weird environment, right? It's not like an accounting office.

It is a film. And those are issues, aesthetic issues. You talked about the intimacy scenes. Blurring the lines is what makes this a very interesting kind of case. And I wonder, you know, Blake lively is not a no-named actress. She's a big-time actress. I wonder if that helps or hurts her. Well, I think it helps.

The way it helps her is that she's able to mount a very substantial effort. I talked about getting two premier law firms involved and really going after that. if she had less power and last resources, if her name Jesse was, for example, Amber Hurd, and she didn't have that kind of power to mount a defense against this kind of of action, she would be in a weaker position. Interesting you mentioned Amber Hurd because she comes up here in a minute, so keep that in mind. But here, let's go back to this. We talked about the alleged harassment.

Once the film's press store began, the complaint alleges that Baldoni allegedly hired a crisis communications team to launch a retaliatory campaign aimed at damaging Lively's reputation. Again, if she should come out with anything, with coming out with what was happening on the set or allegedly happening out on the set. And this team was led by Melissa Nathan, who is known for her work with figures like Johnny Depp actually helped represent him during his very infamous trial against Amber Heard. And that crisis manager, according to the complaint, complaint, quote, proposed strategies to advance misleading counter narratives, including pushing Nathan's narrative that Ms. Lively had less than favorable reputation. And there were text messages from the

team that reveal plans to bury Lively in the media. One message from the PR team stated, he wants to feel like she could be buried. And then there was this other message that referred to maybe a plan to plant articles. I mentioned that before. And in the filing, Lively claims that this campaign was part of an effort to destroy her reputation with coordinated online posts, media content designed to discredit her. Lively's lawyers argued that the attacks had very far-reaching effects leading to severe emotional distress, significant harm to her career, her hair care line, Blake Brown allegedly suffered a sharp drop in sales reportedly down by 78% due to all the negative press and comments that were on social media.

That was a stat that was reported by Fortune magazine. So, Rich, a few things to talk about here. The fact that he hired or allegedly hired this crisis PR manager, I guess the argument would be, you know, look, he did this. He had a nefarious goal or is it, listen, I had to protect myself. You know, the hiring of Melissa Nathan, what do you make of it? So the hiring of a PR team or a crisis manager in and of itself does not prove you did something wrong. Because you can equally see somebody who didn't do anything wrong but wanting to protect. their interest hiring that kind of outfit, especially if they're about to put out a movie and be in

the public and be at risk. Or you can imagine someone who's done really awful things wanting to attack the other person. I think you can imagine those things equally. What is the line between what a PR firm can and cannot do? I mean, obviously they're putting stories out there. That's their job versus, you know, there was a distinction, I think, in the complaint about social manipulation versus just, you know, putting out regular kind of articles and statements. What's the line, though? Yeah, it's a great question. I don't have the answer, but that's why I think this actually could be a pretty important case

because we are seeing this in social media where something kind of takes on a life of its own. And you suspect that there's something behind it. There's some kind of effort to manipulate behind what's happening in the social media. And if it's intentional dissemination of false information, then somebody is going to be liable for that. If it's putting things out purporting to be something, they're not. I just learned the term, Jesse, astroturfing. I didn't know that term before I read this complaint and looked it up, and now I know what that is. That's when you're putting stuff out on social media, pretending it's real.

people commenting on social media, but it's actually not. It's actually manipulated information that you're disseminating. And if you're doing that purposefully and you're doing it falsely to mislead the public, then there's viable causes of action against that. When they talk about the harm that she suffered, I remember when all this negative press was coming out about her. I remember seeing it on social media and tons of articles. And so I am not surprised if this is true based the complaint that she suffered financially, professionally from this. But, you know, I'll go into a separate question about what the cause of it is. But that is that significant to put in there because that was a real thing. Right. It does, it does appear that her reputation took a hit

for some period of time. And that would be what she would try to prove as her damages, I suppose. By the way, can this escalate into a defamation lawsuit? Sure, absolutely. Again, if someone is disseminating false information purposefully about a person, that is defamation. And the people behind that, the people who are involved in that, they could be charged with defamation. Now, defamation has a element that's not true in some of these other causes of action. You have to prove the things being said weren't true. And that would put the burden of proof on her to prove that they're not true, that she didn't do these things she's accused of.

And maybe strategically, she wants to stay away from that kind of claim. I don't know. Let's keep that in mind because there's some comments that were made at the end of this. So during, despite this media backlash, and clearly there was, you know, lively, she did find some support from several high profile figures. Among her defenders were the sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-stars, America Ferreira, Amber Tamlin, Alexis Bledell. The trio issued a joint statement expressing solidarity with Lively, condemn the treatment that she received.

They stated, we stand with her in solidarity. They praised Lively for summoning the courage to ask for a safe and respectful workplace for herself and her colleagues. Author Colleen Hoover, whose novel was adapted into the film, also expressed her support for Lively, calling her honest, kind, supportive, patient. And then, Rich, you mentioned this in an unexpected twist, actress Amber Hurd also weighed in, offering her support for Blake lively.

Now, Hurd, again, Nathan was hired by Johnny Depp during his high-profile defamation trial against Hurd. Now, Amber Hurd came out and said, aside from the fact that we have Miss Nathan, who is a part of both stories, she said, look, I saw this firsthand. She drew parallels between her own experience and lively, suggest. that Lively was facing a similar smear campaign as she experienced and heard highlighted the destructive power of social media, PR teams in shaping public perception, echoing Lively's accusations that her reputation had been deliberately attacked. Rich, again, the connection with Melissa Nathan

is very interesting, but what do you make of Amber Hurd jumping into the Mac? So, you know, you and I, you and I spent some time together covering that trial, the Johnny Depp. Amber Heard trial. And I think two things are true. One, I did think he won the trial. I thought his lawyers did a better job. I think the jury came out at a reasonable place in the trial. But there was a separate public media attack like I've never seen in any other case that we've covered. Just relentless, vicious attacks on Amber Heard that continued, that started before the trial, continued through the trial and really have continued to this day

there's still vicious stuff on social media about her I would have thought the public would have lost interest in that case long ago in a dispute between two movie stars so some people have speculated that that social media attack was artificially generated

or artificially accelerated that there was some sort of PR influence I tend to be in that camp There did seem to be something artificial about it. So it's a very interesting tie-in that Blake Lively is essentially saying, now this is happening to me. It's a really, really, really good point. I do have a question, though, if the defense could be to all of this,

all this negative press surrounding Blake Lively, that's not our fault. That's Blake Lively's doing. Let me explain this. Let me amplify this a little bit. So May 2023, when filming officially began, you go from the beginning, fans of the book, they were quick to express their concerns because Lively, who was cast as the 23-year-old Bloom, she sported this red hair color, which deviated from the character's description of the book. This is according to the Today Show. And fans also

questioned the age gap because Lively was 35 years old at the time. But I'll tell you, nonetheless, Hoover defended the film's creative choices explaining that the production team made the decision to age the characters up, to make them more age-appropriate. for the story being told, which, by the way, let me just talk about the film. Initial box office success grossed $50 million domestically, $80 million worldwide. That's according to Variety, eventually made $350 million. But it was embroiled in this controversy, and it surrounded Blake Lively. Fans quickly honed in on how Lively was approaching promoting the film.

She seemed to downplay the gravity of the subject matter, focusing instead on her own business ventures. And then she also made a comment at the New York premiere that many found insensitive when she said, quote, you are so much more than just a survivor or just a victim. Further backlash came for a promotional video where she suggested to viewers, quote, grab their friends, wear florals, and head out to see it as if she was promoting a fun, carefree outing rather than a film about domestic violence. So again, Rich, I have a couple more examples here. two things about that. A, was this her own doing? You know, all this negative press. Maybe it wasn't so much Baldoni and his teams putting out negative information. Maybe it was her own things that she said versus B. I don't know if you had an opportunity to see this in the complaint, but they put it in there that she was marketing this movie that way, promoting this movie that way, because that was the agreed upon marketing strategy. It was to shy away from the sadness and the somber aspect of domestic violence and focus more on. on hope and the strength of Lily Bloom. So what do you make of that? Well, most of that goes to causation and damages, right?

There's a liability question here. Did the defendants harass her? Did the defendants retaliate against her for complaining about the harassment? Did the defendants disseminate publicly false information about her in an effort to smear her? You might answer yes to any of those questions and then you would get to was she damaged?

And if they want to say she wasn't damaged because the public disliked her anyway, or they disliked this movie, or they disliked the way she did this movie, you know, that's some debate that can be had in figuring out what damages she would be entitled to. But it wouldn't, to me, block liability if the defendants did all of the things they're accused of doing. And, you know, you couple that also with this, there was this interview that popped up with an interviewer basically titled it on YouTube

one of the worst interviews of her life and it was where she had commented to Blake Lively about her baby bump because she was pregnant and Blake Lively kind of allegedly snapped back and made a comment about her appearance and that was something that you know Blake Lively said

Blake Lively it's not and this was way before this was years before the production of this movie and this is something that came forward and we've seen this time and time again Rich where something comes out about an actor or actress and then people surface old videos or clips of them, and they look at it with the context, and that's how they get canceled.

And again, I wonder if this is something Baldoni will say and say, you know, look, I didn't make these things up. She said them. Not my fault that it came out. Yeah, they can look for that in the case. They can come up with other reasons people dislike her. Hey, I'm still mad about the Green Lantern movie. So, you know, people might dislike her for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it doesn't, it, that doesn't block the allegations if they can prove that all of this harassment and retaliation and false dissemination of information occurred. In that case, who cares that there were already people out there who disliked her? They targeted her, and it worked. By the way, one quick question. Did you get the sense after reading this complaint?

I get the allegations. I get the idea of that a digital army was formed, that there was this campaign to retaliate against her, but what you maybe didn't get was how it worked. like what the campaign looked like on the day to day, what articles were pushed forward, what social media comments were put forward, what fake users or allegedly fake user accounts was put forward. That was something I thought was interesting, unless I'm wrong, unless you saw it and eyed in. But I didn't really see how this worked per se. And I wonder if that is a limitation

of this complaint or maybe that's something that will be explored during the course of this litigation. Yeah. So a complaint is supposed to be a short and plain statement of the facts setting forth why you have a cause of action. A complaint is never supposed to be every single fact that you intend to introduce as evidence in the case. So those kind of details, how they manipulated the social media, that would be more appropriate to come out in the course of discovery and at trial. I wouldn't expect to see that. This was a long filing. It was, I mean, it was over 300, paragraphs of allegations, if I remember right. So it was pretty detailed for a complaint that you would file on something like this. Now, I want to go back to, I want to end this with the idea of the responses. So Justin Baldoni, through his lawyer, Brian Friedman, strongly denied the accusations. Friedman called the claims categorically false, asserted that lively had threatened to derail the film's promotion unless their demands were met, included threatening to not show up the set, refusing to promote the movie.

Baldoni's team also argued that this negative media coverage surrounding lively was a result of her own behavior during the promotional tour, not any orchestrated campaign. And Friedman emphasized that the crisis management firm had only been hired to protect Baldoni from extreme threats and that the PR efforts were typical for a high-profile figure navigating negative press. So that idea of the way they're fighting this back, I get it, Rich. So I'm looking at these messages, and they don't look great for him. They don't.

Now, remember, the defense of a case like this is twofold. There's the defense in the court. How are we going to handle the complaint? How are we going to try to get it dismissed? What are we going to do? What happens if this case goes to trial? How can we win? But more important than that, there's the case in the public, right?

Because this complaint is out there now. It is a publicity statement for Blake, lively her position on what happened told to the public and there are lots of stories being written about the complaint so there's this whole other public relations effort that has to counter that to try to minimize the impact on the defendants in the public sector before the case has ever really evaluated or decided in the court and talk about damage i mean he was dropped Baldoni was dropped by the Allen agency, William Morrison Dever. By the way, if she's successful on this, what is she looking at in terms of potential damages here?

Well, potentially millions and millions of dollars if she can really prove harm to her brands and the like. But I view this as first and foremost, an effort to clear her name and an effort to stand up for, you know, frankly, things she believes in. I mean, actresses talking about what happens to them on a movie set or otherwise at the film workplace, those are important issues and she has some power and she has some financial wherewithal and she can kind of speak to those issues publicly in a way that other actresses probably can't. So my guess would be that the case for her is more about those things. I think she and Ryan Reynolds are doing quite well financially. So I think they're going to be okay. I think it's more about the messages and about her personal name and reputation.

Would they settle this? Because at this point, if you settle it, it's like you're really fighting back against us. What message would a settlement say? Well, it could settle. You know, you could settle a case like this. Remember, ultimately, the Depp Heard case was settled. just happened after trial. You can settle it with, you know, some financial arrangements that everybody can live with and a set of public statements if what you want, for example, if what I really want is an admission that they did this to me, that could be part of the settlement, a public statement to that effect. What I really want is $5 million. That can be part of the settlement. Most times in a civil litigation like this, it really behooves both sides.

to make all efforts they can to try to settle the matter, because if this case ever ends up in front of a jury, number one, it's going to take a long time and it's going to be tremendously expensive for everybody involved. Number two, it's going to attract a lot of publicity that could be harmful to either side or both and exacerbate the problem. And number three, when you go in front of a jury, you don't really know what's going to happen. So for all of those, reasons everybody involved should try to settle this case I don't know if they will we shall wait and see rich Schoenstein thank you so much for coming on appreciate you taking the time on Christmas Eve enjoy the holidays with your

family we'll see you soon happy holidays to you Jesse and all the best for the new years see you soon 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 Apple podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcasts I'm Jesse Weber I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.