WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Social Mediators: "It Ends With Us" Lawsuits

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

This week, we discuss the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni lawsuits arising from their new movie, "It Ends With Us." Tune in to hear about celebrities slandering each other, how liberals and conservatives are uniting behind Candance Owen's investigative journalism, and how Ryan Reynolds could be the key to all of it. 

This is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM where we examine the truth disparity between what's in social media and what's actually true. I'm Julian Parks. And I'm Garrett Gulesby. And today we have to just hop right into it because I have a lot of info. I'm assuming Garrett has a lot of info. And we are talking about the Blake lively Justin Baldoni lawsuits. For those of you who aren't aware of any of the context, there was first what came out as a book called It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover. That was very popular. got turned into a movie that was being starred in by Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Baloney also doubled as the director of the film. Maybe one of many. I'm not really sure, but I know that he was. He was the main director. He was the main director. He was also the, his company bought the rights to the film.

There we go. And then he got Blake lively on board and lots of drama has ensued since then. This has been kind of a long time coming, to be honest with you. I've been hearing about these things since December-ish when the movie. came out and now we're looking at the end of January, three different lawsuits. Am I right, Garrett? Well, it's all been consolidated into one, but yes. Okay. Lots of people suing each other. Lots of people suing each other. Basically how this started to unravel and from what I could see from social media perspective was that Blake was doing poorly in interviews. She was going out and she was kind of making

fun of the people that were interviewing her. She was coming across as really haughty, really like holier than now. She just seemed like, she seemed like a mean girl. And she was a, going doing these interviews promoting this film about domestic violence. So those two things in combination did not do well. And then in the midst of this like kind of, I would say, campaign to kind of cancel Blake lively. She comes out with a lawsuit to kind of what looks like explain why everybody's seeing all this that that said, A, that she had been sexually harassed by Baldoni and B, that there had been this engineered smear campaign to ruin her reputation. I'm not sure if the smear campaign is a part of the lawsuit or if the lawsuit is solely sexual harassment, but I know that those two things in combination are kind of what she seems to be bringing to court.

We'll try to distinguish that, but it is incredibly convoluted. Okay, great. The main name that came up with that is Melissa Nathan, who was this woman that Baldoni hired, it seems, to, from the text messages, it seems that they were trying to start theories, trying to, promote interviews where she looked bad, trying to censor content, start fan accounts to kind of create this narrative around Blake lightly being hated. And once this came out, people were freaking out. I think mostly as a result of the influence of the Me Too movement, people were like, well, if she was being sexually harassed, all of us need to back down and kind of rescind what we had thought before. She also accused Justin Baldonia fat-shaming her of not hiring or not using an

intimacy coordinator. One thing that she really harped on was he was calling her hot. He was like improvising in scenes like kind of doing weird stuff where he says she says that he was like smelling her and that she was he was making comments about her there was also a chunk of it where he was talking about an addiction he had to pornography which he had talked about in a book that he had released and she basically according to her had to put forward a meeting of like these 17 things that he had to agree to in order for production to continue and so So she sat down with him and I think with Ryan Reynolds as well and basically put forward 17, well, she said 30, 30 things that had needed to stop if she was going to continue being a part of the movie. I'm going to jump in really quick about the meeting thing because it is kind of, it's a little bit confusing.

There was a very pivotal meeting in this case that took place between the three of them. This was part, the 17 things happened almost two years ago and was part of, well, I'll get into why that took place. Ryan Reynolds presence or absence in it is not incredibly important. Okay. So just proceed from there. Great. I will say the internet thinks Ryan Reynolds is the key to this lawsuit. I will get to that in a second, but the internet has rallied around Ryan Reynolds being

the key person, but I will come back to that. And then basically Baldoni came back with a count, what seems like a counter lawsuit, with a bunch of evidence that her claims are not true. That she, that they had been flirting over text messages, that the conversations that she were like brought forward as inappropriate, he restructures them and says, this is actually what happened. And I have video evidence. There's a lot of camera and video evidence that's alleged in the lawsuit. I've seen a couple clips. And it seems like, it doesn't actually seem cut and dry. A lot of the commentary will be like, and look at this video that disproves Blake lively. And I watch it and I'm still

kind of like, that's a little creepy. That's not like completely, I don't know. If that was done to me, I probably would laugh uncomfortably and do what she did too. So it's not exactly what she's. said. It's not exactly what he said. Both of them are kind of fudging the lines, but there's, there is video evidence, which means hopefully the court will be able to make an informed decision. He also kind of clapbacked with a bunch of screenshots from crew, directors, producers, saying she was incredibly entitled and incredibly hard to work with. There was a lot of complaints about her trying to get this like PGA producer credit that is really coveted in Hollywood. And she came in and basically was rewriting parts of the script. Ryan Reynolds also rewrote part of

the script and that she was like threatening to not promote the movie if people were refusing her more like editorial comments. There was also a lot of talk about the fact that they did a Baldoni cut versus a Blake cut of the movie and they showed its audiences and Baldoni's ranked much higher than Blake's did and Blake. I'm using Blake's first name and his last name, which is a little bit confusing. But it's Blake lively and Justin Baldoni to make it very clear. but the Blake Livesley's cut of the movie actually only performed well with men and the point of the movie is obviously a movie discouraging domestic violence so its target audience is women um the base it seems like there's also part of the lawsuit briefly in Justin Baldoni's lawsuit that talks about Ryan Reynolds specifically launching a defamation campaign against him particularly in the movie Deadpool, there's a character called Nice Pool who's very clearly meant to be Justin Baldoni, and Blake loudly kills him in the movie. Where the internet, I think, is really interesting

right now is they have rallied around this idea, like, spearheaded by Candace Owens. And Candace Owens is not well liked on the internet. And they, people are really, like, conservatives and liberals alike are like, she is very interesting on this. She's getting a lot of, like, a lot of traction, a lot of engagement from her interpretations and inside information into what it was like being on set on this movie. So she's become kind of a culture reporter here under the banner of being anti-feminism and anti-me-2 is the way that she's branding this. But she has some really interesting talk. And she is 100% set on the idea that all of this is because of Ryan Reynolds. And just to kind of break down a very quick timeline, her theory is that Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni were getting really close.

They were co-stars. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds actually met as co-stars in Green Lantern, and they were both dating other people when they met. And so it's kind of this you lose him, how you found him sort of deal, that they cheated on their significant others at the time and then got together. And now there's kind of this control around him trying to make sure that that doesn't happen to him at this point. So once people say he saw something that set him off, nobody knows what it is, whether it be a picture, a video, a text message,

just a general change in Blake's demeanor that made him. start to be a more active presence on set that he wanted to rewrite scenes. He wanted to see all the dailies. He wanted to see all the footage that had been filmed from the day and he wanted to be able to review it. He wanted to just be really hands on with the process. And Candice Owens brought forth some information that somebody on set had heard Blake and Ryan Reynolds like arguing in their trailer and from that point on there was just a really hostile work environment and there was a lot more hands-on work from Blake lively and Ryan Reynolds there as kind of a backlash to maybe the way that she had been flirting with Justin Baldoni. And there's quite a bit of evidence that she maybe was pretty attracted to him.

And then he shut her down and said, I'm not attracted to you, Blake. I have a wife. I'm not interested in this. And that that kind of propelled her into whatever we're in right now. A lot of people also think it could just be an ego thing that she's used to getting what she wants. She's beautiful. She's rich. and people were not going with her opinions and ideas on things, and that may have spiraled.

There's a lot of different theories, but either way, Ryan Reynolds seems to be somebody that is key, even though he's not particularly the one putting forth these lawsuits. There's also a lot of information about Taylor Swift being a part of this, but I couldn't scroll for another hour trying to figure this out. I truly believe social media has all of the information on this because they're so interested in it. You would just have to scroll for hours and hours and hours to get all of it. So that's what I have from my side.

For those of you who are just tuning in, this is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 1.1.7 FM. I'm Jillian. And I'm Garrett. And we are talking about the It Ends with Us movie lawsuits that are currently ongoing. So you're going to be disappointed if you think I'm going to give you a clear cut answer on who done it. That's okay. I'll live without it.

Because that would require knowing the hearts of both of these people and whether either of them are lying in these situations because it is impossible to tell. And as you, I think, correctly pulled out from social media, both of them seem in the wrong in some ways, right? Like, it's almost certainly true that Baldoni did things that were considered sexual harassment. It's almost certainly true that Blake lively, like some of the things that some of the allegations about her are also true. She's difficult to work with and that she's misconstruing some of the things that he's done. So it's, you know, everybody's hands are dirty, I think, in this situation. So what I'm going to do my best to do is try to explain how we got where we are and maybe where this is going. So, 2023, I think we actually covered this on an episode.

There was a Hollywood actor's strike. Yes, we did. And during this time, production of this film stopped. And Blake lively used this as kind of a chance to also address the sexual harassment allegations. And so when the strike was up, she said, I'm not coming back to work unless these, like, You said the 17 points are met and they relate to, hey, stop harassing me. And also we need to have a person, an intimacy coordinator, somebody that coordinates the scenes of a sexual nature on the set. And Baldoni signed that.

He agreed to, actually he didn't agree to the whole original document. But there was a version of the document that he and the CEO of his company Wayfarer agreed to, who was also caught up in this sexual harassment. allegations. Was it true that he signed something that was like 17 points? Yes. And that she put like a 30 point document in the lawsuit. Yes, that is that's true. Is that was that dishonest or like what? No, they, I mean, that was just they, you know, the original demands were made and then there was some negotiation and then ended on 17 points. Okay. So there is this this agreement is signed that he's going to comply with these certain demands. And then. the information about these goings on, he agreed, one of the things he agreed to do is that he wouldn't pursue her, he wouldn't retaliate against her making these claims. He wouldn't take legal action and say, hey, you're slandering me. Okay. And then Blake lively, by all appearances, leaked the information about his sexual harassment of her to the press, to the New York Times, particularly. So the New York Times goes and investigates Justin Baldoni, collects all

this information and then starts putting out things that are slanderous to his career, right? Are potentially very, very harmful to his name and to the movie and all those things. And so he, in this whole time, after, well, let me make sure we have our timeline straight, right? The original agreement is signed. And then immediately following that, we find out now that this Melissa Nathan lady was hired by Baldoni and her job is basically to cancel people. I mean, kind of. She represented Johnny Depp in his case against Amber Heard, Travis Scott also and a few other kind of big name personalities that have gotten in like the whole slander libel feud type thing.

And she said verbatim, let me make sure I can bury people, right? Yeah, we can bury people, right? I saw that. And so there is a lot of concern that following that there is like everything you saw about her, about Blake lively being. difficult to work with, the diva, all those things. So that's pretty curated. Okay. And it's hard, it is, it's almost certain that some curation did occur, right? Because the prevalence of her in the media on social media, you know, the, the, yeah,

her prevalence in interviews and all those things goes way. It did skyrocket. And it's curious that it correlates so closely with him hiring this lady, right? Who is, we know, very good at her job. Okay, she's done this for a number of other famous people. Which is suspicious in itself hiring her. Yes. It's very suspicious that he hired her.

Yeah. Right. And there, we have text messages between them basically saying, like, I need security, like, I need security for my reputation against her. So, yeah, that's questionable, right? And then he comes out after, and so following this, this is all going on, and it's secret. Nobody knows that this is going on. We've only know, we only know this in recent days.

Is then Blake lively, she begins to leak this information about his sexual harassment to the press. We have the New York Times investigation. New York Times comes out with this damning piece against Justin Baldoni, right? And she did agree that she wouldn't do this

or she did not agree that she would? She agreed that she wouldn't do this. Yes, this is not something you're supposed to do. And then Baldoni sues the New York Times. Okay. And so that's kind of where this legal back and forth,

I sue you, you sue me thing has started. He sues the New York Times and then, you know, he sues her. But she had already put forth a lawsuit, had she not? Not yet. The suing of the New York Times happened a while.

happened first. Yes. So these are now consolidated into one big case. And yeah, it's it's very, very confusing kind of in a legal sense why they're picking particular. I think it would almost be better suited for if we actually had legal counsel, had a lawyer on the set to talk us through why certain pieces of evidence are considered legal for them to present and other pieces are not because there's some question as to whether or not Baldoni has broken the law in some of the information that he's released in the process of this of the legal cases coming out some of some people are pointing at it and saying oh that's illegal what you you know what you've done and his lawyers have come back and say no in the case of defense it's not illegal and so it's hard to say right in that in that

instance how much he's broken the law so what are the stakes I believe the damages are rung up to about $400 million at this really yes on this lawsuit so oh my gosh here's some other kind of facttoids that you can maybe help you in the calculus of what you think of this is that Baldoni has apologized to he's he submitted audio there's there's audio recordings we have of him apologizing to Blake lively for his actions and basically saying yes I messed up so we have that right but we also have him saying you know you're you're saying you're making false allegations against me right so it's kind of confusing in that in that way co-occurrant to all of this is a power struggle over the rights to the film. It's a creative struggle, right? So we know Blake lively, she's very rich,

by far more famous and well known than Baldoni is. And she, there is some question as to whether, and this has gotten mixed up in the legal case, there's some question as to whether she has been using her, her influence, her power, her money to push Baldoni out of the film, which is a problem because he owns the rights to the film. He owns the rights to, yes, to making the this movie to the company that is producing the movie and the reason why this has all come about. And it's particularly contentious over one particular scene, the rooftop scene. I haven't seen the movie. I haven't seen the movie either, but I know Ryan Reynolds rewrote the rooftop scene.

Yeah. But he wasn't supposed to. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds being married have often collaborated on like almost all the work that they do. They've admitted to the fact that they go over just about every scene that they're in with each other and they help each other work through it right and they're both very creative people so in a lot of cases i think this has been seen as a good thing for other other other movies and other instances in this case uh baldoni has you know they they came to him with a rewrite of this

really crucial scene and it was kind of a competing vision as to how the movie would spin i think that's my impression again i haven't seen the movie so i can't really tell you yeah and she lively was insisting ongoing her way right about doing the scene in this particular way And this is where Taylor Swift gets kind of involved but actually not involved because I think you maybe have seen that she's mixed up in all this, right? She's friends with Taylor Swift, Lively is. And there was this meeting that took place between Baldoni and between Blake Lively. Reynolds was allegedly there also. Okay.

And during this meeting, they were discussing which version of the film to choose. And Lively, and this is something that Baldoni is accusing her of, not something that we have Lively saying that she did. But Baldoni is accusing her of using kind of Taylor Swift's influence as a threat against him in order to get the scene that she wants into the movie. I saw text messages about this. Obviously, I didn't see the meeting. But I saw she was saying like I have, well, she was using an interesting analogy between her and some character. Game of Thrones character. Yes.

That Taylor Swift is her dragon. Yes, that she has a dragon that she uses. That's insane. Super weird. Yeah, hard to kind of know what to make of that. I think it's hard not to assume that there's, this isn't, that, that there isn't something wrong with Blake lively going through her whole life being considered very beautiful and very talented and very rich. And then getting to a movie set where she's not being fond over and totally in charge. Like I do think there's a lot of, I just think there has to be truth to that narrative.

I also think that clearly she's insecure about the fact that she's just recently had a baby and has to lose the baby weight. And I know this because Ryan Reynolds mentions it in Deadpool. He has this rewrite of like not a rewrite. He kind of helps write that script. But he has his whole scene where he talks about like my wife is losing the baby weight. And it's like that's clearly some sort of obsession in their house and there's some sort of just boiling insecurity. I don't think, I don't can't say how much that's played into this. But I do think it definitely like social media has picked up on some more cultural, social undercurrents that are definitely impacting this lawsuit.

whether or not it will play out in court i have no idea i mean we might need to follow up depending on when we when are they going to court it's going to be a while really march 2026 what yes a year takes forever to unfortunately why and i cannot exactly explain to you why other than that the legal system just works that way and it's going to take a year for all the lawyers to like marshal all their evidence and make the case and yeah why are they leaking all the evidence to the like the public right now well that's part of the problem okay is there's a lot of legal discussion as to how much of that that is legal. Okay.

And so that's all getting folded into the case kind of in real time, which increases the complexity of the case and lengthens the amount of time it takes to prepare for the lawsuit. Yeah. In terms of her creative control, I think it might be a little bit of a misnomer to say that she has none because Baldoni has actually thanked her for some of her work on the film and talked about like how doggedly she's helped the creative process of this film and, you know, reviewing all the scenes and giving ideas and things like that. So it's a curious, curious case. We won't know the answer for a while.

The answer being who is, yeah, who's bad. I don't know. It's not that simple. Kind of both of them and kind of all of every, yeah, everybody a little bit. Celebrity drama is so convoluted in that way. I read so many tabloids today. It was unbelievable. I watched so many video documentaries.

So many. So many. And I enjoyed people like doing your job, honestly, like going through the lawsuit, but never failing to add their own little twist to it, which we do as well. So you can't hate on that. You're ready to give a really quick little grade to social media? Okay. Three, two, one. A. I thought it did good. I agree. I think there's a lot of information out there. And if you are looking for it, you can find a lot of the like key parts of the lawsuits and people have been following it the whole time. I mean, they're using social media as part of their tool. in spreading the information about this, getting people on their side. People are still, like, there was a short period of time where people were pro Blake Lively, but that has since passed. And it seems everybody is anti-Blake Lively on the internet, which I don't think is,

I don't think that's fair, but I also, I don't know, we'll have to see if she's really, if Ryan Reynolds really is the super villain mastermind behind all this, or if it's more nuanced than we know it is. The information is there, though, and you are able to make your own sort of. Such a malicious-looking guy. Right, exactly. But people are allowed to make their claims and their predictions on how this will go in a year, right? Thank you to everyone who tune into this episode of the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale, 1-1.1.7 FM.

I'm Jillian. And I'm here. And we'll talk to you next week.