January 6, 2025 • 17 mins
Over the break, one of the biggest stories was the lawsuits filed between actress Blake Lively and her fellow co-star and director in ‘It Ends With Us’, Justin Baldoni.Just a few days before Christmas, Lively filed a legal complaint - and has since filed a lawsuit - against Baldoni alleging that he sexually harassed her on set and that after she complained about his alleged behaviour, he retaliated by staging a PR campaign to ruin her reputation.The complaint was first reported by The New York Times, who was then sued by Baldoni and his team just over a week later for defamation.If that sounds like a lot, don't worry, we're here to break it down for you on today's deep dive!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
Oh now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to
the Daily OS. It's Tuesday, the seventh of January.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Billy, I'm Zara.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Over the break. One of the biggest stories was the
lawsuit filed between actress Blake Lively and her fellow co
star and director in It Ends with Us, Justin Baldoni.
Just a few days before Christmas. Lively filed a legal
complaint and has since filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, alleging
that he sexually harassed her on set, and that after
she complained about his alleged behavior, he retaliated by staging
(00:43):
a pr campaign to ruin her reputation. The complaint was
first reported by The New York Times, who was then
sued by Baldoni and his team just over a week
later for defamation. In today's Deep Dive, we are going
to break down exactly.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
What happened, Philly.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I feel like you've already said a podcast I know,
in our introduction alone, but it is important context because
I feel like people might be coming to this story
at different times. It started in the pop culture world,
it has very much moved out of that. Now with
so many lawsuits with the New York Times involved, it
has really made it into the mainstream kind of hard
news cycle. It did start with a movie, though, so
(01:22):
what can you quickly tell us about It Ends with
Us and why that's relevant to the story.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's so funny. This is my entire TikTok for me tage.
So in my head, everyone is really across this because
I've just gone down every single rabbit hole. You and
me both yes, But a good reminder. When we were
speaking to Sam, he had no idea and he was like,
I just need it explained to me. So that is
why we're here. So it all surrounds the movie It
Ends with Us, which is an adaptation of the best
(01:47):
selling novel by Coleen Hoover which was published in twenty sixteen.
Now that movie, well, that book and then movie follows
Lily Boom as she navigates being in and then trying
to leave and abusive relationship with a man called Ryle.
Now Blake Lively plays Lily Boom and she was also
a producer on the film. And then Justin Baldoni played Ryle,
(02:11):
and he was also the director of the film. But
he also partly owns the production company called Wayfair Studios,
which owns the rights to the film It Ends with Us,
and it also owns the sequel, It Starts with Us.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I wonder if there's going to be a sequel. I
find the answer is no. I mean, that's a whole
nother conversation. But when that film It Ends with Us
was first released, there was this whole string of controversy
that followed, mainly pointed at one person.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, and I think it's important to go back to
what happened when this film was first release, because it's
basically the center of the entire lawsuits that have now
subsequently come out. So pretty much as soon as the
film was released, audiences started to suspect that there was
tension between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. So they were
never seen on the red carpet together, and they also
(03:01):
never did any press interviews together, which for the two
main stars of a film, that is very rare. I've
never seen that before, and that is what caused so
much speculation about whether there was tension. Now, on top
of that, during the press interviews that Blake Lively did do,
she started to be accused of trivializing domestic violence, which
(03:23):
was one of the biggest themes of this film. And
she was also criticized for launching her hair care line,
Blake Brown, at the same time as the film's release.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And when you say she was criticized, I've never seen
such uniform criticism. It was every single app you went on,
you know, whether it was Instagram or TikTok. There was
this uniform criticism of Blake Lively in a way that
I've never seen before.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
And that was the whole conversation at the time that
it is so rare that all of the criticism is
so uniform. You know, there was no real nuance in
the conversation. It was just all of this backloud against
Blake Lively. It started with the criticism of how she
was marketing this film, but then it completely snowballed two
past interviews that she had done. People were branding her
(04:10):
as rude and bringing up all of these historic examples
that kind of fit that narrative. They said, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
And so that was in August when the film was released,
but then in December and the story kind of died
a bit over the months that followed. But then in December,
Blake Lively sued Justin Baldoni. It seemingly came out of nowhere,
or of course that's not what happened. But in the
New York Times we first found out about this lawsuit
from Blake Lively against Justin Baldoni. And what were the allegations?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, and I think, just for clarity, we'll say against
Justin Baldoni. But important to note that it was also
against Wayfarer, which is the company that he owns. And
then it was also against senior individuals that were part
of the PR firm called the Agency Group, who were
hired by Wayfarer and Baldoni. But for clarity's sake, we'll
say against Baldoni. Veley's complaint and now lawsuit has ten
(05:03):
claims for damages, which we can broadly separate into two baskets.
So there is the alleged sexual harassment and then also
the alleged coordination of a PR campaign which was she says,
designed to completely ruin her reputation and also her life.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Okay, let's take the sexual harassment claims first. What was alleged?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Okay, so there were several different instances where Baldoni allegedly
sexually harassed Lively. And it wasn't only Baldoni that Lively
is saying allegedly sexually harassed her, also one of the
producers who was on set. Again, there were several instances.
We'll just go through a specific example that I think
is kind of emblematic of all of the ones that
she alleged. So at one point, Lively accused Baldoni of
(05:48):
improvising physical intimacy with no intimacy coordinator present and trying
to add sex scenes that she had not agreed to.
So reminded that they were the two main actors on
this film, and she is saying that he allegedly came
up with these sex scenes that weren't actually part of
the script. And it's also alleged that Baldoni caressed Lively
(06:09):
with his mouth when they were not in character. It
was also alleged that Baldoni and one of the producers
entered her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including
when she was breastfeeding. Now, things allegedly got so bad
that in early January twenty twenty four, so exactly a
year ago, an all hands meeting took place where Lively
(06:32):
Baldoni and several others discussed the hostile environment on set.
Now during that meeting, I think this is like the
big thing that everyone has focused on. There were thirty
conditions that this lawsuit says were agreed to. Now that
included no more improvising of kissing or adding of sex scenes,
no more entering of Lively's trailer while she is nude,
(06:55):
no more discussion of personal experiences with sex, and no
more discussion of Baldoni's previous pornography addiction. So again, those
are only four of these lists of thirty demands that
were allegedly agreed to.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Okay, and I think we'll get into more on that
a bit later, but I want to just go to
the other claim, which was about this pr campaign.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, so the second suite of claims center around this
alleged plan by a Baldonian wayfarer to again ruin the
lives of miss Lively and also her family. Now, Lively
claims that this was done in retaliation, and that is
one of the key words. Basically, she's saying that she
complained about sexual harassment and then her employer of the
film company retaliated against that by hiring this crisis PR
(07:40):
firm for when the movie comes out. So the alleged
plan involved manipulating algorithms by boosting certain content and also
by posting things that appeared to come from accounts belonging
to the general public, but were actually generated by the
PR company.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
This is something that we've spoken about on the pub before.
It was part of our summer series, this idea that
are their PR bots that are online, and you know,
that's been a whole big conversation, and that's kind of
what Blake Lively is alleging happened here.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, And they had multiple examples of screenshots of accounts
that had zero followers, had never posted before, followed zero people,
but were posting hate about Blake Lively. And so they said,
these are fake accounts that they allege were created by
this PR company to just completely again ruin Lively's reputation.
(08:30):
But Baldoni does dispute that, but we'll get into that, okay. Now.
Another key part of her lawsuit is the allegation that
the film's marketing plan ordered the cast to avoid describing
the film as a story about domestic violence, but that
Baldoni abruptly pivoted away from this plan in the days
leading up to the release. Now, the reason why that's
important is because again Lively was accused of completely trivializing
(08:55):
this theme of domestic vice.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Didn't talk about domestic violence, but that's what it was
all about. But hear the allegation is that they were
told not to Well, it was agreed upon that they wouldn't,
but then he departed.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
He departed, and then was praised for talking about domestic violence. Now,
all of these allegations were accompanied with text messages and
emails sent between Baldoni and the crisis communications team at
the time. I feel like one of the big questions
everyone had when they saw this lawsuit was how did
they get these text messages? The answer is through a subpoena,
(09:25):
which is just a formal court order to produce certain communications.
It appears that it came from a former employee of Wayfararer,
but that is still part of the conversation and also
part of Baldoni's subsequent lawsuit. So that's a whole subplot.
I don't think we got into that, but just an fyi.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I'll stay with the main plot.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So Blake Lively has sued Justin Baldoni, the new York
Times has posted about this lawsuit. Then in the weeks
that follow Justin Baldoni launches his own legal action and
it's against the New York Times.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
What is this lawsuit on the basis of.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah, I think many people expected Justin Baldoni to issue
a counter lawsuit against Blake Lively, but it was interesting
that it was actually against the New York Times for defamation,
and it was for two hundred and fifty million US dollars. Now,
the basis of his lawsuit is the allegation that The
New York Times did not follow proper journalistic practices, that
(10:23):
they published false allegations, and that they deliberately left out
pieces of information and text messages that disputed their chosen narrative.
So basically, they're saying they only chose half the story,
half the story that supported what Blake Lively was saying.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I just want to interrupt quickly because what was interesting
when this piece was first published by The New York
Times is the journalist who published it, who was Megan
Toohey and Meghan Twey is the journalist that really started
this me too movement across the world. She was the
one who uncovered the Harvey Weinstein allegations, and so I
think when we saw her byline, it was like, oh
(11:00):
my god, this is a big deal. But clearly Justin
Baldoni and his team believed that journalistic malpractice as sort's happened.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
What are some of the examples that they've used.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, let's start with how Baldoni alleged the Times deliberately
left out pieces of information. This one example that caught
my eye I thought was so interesting because it literally
all came down to a single emoji, you know, the
upside down smiley emoji.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
You said every day, Oh dear, well, it's one of
my most used.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Well you'll love this one. So in the initial piece
about Lively's lawsuit against Baldoni, the Times quoted a text
exchange between PR communication specialists who were talking about a
negative article surrounding Lively. Now, the text exchange that the
Times quoted showed one PR agent saying, you really outdid
yourself with this piece, and the other replied, that's why
(11:50):
you hired me, right, I'm the best. Now, when I
saw that, I thought that pretty dead, black and white
evidence that clearly these PR specially were planting negative stories
about Lively. But Baldoni would like us to think or
know that everything is not as appears, because in the
text message, you really outdid yourself with this piece. Apparently
(12:13):
there was actually an emoji after that text that was
the upside down smiley emoji that he said clearly showed
that they were being sarcastic, and that also clearly showed
that they actually had nothing to do with this also
because the next message said damn, this is unfair because
it's also not me. Again, he's saying that proves that
(12:33):
they actually had nothing to do with that piece, but
that the Times was just using those two messages and
deliberately left out the entire text exchange.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Wow, are you following, I'm following. So they're saying that
the emoji added a sense of sarcasm. Yeah, that was
missed when The New York Times published the text message
without that emoji exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
And there were a whole lot of different examples that
kind of showed a similar narrative where Baldoni is saying
that The Times deliberately left out pieces.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Of Okay, so is the main issue here with the
New York Times that they mischaracterized the communications.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
That's the main one. But then there are also other complaints.
Another one is that at nine point five pm, the
night before this piece went live, they sent an email
to Baldoni and his team saying, these are the allegations
against you. Can you please respond, which.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Is a very normal way of doing journalism.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
A very normal thing, and the Time said you have
until noon tomorrow to respond to these allegations and also
to let us know if there are any inaccuracies. Now,
Baldoni and his team did get back to the Times
within that timeframe, but then The Times published the story
two hours before the deadline of noon, And what Baldoni's
(13:48):
team is saying is that, yes, we did respond, but
also we were working on a document that showed you
the inaccuracies in the piece, but you didn't give us
enough time because you didn't fulfill the full deadline in
order for us to send that through. And so there
are other examples where Baldoni is saying that there was
malpractice in the journalism conducted by The Times.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Wow, I mean so much there and so much to unpack,
but that really goes to I guess that the journalism
not actually the claims enclosed in the journalism, and not
the claims that are enclosed in Lively's lawsuit against Justin Baldoni.
Has he or his team actually said anything, for example,
(14:30):
about the alleged sexual harassment.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah, so I mentioned before this list of thirty demands
that Lively said everyone agreed to. Baldoni's team completely denies
that they actually say denies what denies that that document
ever existed or that they agreed to that document.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Okay, so they said.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Their lawsuit said, and this is quoting, no such document
was ever presented to Baldoni, the Wayfairer team, or to
their knowledge anyone else, whether during that meeting or any
other time, and therefore could not have been agreed to.
And it also says the repeated use of the phrase
no more before each demand in that document falsely suggests
(15:07):
that these alleged incidents had previously taken place and needed
to cease, which they say is entirely untrue. So they're
basically saying none of this ever happened. And by saying
that no more of this can happen, you're saying it
happened before, but they're saying it didn't. There are so
many other examples. We could literally be sitting here for
three hours. I don't think we need to get into
(15:29):
all of them, but they did go through most of
the examples that Lively brought up in her lawsuit, and
they provided contexts that they say completely disputes those claims.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
And how has Blake Lively responded to Justin Valdoni suing
The New York Times.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So Lively's attorneys have completely doubled down, and they said
in a statement, Unfortunately, miss Lively's decision to speak out
has resulted in further retaliation and attacks. So again that
word of retaliation, which is really the basis of what
she's saying. Her team continued, Now the defendants will answer
for their conduct in federal court. The New York Times
(16:05):
also responded in a statement, They said, our story was
meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review
of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text,
messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length
in the article.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Right, So nobody is moving from their firm positions.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So I guess it's off to court now.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, I think that there should be a court case
that happens this year. Also to note that Baldoni's team
has signified that he will also be suing Blake Lively herself.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
So at the.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Moment, the defendant is only The New York Times, but
apparently we can be expecting a whole other lawsuit that
Baldoni will file against Blake Lively herself.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Well, we're going to need another whole podcast to explain
that one. Yeah, but Billy, thank you for explaining something
that really, yeah, as I said, has been quite difficult
to follow just because of how many twists and turns
and really so much any opposing views and perspectives. So
I feel like I understand it much more. Thank you
for explaining that, and thank you for joining us on
another episode of The Daily Ours.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
It's good to be back for another year.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
If you missed us or you enjoyed this episode, press
follow on Spotify or Apple and net signals to the
platforms that you like what you're hearing. We'll be back
this afternoon with the headlines, but until then, have a
wonderful Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Bungelung Chalcuttin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily Oas acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
Oh now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to
the Daily OS. It's Tuesday, the seventh of January.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Billy, I'm Zara.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Over the break. One of the biggest stories was the
lawsuit filed between actress Blake Lively and her fellow co
star and director in It Ends with Us, Justin Baldoni.
Just a few days before Christmas. Lively filed a legal
complaint and has since filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, alleging
that he sexually harassed her on set, and that after
she complained about his alleged behavior, he retaliated by staging
(00:43):
a pr campaign to ruin her reputation. The complaint was
first reported by The New York Times, who was then
sued by Baldoni and his team just over a week
later for defamation. In today's Deep Dive, we are going
to break down exactly.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
What happened, Philly.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I feel like you've already said a podcast I know,
in our introduction alone, but it is important context because
I feel like people might be coming to this story
at different times. It started in the pop culture world,
it has very much moved out of that. Now with
so many lawsuits with the New York Times involved, it
has really made it into the mainstream kind of hard
news cycle. It did start with a movie, though, so
(01:22):
what can you quickly tell us about It Ends with
Us and why that's relevant to the story.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's so funny. This is my entire TikTok for me tage.
So in my head, everyone is really across this because
I've just gone down every single rabbit hole. You and
me both yes, But a good reminder. When we were
speaking to Sam, he had no idea and he was like,
I just need it explained to me. So that is
why we're here. So it all surrounds the movie It
Ends with Us, which is an adaptation of the best
(01:47):
selling novel by Coleen Hoover which was published in twenty sixteen.
Now that movie, well, that book and then movie follows
Lily Boom as she navigates being in and then trying
to leave and abusive relationship with a man called Ryle.
Now Blake Lively plays Lily Boom and she was also
a producer on the film. And then Justin Baldoni played Ryle,
(02:11):
and he was also the director of the film. But
he also partly owns the production company called Wayfair Studios,
which owns the rights to the film It Ends with Us,
and it also owns the sequel, It Starts with Us.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I wonder if there's going to be a sequel. I
find the answer is no. I mean, that's a whole
nother conversation. But when that film It Ends with Us
was first released, there was this whole string of controversy
that followed, mainly pointed at one person.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, and I think it's important to go back to
what happened when this film was first release, because it's
basically the center of the entire lawsuits that have now
subsequently come out. So pretty much as soon as the
film was released, audiences started to suspect that there was
tension between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. So they were
never seen on the red carpet together, and they also
(03:01):
never did any press interviews together, which for the two
main stars of a film, that is very rare. I've
never seen that before, and that is what caused so
much speculation about whether there was tension. Now, on top
of that, during the press interviews that Blake Lively did do,
she started to be accused of trivializing domestic violence, which
(03:23):
was one of the biggest themes of this film. And
she was also criticized for launching her hair care line,
Blake Brown, at the same time as the film's release.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And when you say she was criticized, I've never seen
such uniform criticism. It was every single app you went on,
you know, whether it was Instagram or TikTok. There was
this uniform criticism of Blake Lively in a way that
I've never seen before.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
And that was the whole conversation at the time that
it is so rare that all of the criticism is
so uniform. You know, there was no real nuance in
the conversation. It was just all of this backloud against
Blake Lively. It started with the criticism of how she
was marketing this film, but then it completely snowballed two
past interviews that she had done. People were branding her
(04:10):
as rude and bringing up all of these historic examples
that kind of fit that narrative. They said, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
And so that was in August when the film was released,
but then in December and the story kind of died
a bit over the months that followed. But then in December,
Blake Lively sued Justin Baldoni. It seemingly came out of nowhere,
or of course that's not what happened. But in the
New York Times we first found out about this lawsuit
from Blake Lively against Justin Baldoni. And what were the allegations?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, and I think, just for clarity, we'll say against
Justin Baldoni. But important to note that it was also
against Wayfarer, which is the company that he owns. And
then it was also against senior individuals that were part
of the PR firm called the Agency Group, who were
hired by Wayfarer and Baldoni. But for clarity's sake, we'll
say against Baldoni. Veley's complaint and now lawsuit has ten
(05:03):
claims for damages, which we can broadly separate into two baskets.
So there is the alleged sexual harassment and then also
the alleged coordination of a PR campaign which was she says,
designed to completely ruin her reputation and also her life.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Okay, let's take the sexual harassment claims first. What was alleged?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Okay, so there were several different instances where Baldoni allegedly
sexually harassed Lively. And it wasn't only Baldoni that Lively
is saying allegedly sexually harassed her, also one of the
producers who was on set. Again, there were several instances.
We'll just go through a specific example that I think
is kind of emblematic of all of the ones that
she alleged. So at one point, Lively accused Baldoni of
(05:48):
improvising physical intimacy with no intimacy coordinator present and trying
to add sex scenes that she had not agreed to.
So reminded that they were the two main actors on
this film, and she is saying that he allegedly came
up with these sex scenes that weren't actually part of
the script. And it's also alleged that Baldoni caressed Lively
(06:09):
with his mouth when they were not in character. It
was also alleged that Baldoni and one of the producers
entered her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including
when she was breastfeeding. Now, things allegedly got so bad
that in early January twenty twenty four, so exactly a
year ago, an all hands meeting took place where Lively
(06:32):
Baldoni and several others discussed the hostile environment on set.
Now during that meeting, I think this is like the
big thing that everyone has focused on. There were thirty
conditions that this lawsuit says were agreed to. Now that
included no more improvising of kissing or adding of sex scenes,
no more entering of Lively's trailer while she is nude,
(06:55):
no more discussion of personal experiences with sex, and no
more discussion of Baldoni's previous pornography addiction. So again, those
are only four of these lists of thirty demands that
were allegedly agreed to.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Okay, and I think we'll get into more on that
a bit later, but I want to just go to
the other claim, which was about this pr campaign.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, so the second suite of claims center around this
alleged plan by a Baldonian wayfarer to again ruin the
lives of miss Lively and also her family. Now, Lively
claims that this was done in retaliation, and that is
one of the key words. Basically, she's saying that she
complained about sexual harassment and then her employer of the
film company retaliated against that by hiring this crisis PR
(07:40):
firm for when the movie comes out. So the alleged
plan involved manipulating algorithms by boosting certain content and also
by posting things that appeared to come from accounts belonging
to the general public, but were actually generated by the
PR company.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
This is something that we've spoken about on the pub before.
It was part of our summer series, this idea that
are their PR bots that are online, and you know,
that's been a whole big conversation, and that's kind of
what Blake Lively is alleging happened here.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, And they had multiple examples of screenshots of accounts
that had zero followers, had never posted before, followed zero people,
but were posting hate about Blake Lively. And so they said,
these are fake accounts that they allege were created by
this PR company to just completely again ruin Lively's reputation.
(08:30):
But Baldoni does dispute that, but we'll get into that, okay. Now.
Another key part of her lawsuit is the allegation that
the film's marketing plan ordered the cast to avoid describing
the film as a story about domestic violence, but that
Baldoni abruptly pivoted away from this plan in the days
leading up to the release. Now, the reason why that's
important is because again Lively was accused of completely trivializing
(08:55):
this theme of domestic vice.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Didn't talk about domestic violence, but that's what it was
all about. But hear the allegation is that they were
told not to Well, it was agreed upon that they wouldn't,
but then he departed.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
He departed, and then was praised for talking about domestic violence. Now,
all of these allegations were accompanied with text messages and
emails sent between Baldoni and the crisis communications team at
the time. I feel like one of the big questions
everyone had when they saw this lawsuit was how did
they get these text messages? The answer is through a subpoena,
(09:25):
which is just a formal court order to produce certain communications.
It appears that it came from a former employee of Wayfararer,
but that is still part of the conversation and also
part of Baldoni's subsequent lawsuit. So that's a whole subplot.
I don't think we got into that, but just an fyi.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I'll stay with the main plot.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So Blake Lively has sued Justin Baldoni, the new York
Times has posted about this lawsuit. Then in the weeks
that follow Justin Baldoni launches his own legal action and
it's against the New York Times.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
What is this lawsuit on the basis of.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah, I think many people expected Justin Baldoni to issue
a counter lawsuit against Blake Lively, but it was interesting
that it was actually against the New York Times for defamation,
and it was for two hundred and fifty million US dollars. Now,
the basis of his lawsuit is the allegation that The
New York Times did not follow proper journalistic practices, that
(10:23):
they published false allegations, and that they deliberately left out
pieces of information and text messages that disputed their chosen narrative.
So basically, they're saying they only chose half the story,
half the story that supported what Blake Lively was saying.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I just want to interrupt quickly because what was interesting
when this piece was first published by The New York
Times is the journalist who published it, who was Megan
Toohey and Meghan Twey is the journalist that really started
this me too movement across the world. She was the
one who uncovered the Harvey Weinstein allegations, and so I
think when we saw her byline, it was like, oh
(11:00):
my god, this is a big deal. But clearly Justin
Baldoni and his team believed that journalistic malpractice as sort's happened.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
What are some of the examples that they've used.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, let's start with how Baldoni alleged the Times deliberately
left out pieces of information. This one example that caught
my eye I thought was so interesting because it literally
all came down to a single emoji, you know, the
upside down smiley emoji.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
You said every day, Oh dear, well, it's one of
my most used.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Well you'll love this one. So in the initial piece
about Lively's lawsuit against Baldoni, the Times quoted a text
exchange between PR communication specialists who were talking about a
negative article surrounding Lively. Now, the text exchange that the
Times quoted showed one PR agent saying, you really outdid
yourself with this piece, and the other replied, that's why
(11:50):
you hired me, right, I'm the best. Now, when I
saw that, I thought that pretty dead, black and white
evidence that clearly these PR specially were planting negative stories
about Lively. But Baldoni would like us to think or
know that everything is not as appears, because in the
text message, you really outdid yourself with this piece. Apparently
(12:13):
there was actually an emoji after that text that was
the upside down smiley emoji that he said clearly showed
that they were being sarcastic, and that also clearly showed
that they actually had nothing to do with this also
because the next message said damn, this is unfair because
it's also not me. Again, he's saying that proves that
(12:33):
they actually had nothing to do with that piece, but
that the Times was just using those two messages and
deliberately left out the entire text exchange.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Wow, are you following, I'm following. So they're saying that
the emoji added a sense of sarcasm. Yeah, that was
missed when The New York Times published the text message
without that emoji exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
And there were a whole lot of different examples that
kind of showed a similar narrative where Baldoni is saying
that The Times deliberately left out pieces.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Of Okay, so is the main issue here with the
New York Times that they mischaracterized the communications.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
That's the main one. But then there are also other complaints.
Another one is that at nine point five pm, the
night before this piece went live, they sent an email
to Baldoni and his team saying, these are the allegations
against you. Can you please respond, which.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Is a very normal way of doing journalism.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
A very normal thing, and the Time said you have
until noon tomorrow to respond to these allegations and also
to let us know if there are any inaccuracies. Now,
Baldoni and his team did get back to the Times
within that timeframe, but then The Times published the story
two hours before the deadline of noon, And what Baldoni's
(13:48):
team is saying is that, yes, we did respond, but
also we were working on a document that showed you
the inaccuracies in the piece, but you didn't give us
enough time because you didn't fulfill the full deadline in
order for us to send that through. And so there
are other examples where Baldoni is saying that there was
malpractice in the journalism conducted by The Times.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Wow, I mean so much there and so much to unpack,
but that really goes to I guess that the journalism
not actually the claims enclosed in the journalism, and not
the claims that are enclosed in Lively's lawsuit against Justin Baldoni.
Has he or his team actually said anything, for example,
(14:30):
about the alleged sexual harassment.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah, so I mentioned before this list of thirty demands
that Lively said everyone agreed to. Baldoni's team completely denies
that they actually say denies what denies that that document
ever existed or that they agreed to that document.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Okay, so they said.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Their lawsuit said, and this is quoting, no such document
was ever presented to Baldoni, the Wayfairer team, or to
their knowledge anyone else, whether during that meeting or any
other time, and therefore could not have been agreed to.
And it also says the repeated use of the phrase
no more before each demand in that document falsely suggests
(15:07):
that these alleged incidents had previously taken place and needed
to cease, which they say is entirely untrue. So they're
basically saying none of this ever happened. And by saying
that no more of this can happen, you're saying it
happened before, but they're saying it didn't. There are so
many other examples. We could literally be sitting here for
three hours. I don't think we need to get into
(15:29):
all of them, but they did go through most of
the examples that Lively brought up in her lawsuit, and
they provided contexts that they say completely disputes those claims.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
And how has Blake Lively responded to Justin Valdoni suing
The New York Times.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So Lively's attorneys have completely doubled down, and they said
in a statement, Unfortunately, miss Lively's decision to speak out
has resulted in further retaliation and attacks. So again that
word of retaliation, which is really the basis of what
she's saying. Her team continued, Now the defendants will answer
for their conduct in federal court. The New York Times
(16:05):
also responded in a statement, They said, our story was
meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review
of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text,
messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length
in the article.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Right, So nobody is moving from their firm positions.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So I guess it's off to court now.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, I think that there should be a court case
that happens this year. Also to note that Baldoni's team
has signified that he will also be suing Blake Lively herself.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
So at the.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Moment, the defendant is only The New York Times, but
apparently we can be expecting a whole other lawsuit that
Baldoni will file against Blake Lively herself.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Well, we're going to need another whole podcast to explain
that one. Yeah, but Billy, thank you for explaining something
that really, yeah, as I said, has been quite difficult
to follow just because of how many twists and turns
and really so much any opposing views and perspectives. So
I feel like I understand it much more. Thank you
for explaining that, and thank you for joining us on
another episode of The Daily Ours.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
It's good to be back for another year.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
If you missed us or you enjoyed this episode, press
follow on Spotify or Apple and net signals to the
platforms that you like what you're hearing. We'll be back
this afternoon with the headlines, but until then, have a
wonderful Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Bungelung Chalcuttin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily Oas acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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