January 15, 2025 • 33 mins
The episode explores the complexities of modern smear campaigns, using the alleged feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni as a central case study. We discuss how these campaigns have evolved, their historical significance, and the ethical dilemmas they present in the digital age.
• The concept and purpose of smear campaigns
• Historical context with examples like Marie Antoinette
• Analysis of the Lively and Baldoni feud
• The impact of social media on rumor spread
• The role of PR firms in managing reputations
• Ethical considerations of truth and perception in celebrity culture
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rob (00:00):
All right you guys ready.
So you probably heard about therumored feud between Blake
Lively and Justin Baldoni.
Chris (00:07):
Hey Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here.
Rob (00:10):
Tabloid drama, cryptic Instagram posts and whispers of
tension on set.
It's the stuff of Hollywoodlegend, right?
Victor (00:16):
I heard more about the drama than the movie itself.
Yeah, that's kind of how itgoes.
I think the drama would havemade a better movie.
Rob (00:24):
Is it really a feud or something more going on?
It's not just celebrities.
Smear campaigns have beenaround forever, from political
takedowns to royal scandals, butin today's digital age, they've
evolved into something morepowerful and maybe more sinister
.
Today, we're digging into Blakeand Justin's saga and using it
to explore how smear campaignshave shifted over time.
(00:45):
Are they tools of destructionor have they become a sneaky way
to generate buzz?
You might rethink the nextcelebrity scandal you scroll on
Instagram.
Cesar (00:54):
Welcome to the I'm Not Dumb but Podcast, where we won't
claim to have the answers tolife's deepest questions but
we'll give you an excitingjourney into the realms of
knowledge you never knew you'deither.
Might be mainstream, but notcommon knowledge.
From artificial intelligence toconspiracy theories, no topic
is too taboo for us to explore.
Let's get curious together.
Rob (01:14):
I'm Rob, your host for today, joined by the man who's
still convinced he can bulk andcut at the same time Cesar Yup
and I can do it.
Our boy, whose New Year'sresolution is to color
coordinate his dating apps,victor.
Victor (01:28):
How y'all doing.
Gotta, keep it organized.
Rob (01:30):
And a true success story from the INDB intern turned head
of marketing, Chris.
Chris (01:36):
What's up?
Wait, I got promoted to amarketer.
Victor (01:39):
That's why no one knows anything about this podcast.
Cesar (01:44):
Chris, we got Instagram.
Victor (01:48):
I knows anything about this podcast, chris, we got
instagram.
I don't know what do we do.
All right, so what is thissmear campaign?
Let me just take a shot in thedark in this.
A smear campaign is a maneuveryou do at a after you go to the
bathroom.
You take and you smear it allover the bathroom as revenge is.
Cesar (02:03):
That is that is that before or after?
You put the poop inside the bag, you light it up and then you
knock on the door.
Victor (02:10):
That's a different one.
That's a different one.
That's called door dash.
Rob (02:16):
I think my uncle does that he's an idiot.
So, according to the OxfordDictionary, a smear campaign is
a plan to discredit a publicfigure by making false or
dubious accusations.
It's a calculated effort toruin someone's reputation, often
with harmful and misleadinginformation.
The ultimate goal of the smearcampaign is basically you want
(02:38):
to isolate the person you'retargeting.
This is a way of stripping awaytheir support.
So, whether it's financial,social or emotional, when you
take away someone's resources,they're left vulnerable.
Victor (02:48):
It sounds kind of cruel.
Rob (02:50):
It's not nice, it's not nice.
It's politics, baby it ispolitics and it is used in
politics.
Victor (02:56):
Yeah, so when do they get into each other's bathroom?
That's after.
That's after.
There's a video on it,disgusting, so that's after.
Rob (03:01):
Okay, that's after there's a video on it if you Disgusting?
So let's break it down.
How does a smear campaignusually start?
So the person launching thesmear campaign is often felt
wronged or mistreated by thetarget.
So they'll position themselvesas a victim, which is key to
starting the attack.
So once they feel they're beingtreated unfairly, they might
resort to a smear campaign in away to punish or get revenge on
(03:23):
another person.
Victor (03:24):
So Caesar's trying to start a smear campaign on me?
Rob (03:29):
Yeah, he felt wronged by you some way, and now he wants
to get revenge.
Victor (03:36):
He wants to get revenge, so he's going to start by going
hey, listen, I have beenattacked by this guy viciously
for the past three months.
Rob (03:43):
But one of the most important things to understand
about smear campaigns is theythrive on speed, so the goal is
to get ahead of the story.
So the first person who spreadsthe rumors or the accusations
usually is the person who getsthe upper hand.
So if Caesar wants to go aheadand start one, he's got to get
ahead of you as soon as he feelswrong.
Chris (04:00):
But when you start the campaign it's not always true,
right?
Rob (04:05):
Well, so the whole point of a smear campaigns is to accuse
a person about like facts thatcould be true, because you don't
want to outright lie.
Cesar (04:13):
That would be defamation you're kind of embellishing the
truth, right, oh?
Okay kind of stretching it toits.
You know technically, uh, not alie so the first thing is speed
.
Victor (04:23):
So speed as in, like you , so you want to be the first in
the room, so like if you letone rip in a crowd full of
people, you want to be the firstguy to go.
What's that smell?
Rob (04:33):
right, right, do you have a dog?
Yeah, yeah do you?
Chris (04:38):
smell.
Yeah, what is that?
Victor (04:41):
yeah, you gotta pretend that that it wasn't you.
Is there a gas leak?
Oh my God, what is that Exactly?
He smelt it, dealt it.
Rob (04:50):
So what you want to target?
The first thing you want totarget smear campaigns are often
they target people who areeasier to persuade, so they're
called soft targets.
So the smear will first goafter their own base, people who
already support them or sharetheir worldwide view.
This creates a community of thefollowers who can now amplify
the story and they can start toslowly pull people away from the
(05:12):
TARC, because the whole idea isto isolate that person.
Now here's where Chris wassaying make outright lies.
The whole idea is plausibleaccusations.
These are not necessarilyoutrageous, but they could
highlight the target'sweaknesses, so something that
makes the accusation soundbelievable to outsiders.
So if you say something, you'relike oh yeah, jim was kind of
(05:33):
acting weird.
That's the whole idea.
You want to just kind of takethe confidence away from this
person.
Victor (05:37):
Could that just be something as simple as insults
or like?
Would it be full on like sexualharassment?
This guy was saying veryinappropriate things.
To me, as long as it'sbelievable.
Rob (05:48):
So it's about sharing bits of truths, but you're taking
them out of context, sodistorting what was said or done
to make it seem much worse thanit already is.
So this idea of what they callpoisoning the well man, that
just sounds horrible.
I think Chris thinks he'staking a master class in smear
yeah, I think he's like he'slike fucking marketing,
(06:11):
marketing.
All right, I'll show theseassholes we'll see what you say
in the next intro, rob I hatecursive and I hate all of you
and then this would getamplified through gossip.
so you're telling your softtargets, so you tell a story to
different people, always addingnew details and painting the
target in a bad light.
This creates a ripple effect,with people whispering rumors in
(06:34):
different circles and havingtheir own spin on it.
So one of the big things withsmear campaigns, though, is you
really can't have a paper trailbecause you need it to be
hearsay.
You need it to be hearsaybecause, if you start writing
things down now.
You can get in trouble for that.
So a big part of smearcampaigns is that is not usually
in writing.
Victor (06:53):
Yeah, but how do you set that up with, like your PR team
?
If you're a politician and youhave a campaign like, how do you
just go?
I need, like my team, to comeup with a smear campaign.
You guys can't write it down.
Rob (07:05):
Create rumors, create rumors, create threads, create
ideas, put it out there.
Cesar (07:10):
You could probably go into one of these Reddits or any
of these chats and use a burneraccount and just start saying
random stuff.
Victor (07:17):
Hey, I heard this guy really fucking sucks.
Cesar (07:20):
I work at so-and-so's office and I heard this that,
that, that that you have all theinformation and you're like yo,
this guy's.
Rob (07:26):
Yeah, and then usually, since things are not written
down, if someone is confronted,they can just avoid the
situation or gaslight, you right, they can deny involvement.
They can act like the person washey, you're overreacting.
I never said that, like I nevertold that to anybody.
Who did you hear this from?
Oh, told that to anybody.
Who would you hear this from?
(07:46):
Oh, so-and-so Well, it wasn'tme.
You know what I mean.
And the smear campaign won't bedirect.
So instead they'll use subtletactics like passive-aggressive
posts or comments, and once theyhave a base of supporters, then
they can start escalating,because now the narrative has
changed about this one person.
Put it out there, people startto believe it and then now, if
you were to up the ante, morepeople are going to start to
(08:06):
believe You're going to be likeoh yeah, I heard that from all
these other people saying thesame thing.
The ultimate goal here for asmear campaign now that we're
talking about the anatomy of asmear campaign you want to
destabilize the other person, soyou start to make others
question about their character,their motives and maybe even
their sanity.
So let's look at some examples.
(08:27):
We'll take a story of one ofthe historical story of smear
campaigns.
One was Marie Antoinette BitchOkay, the queen of France in the
late 1700s.
Victor (08:38):
That bitch, let them eat cake.
How dare you.
How dare you?
Rob (08:44):
So she became a target of one of the most infamous smear
campaigns in history.
At a time when the monarchy wasalready facing massive
financial struggles, marie waspainted as the epitome of excess
and irresponsibility, soespecially with the infamous
phrase let them eat cake, whichshe supposedly said in response
to the poor starving due to herbread shortage.
(09:05):
The problem she never actuallysaid it.
What?
Yeah, it was a piece ofpropaganda to show how out of
touch she was with reality overthe people she ruled.
She never actually said it.
Victor (09:15):
Let's go live now to the press conference.
I may have said somethingearlier in this podcast about
Marie Antoinette.
I just want to apologize to herfamily.
Rob (09:29):
I was going off of false information.
Victor (09:31):
I was lied to.
I was lied to.
Rob (09:33):
Hundreds of years later.
Chris (09:34):
you were lied to Hundreds of years later.
Victor (09:36):
I am sorry.
Chris (09:37):
Such nonsense, I would never say that.
Rob (09:39):
Her every move was scrutinized and twisted.
She was blamed for France'sfinancial crisis and accused of
being promiscuous and even tohave led relationships with
high-profile men.
All of this was used to frameher as a symbol of everything
that is wrong with the monarchy.
Well, by the time the FrenchRevolution kicked into full gear
, marie Antoinette's reputationhad been so thoroughly tarnished
(10:02):
by this smear campaign that itplayed part in her downfall and
public opinion had turnedagainst her.
The smear campaign didn't justharm her, because eventually she
was executed, but it helpedfuel the entire French
Revolution Night jumps queen.
They actually have a lot ofwritten evidence that she was
(10:23):
really worried about the poorand was actually trying to find
ways to help the situation, andthen they just wrote her up as
saying let them eat cake.
So here's another example Oneof the most infamous
presidential races in US historyin 1828, the US presidential
election between Andrew Jacksonand John Quincy Adams.
I remember that yeah, it wasn'ttoo long ago.
Cesar (10:46):
Yeah.
Rob (10:46):
So the race between Andrew Jackson and the incumbent, john
Quincy Adams, was one of thedirtiest in American history.
Jackson, a war hero, waspainted as violent and
uneducated brute.
His opponents spread rumorsthat his wife, rachel, was a
bigamist because her divorcefrom her first husband wasn't
fully finalized before marryingJackson.
(11:07):
The scandal deeply affectedRachel, who was publicly
humiliated and reportedlydevastated by the attacks.
Jackson's supporters didn'thold back either.
They accused Adams of being acorrupt elitist and even claimed
he procured a young woman for aRussian czar while serving as a
US ambassador.
Well, how did this end?
Despite the vicious campaign,jackson won the presidency.
(11:29):
However, just weeks after hisvictory, rachel Jackson's wife
passed away, which Jacksonblamed on stress and emotional
toll of the smear campaign.
Victor (11:40):
Wow, damn.
Rob (11:41):
Yeah, pretty bad.
Victor (11:43):
You don't go after a man's wife.
No, unless you're Ted Cruz,then his wife is fair game.
Chris (11:49):
You can just say the worst shit.
He just rolled over and died onthat one Just rolled over Oof,
oof.
Rob (11:54):
Everybody's always blaming me for everything, so let's fast
forward to today.
The rumored feud between BlakeLively and Justin Baldoni on the
set of it Ends With Us.
You guys see it.
Chris (12:06):
I heard the movie sucked what.
Rob (12:11):
What do you mean?
It's all over the internet.
Cesar (12:14):
I've seen screenshots with captions like oh, someone's
getting sued, but I don't knowanything of it.
Victor (12:21):
It Ends With Us has a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes.
It's not bad.
I remember when it was comingout she had to enlist the help
of Ryan Reynolds to startpromoting it for her.
Really, they were doing itaround the same time as Deadpool
and Wolverine and then all of asudden he's popping up on her
(12:41):
press junkets pushing theirmovie.
Cesar (12:44):
He's a marketing genius, yeah he really is.
Chris, can you get him on thephone?
Rob (12:49):
He sold me mint mobile, the biggest sack of shit wireless
he sold me mint mobile kids 15dollars a month me to the moon
and back.
That's a great deal so much likemarie antwren at smear campaign
.
What we're seeing today couldbe a mix of exaggerations,
distortions and and mediamanipulation.
(13:11):
But the real question is couldthis entire scandal be
strategically planted smearcampaign?
So let's dig into the details.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldonico-starred in the film.
It Ends With Us, a movie basedon a romance novel dealing with
some heavy topics like emotionaland physical abuse in
(13:33):
relationships.
Cesar (13:34):
Yeah, that movie was going to bomb.
Rob (13:35):
Actually, my wife read the book and she loved the book.
She saw the movie and was likethis is horrible and horrible
adaptation.
Victor (13:42):
So she's the one.
Rob (13:44):
Yeah, but here's where it gets even more interesting.
During filming, she claimedthat Justin Baldoni, who was
also the director, and JamieHeath, the lead producer,
repeatedly violated her physicalboundaries and made sexually
inappropriate comments towardher at times improvised unwanted
kissing, and openly discussedhis sex life, including moments
(14:11):
where he mentioned not receivingconsent in past encounters.
As for Jamie Heath, he showedher a video of his wife naked
and then watched her undress inthe trailer when she was
breastfeeding, despite herasking to look away.
So some pretty seriousallegations from Blake Listen
listen, okay, away.
Cesar (14:30):
So some pretty serious allegations from uh blake.
Listen, listen, okay.
Ryan reynolds is a big enoughstar that if any of this
actually happened, I think therewould have been hell in that
set to be honest, but would doyou want to be that woman that
runs to her husband every time?
Chris (14:47):
yes, her there's an issue .
Victor (14:50):
She's an actress.
Cesar (14:51):
She was an actress before him, he's, and he's almost a
billionaire.
Chris (14:55):
So yeah, she's a pretty big deal herself, though.
Cesar (14:58):
At least get taylor swift involved.
She could write a song.
Rob (15:02):
It's funny what you're saying so now.
As you can imagine, the studiodidn't take this lightly.
Wayfarer studios uh.
The production company agreedto bring in an intimacy
coordinator.
Victor (15:14):
What is that?
Chris (15:15):
I still don't know what that is.
What is an intimacy coordinator?
Cesar (15:20):
Don't they choreograph like sex scenes and love scenes?
Victor (15:23):
That's a job Like hey, you want to give him more tongue
?
Rob (15:27):
So an intimacy coordinator is a professional in the film
and television industries whoensures the safety and
well-being of actors duringintimate scenes.
Victor (15:35):
Oh, so they just go.
I feel like they're just thereto convince you to do whatever
dirty shit that the director hassaid.
Rob (15:42):
Based off her allegations, he came up with unwanted kissing
.
Cesar (15:46):
So what's this movie about again?
Rob (15:53):
Domestic abuse.
Yeah, domestic abuse.
Cesar (15:55):
Yeah, so the movie's about domestic abuse and this
guy's doing unwanted sexual.
Rob (16:01):
Allegedly, allegedly Okay.
Cesar (16:04):
I think it's par for the course he doesn't drop character
.
Rob (16:08):
He doesn't drop character, right, he's a method, method man
I don't drop character tillI've done a dvd commentary
justin baldoni fired back,claiming that blake used her
position to take control of thefilm's creative process.
specifically, he alleged thatshe insisted on joining him in
the editing bay during the10-week protected period, which
(16:31):
is typically a private periodwhere the director would work on
the cut of the film withoutinterference.
So he even said Blake, aseasoned pro in the industry,
knew the implications of herrequest.
She asked for more time in theediting bay and, according to
Baldoni, the initial two-dayrequest stretched to 10 days.
And, according to Baldoni, theinitial two-day request
stretched to 10 days.
Worse, she allegedly took overthe editing process, firing the
(16:54):
film's original editor andbringing in her own team,
including an editor who worksfor her husband, ryan Reynolds.
She even added extra music, andsome of them were Taylor Swift
songs, because I guess they'refriends.
Victor (17:07):
She basically tries to take complete control over the
movie and this is according tohim.
Rob (17:12):
Now, this is according to him, it's mine now the tension
didn't stop there.
Baldoni claims this caused arift between the film's crew,
ultimate leading to his removalfrom the project altogether.
Baldoni is quoted, uh, where hesays she's finishing it all.
I can't be involved music,sound, vf, vfx, everything I'll
make it through somehow.
I just need to feel it all.
So she pretty much took overthe entire movie after making
(17:37):
some allegations.
Victor (17:38):
It seems like.
Is there any proof on eitherone of these sides that
something weird was going on, oris it just?
Rob (17:44):
he says, she said when she sued him for a smear campaign,
there was a new york timesarticle which he sued after the
article came out where theysubpoenaed baldoni's uh text
messages with him and and his prteam and everything, yeah, and
a lot of this.
They've come out to light andnow all the text messages are
out.
So if you read the new yorktimes article, it's very blake,
(18:07):
lively side, pro, yeah, okay, hedidn't like that.
So now he sued the new yorktimes for basically taking.
If you read the New York Timesarticle, it's very Blake,
lively-sided yeah, okay, hedidn't like that.
So now he sued the New YorkTimes for basically taking
everything out of context, whichwhen you read it, it does not
sound good for him.
But it does leave out all of theother things that she did,
allegedly in response to theaccusations of Blake Lively made
against Justin Baldoni.
Both Baldoni and Heath, whopositioned themselves as strong
(18:30):
advocates for the Me Toomovement, feared Blake's story
would be a serious blow to theirreputations.
So, instead of addressing theaccusations head on, baldoni,
heath and their studio, wayfair,which is backed by billionaire
mogul Steve Sorowitz, decided tohire a PR firm to run a smear
campaign against Blake, but notjust any PR firm.
(18:51):
They hired Melissa Nathan Holyshit.
Founder of the Agency Group orTAG PR.
Nathan is known for handlingcrisis management for some of
Hollywood's biggest names, likeJohnny Depp, drake and the
Chainsmokers.
Victor (19:06):
So you can hire a PR team to fire back at another
celebrity.
Yeah, I need some fucking money.
You need money, bro.
You need money.
Rob (19:17):
This is like what they work on.
They call it crisis management.
Victor (19:21):
Hi Melissa, I'm going to give you a name.
I want that person gone.
Listen to this.
I was at a district meeting.
Cesar (19:28):
They were building a building right.
The owners of the buildinghired a PR firm to talk to the
tenants and to talk to theneighboring residents, because
the building had asbestos, hadeverything wrong that you could
think of.
So instead of going in andtelling the people what's wrong,
they hired a PR firm to do alltheir bidding and say, nope,
(19:49):
everything is good, everythingwas good, everything comes to
code.
So if a building can do it, allthese celebrities can do it too
Well.
Victor (19:56):
the people who own the building did it Well.
The building itself did notmake any.
Cesar (20:00):
You never know, bro.
You never know these days.
I can identify as a building.
Rob (20:05):
That was a great area in the story and I'm glad you
clicked that up.
Cesar (20:08):
I can identify as a building.
Rob (20:12):
And her firm.
They specialize in creatingreputation-shifting strategies,
especially for clients lookingto control the narrative, and
that New York Times article, oneof the text messages that were
out of context, she is quoted tosaying you know, we can bury
anyone.
Victor (20:29):
Oh my.
Rob (20:29):
God.
Victor (20:30):
That's the kind of that's who you want on your team
.
Rob (20:32):
That's really yeah, that's the professionalism I want.
And these campaigns, they'renot cheap.
It's reported that Wayfarer'smerit campaign against Blake
Lively was well-funded,allegedly with $100 million of
Sorowitz money behind it, andthe Baldoni camp pitched a
$175,000 four-month battle planto start threads and theories on
(20:56):
platforms like Reddit andTikToks to steer the narrative
in their favor.
Victor (21:01):
Dude, that's crazy.
I feel like I could do thatright.
How hard is that?
Just tell people hey, put abunch of Reddit threads, call
this person a son of a bitch, goon Twitter, start tweeting how
racist they are.
Rob (21:12):
That's pretty much what they were doing.
So these tactics, which arestraight out of the modern day,
played book for digital smearcampaigns, involving creating
fake social media threads,manipulating fan engagement and
fueling negativity around thetarget, in this case, blake
Lively.
His PR firm hires this guycalled Jed Wallace and he's a PR
(21:33):
crisis manager and is describedas a Ray Donovan type fixer.
Victor (21:38):
Oh, so someone's getting beaten up, and this is Blake's
team.
Rob (21:42):
No, no, no Baldoni's team.
So Melissa Nathan hired,subcontracted out this guy to
basically go in there and do alot of stuff.
Cesar (21:51):
When I was reading.
Rob (21:52):
There was another article and they were saying that this
guy, jed Wallace, is like if youneed a helicopter in, like the
sub-Sahara, this is the guy whoknows how to find it.
Oh my God.
Chris (22:02):
I wish I had one of those guys.
Victor (22:04):
Wow, I need one of those guys.
Rob (22:06):
No, social media online.
If you look them up, it's likeeven Melissa Nathan.
If you try to find what shelooks like, it's hard to find
anything about her.
Victor (22:18):
I mean, if she's in crisis management, she can hide
herself.
Yeah, it's like to hire her.
They're like go to this bar atsix o'clock, sit at this chair,
someone will approach you.
Chris (22:26):
Order the wontons are you waiting for someone?
Rob (22:32):
so he's known for handling delicate situations for powerful
people.
His firm, uh street relations,allegedly led the charge in
creating viral social mediathreads to shift the narrative
away from Baldoni's allegedmisdeeds and toward a more
negative portrayal of Blake.
How old is this beef?
Oh, this is in August.
All this stuff happened.
(22:53):
You know how all this came outTikTokers online when they were,
um, like doing their pressjunkets and everything.
They were never together.
And then someone went on theirsocial media and saw that
halfway through the movie orafter the movie had, uh, wrapped
up and they were editing.
Ryan reynolds unfriended justinbaldoni and then so did she.
(23:15):
They unfollowed them.
I'm not your friend so theywere like wait a minute they not
together and all of a suddenthey're unfriended.
And then this got picked up bymajor news outlets and then blew
up.
And then that's how all thisstuff started coming out.
Oh, it was like crazy.
So now, with all this talk ofstrategy, money and PR pr
manipulation, it raises aninteresting question could this
(23:38):
entire feud and smear campaignbe a carefully orchestrated
marketing move?
Chris (23:43):
if so, it did a terrible job, because this movie still
sucks yeah, I could say that,but I feel like they could spend
the money on something else,like better marketing than
trying to destroy each other.
But the movie's up movies suck.
Cesar (23:57):
Yeah, I think there's more clever ways to do it, but
you got people talking.
Rob (24:00):
Right.
Cesar (24:00):
Not me because I don't know anything of it, but the
people are talking.
Rob (24:03):
Yeah, I was trying to understand how big these
marketing budgets were.
For major box office likeRobert Downey Jr and Iron man
type stuff, it's $100 to $200million in marketing.
So that's what it takes to makesome of those movies, right,
right and hollywood.
The line between real lifeconflict and promotional tactics
it gets blurred.
Think about it smear campaignsin some cases can be a way to
(24:26):
generate buzz for a film.
This isn't the first time we'veseen anything like this either.
In the early days of celebritytabloids, stories about rivalry,
rivalries or on-set tensionwere often used to promote
movies and TV shows.
Chris (24:39):
I read somewhere about the movie the Wicked, the.
What I wonder?
The Wicked the Weekend?
The Wicked?
Victor (24:45):
Wicked, wicked, it's not .
Rob (24:48):
The.
Victor (24:48):
Wicked, I think it's just Wicked.
It's just Wicked With ArianaGrande.
Rob (24:52):
Yeah, pre-blackcent or post-Blackcent, why don't you
mind your?
Cesar (24:56):
own business, you old fuck.
Chris (24:58):
During their promoting the movie where she got paid
like 10 times more than anyother co-stars, and then that
kind of generated a little buzzabout like yeah, like they're
saying like she got paid, like,say-.
Victor (25:10):
She's Ariana Grande and who's the other woman?
So I think Ariana.
Rob (25:13):
Grande, she was getting paid more, but she worked with
the other actress to, I think,erin agrande.
Chris (25:15):
She was getting paid more but she worked with the other
actress to make sure that theygot paid the same amount I think
they took that out of contextand they said that she got this
much and everyone's got thatmuch, and it generated like a
whole buzz about like how isthat fair?
How is that that?
Rob (25:31):
and then they I think they got it fixed for her, which was
pretty nice for ariana to do'sactually pretty nice.
And let's just look at somecarefully crafted PR stunts that
were used to generate sales.
So you guys remember the 50Cent versus Kanye West?
No Me either.
Chris (25:48):
Me either when?
Rob (25:51):
I was going through these lists of like.
I've never even heard of thesefeuds, but apparently these were
feuds to generate sales.
In the end, they were just.
I've never even heard of thesefeuds, but apparently these were
feuds to generate sales.
In the end, they were just.
I don't even know if they'rereal.
So 50 Cent and Kanye West'squote unquote feud was nothing
more than a publicity stunt and,according to Nicki Swift, these
rappers released albums Yeezy'sGraduation and 50 Curtis on the
(26:15):
same day in 2007.
Cesar (26:17):
I do remember, I do remember?
Victor (26:18):
I do remember, yeah, but was that his big one?
Chris (26:21):
No, that was Get.
Victor (26:21):
Richard.
Rob (26:22):
I Try Him.
That's the only one I know ofhim.
Victor (26:24):
In that case, yeah, because Graduation clearly a
better fucking album than Curtis.
Rob (26:30):
Yeah, but 50 taught me, go ahead and switch your style up,
because if they hate, then letthem hate and watch your money
pile up.
I mean, that's all I reallyknow.
Your style up, because if theyhate, then let them hate and get
your watch your money pile up.
Cesar (26:40):
I mean, that's all I really know.
Preach it ain't no joke.
I remember that feud actuallynow and what happened?
Rob (26:45):
was it like a big thing?
Cesar (26:47):
nothing kanye.
His sales were even like triple50s yeah, it didn't work for 50
.
Rob (26:52):
And another one taylor swift and kat Katy Perry, their
supposed feud.
These pop stars began overbackup dancers and spiraled into
public shade, throwing withhits like Bad Blood and Swish
Swish, fueling the narrative.
Years later they reconciled,but many fans suspected that the
drama was completely for albumsales and media attention.
Victor (27:15):
Well, to be fair, so she does the pop version of diss
tracks.
Cesar (27:21):
Who has she dissed?
All her ex-boyfriends.
Victor (27:23):
The entire ex-boyfriends .
Rob (27:28):
But that's just.
I think that's just her ventingthe entire offensive line.
Well, some of them like towrite really long emails, oh,
really.
So smear campaigns have evolvedsignificantly with the rise of
the digital age, but why do theywork so well today?
So when we talked about theanatomy of a smear campaign,
speed.
Speed is a big factor, but intoday's digital age, speed is so
much easier.
(27:48):
So in Marie Antoinette's stageand history and politics, a lot
of these things had to come outwith pamphlets and hearsay and
inner circles, and that wouldtake months to spread rumors,
right.
But now a post, a tweet, it cango viral in minutes before the
truth even has a chance to comeout.
So on the flip side, there havebeen attempts to discredit
(28:09):
movements, itself proving howeasy it is to actually weaponize
social media for personal gain.
Now we have cancel culture andall these things that people are
scared about, because anythingcan happen and the speed of it.
Cesar (28:21):
You just won't be able to catch up I can't wait for uh
people to cancel us, becausethat would be we got big enough
for people to care I'm kind of abig deal so what do you call it
?
Chris (28:33):
this opposite of samira campaign, when you're trying to
hype something up?
Is there a word for that?
Cesar (28:38):
yeah, you're a hype man supreme promotion.
You're just promoting,promoting to try to fight back
smear campaigns.
Would you want to lean into thesmear?
Rob (28:48):
no, so I was reading about how to.
I would you want to get aheadof it and you want to tell your
truths.
But some people who ignore itare seen as like uh, deflecting,
and sometimes it looks bad.
But then some people who comeout immediately about it, it
also looks bad, so it's likewhat do you do in these
(29:09):
situations?
Cesar (29:10):
you, hire your fixer.
Rob (29:12):
Yeah, you hire your own pr team to fight it jay-z right
with the whole Diddy thing.
Cesar (29:17):
The lawsuit came out the next day.
He came out with his ownstatement saying that this is
completely false.
Chris (29:23):
This is this, this and this?
Cesar (29:25):
People could say, oh yeah , you see, these allegations are
false.
But on the other side, peoplecan also say, yeah, it was too
quick and I believe everything.
The other person is sayingBecause you're a guilty by
association.
Victor (29:36):
Bro people specifically to this.
Beyonce did a halftime show orsomething.
Cesar (29:42):
Yeah, it was a good one.
I saw it.
Victor (29:44):
And she looked beautiful and her daughter danced with
her.
Chris (29:47):
Yeah.
Victor (29:48):
And everyone on the comments were shitting on her
and her daughter about Jay-Z.
Cesar (29:54):
You can't win these days.
You can't win, you can't win,so I would lean into it.
Look at these people.
Victor (29:59):
How dare they show their faces with being friends with
diddy, all this other shit?
I'm like, I'm like, can't youjust be happy?
Cesar (30:05):
the same people who've been buying albums for years for
the jay-z stuff.
Chris (30:09):
It sounds like you kind of died off or just people the
news moves so fast, bro, thatlike he's got a lot of money to
stifle.
I think the key is the money.
Rob (30:18):
No money, no problems yeah, so if you, you know, it really
depends on who's richer.
So what are your final thoughtsabout all this stuff now, chris
?
Chris (30:26):
honestly, I don't know.
I think it's still I'm in themiddle.
I think it could be real, butalso could be the uh publicity
stunt.
First of all, I didn't knowsmear campaign was a thing, I
thought it was.
I didn't know there was a namefor it.
So, um, that was interesting.
But with that concept, I feellike nowadays, like you said, we
can use that for anything tohype it up, something right, or
(30:48):
give false information to um, togain, like you said, to gain on
like some stocks or coins, isall part of that tactic, right
technically, in just indifferent ways.
But, um, that said, I don'tknow what to.
I don't even know what tobelieve.
It's this.
I'll definitely follow up theseare what your thoughts smear
campaigns happen all the timeabout.
Cesar (31:10):
It's a tool to they use to actually get votes.
In terms of this particularsituation between blake lively
and this guy, I think thingswere said and things were done
that it leads me to believe thatit's more than just get votes.
In terms of this particularsituation between blake lively
and this guy, I think thingswere said and things were done
that it leads me to believe thatit's more than just for the
movie.
But if it was, if it turns outto be true, well then, good for
them.
Kudos to them because it made alot of money.
Um, and in terms of like, uh,social media now being used as a
(31:32):
tool for like, there's badactors and this is another tool
that they use to weaponizethings.
So, to be honest, things aregoing to get worse, I think.
I think, because we're soinundated with a whole bunch of
things, that the only way to getpeople's attention is to go
extreme.
Victor (31:48):
Victor it's hard to like stop your initial reaction to
just react instantly to what yousee because, like you're on the
internet for so long, you startreading oh, this guy was being
an asshole, this woman was beinga bitch.
Like the algorithms justcompound that.
When I was seeing all thisnegative stuff come out, like
lively, it was just like oh,even her co-stars at gossip girl
(32:10):
think she's a bitch.
Like just like random shit fromlike.
Oh, 30 years ago, this personthought she was a terrible
person and doesn't talk to heranymore.
So then you just startbelieving it.
That being said, if you go toBlake Lively's Instagram page,
her title has her name.
Founder of Blake Brown Beautyand Betty Buzz and Betty Booze
(32:31):
and if you go to JustinBaldoni's Instagram page is a
link.
If you're experiencing domesticviolence, click on this link.
So I mean, who's being moreheartfelt here?
Yeah, what's Betty Boo's?
What's?
Cesar (32:45):
that it's like mixers, then I definitely believe.
Blake Lively and the other guysells domestic violence things.
Rob (32:53):
He sells it.
Yeah, he sells it.
Cesar (33:02):
He's like hey, you ever experienced domestic?
Rob (33:03):
violence.
Do you want to do?
You want to do, you want tomake a?
movie as we've seen whether inpolitics, hollywood or social
media smear campaigns have alasting impact.
So next time you hear ashocking story or rumor, take a
moment to question Where's itcoming from?
Is it true?
Is it part of a largernarrative?
It's up to us not just to beconsumers of information, but to
(33:26):
critically think.
We want to thank you forlistening, but we need your help
.
If you enjoyed this episode, Iwant you to find that share
button and send this podcast toa friend, a loved one or maybe
just someone you want to breakthe ice with.
And while you're by that sharebutton, hit follow to stay
updated on new episodes.
Until next time, stay curious,peace.
Cesar (33:51):
And if you hear anything about us, it's all true and it's
all false.
Chris (33:56):
XOXO Gossip Girl.
All right you guys ready.
So you probably heard about therumored feud between Blake
Lively and Justin Baldoni.
Chris (00:07):
Hey Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here.
Rob (00:10):
Tabloid drama, cryptic Instagram posts and whispers of
tension on set.
It's the stuff of Hollywoodlegend, right?
Victor (00:16):
I heard more about the drama than the movie itself.
Yeah, that's kind of how itgoes.
I think the drama would havemade a better movie.
Rob (00:24):
Is it really a feud or something more going on?
It's not just celebrities.
Smear campaigns have beenaround forever, from political
takedowns to royal scandals, butin today's digital age, they've
evolved into something morepowerful and maybe more sinister
.
Today, we're digging into Blakeand Justin's saga and using it
to explore how smear campaignshave shifted over time.
(00:45):
Are they tools of destructionor have they become a sneaky way
to generate buzz?
You might rethink the nextcelebrity scandal you scroll on
Instagram.
Cesar (00:54):
Welcome to the I'm Not Dumb but Podcast, where we won't
claim to have the answers tolife's deepest questions but
we'll give you an excitingjourney into the realms of
knowledge you never knew you'deither.
Might be mainstream, but notcommon knowledge.
From artificial intelligence toconspiracy theories, no topic
is too taboo for us to explore.
Let's get curious together.
Rob (01:14):
I'm Rob, your host for today, joined by the man who's
still convinced he can bulk andcut at the same time Cesar Yup
and I can do it.
Our boy, whose New Year'sresolution is to color
coordinate his dating apps,victor.
Victor (01:28):
How y'all doing.
Gotta, keep it organized.
Rob (01:30):
And a true success story from the INDB intern turned head
of marketing, Chris.
Chris (01:36):
What's up?
Wait, I got promoted to amarketer.
Victor (01:39):
That's why no one knows anything about this podcast.
Cesar (01:44):
Chris, we got Instagram.
Victor (01:48):
I knows anything about this podcast, chris, we got
instagram.
I don't know what do we do.
All right, so what is thissmear campaign?
Let me just take a shot in thedark in this.
A smear campaign is a maneuveryou do at a after you go to the
bathroom.
You take and you smear it allover the bathroom as revenge is.
Cesar (02:03):
That is that is that before or after?
You put the poop inside the bag, you light it up and then you
knock on the door.
Victor (02:10):
That's a different one.
That's a different one.
That's called door dash.
Rob (02:16):
I think my uncle does that he's an idiot.
So, according to the OxfordDictionary, a smear campaign is
a plan to discredit a publicfigure by making false or
dubious accusations.
It's a calculated effort toruin someone's reputation, often
with harmful and misleadinginformation.
The ultimate goal of the smearcampaign is basically you want
(02:38):
to isolate the person you'retargeting.
This is a way of stripping awaytheir support.
So, whether it's financial,social or emotional, when you
take away someone's resources,they're left vulnerable.
Victor (02:48):
It sounds kind of cruel.
Rob (02:50):
It's not nice, it's not nice.
It's politics, baby it ispolitics and it is used in
politics.
Victor (02:56):
Yeah, so when do they get into each other's bathroom?
That's after.
That's after.
There's a video on it,disgusting, so that's after.
Rob (03:01):
Okay, that's after there's a video on it if you Disgusting?
So let's break it down.
How does a smear campaignusually start?
So the person launching thesmear campaign is often felt
wronged or mistreated by thetarget.
So they'll position themselvesas a victim, which is key to
starting the attack.
So once they feel they're beingtreated unfairly, they might
resort to a smear campaign in away to punish or get revenge on
(03:23):
another person.
Victor (03:24):
So Caesar's trying to start a smear campaign on me?
Rob (03:29):
Yeah, he felt wronged by you some way, and now he wants
to get revenge.
Victor (03:36):
He wants to get revenge, so he's going to start by going
hey, listen, I have beenattacked by this guy viciously
for the past three months.
Rob (03:43):
But one of the most important things to understand
about smear campaigns is theythrive on speed, so the goal is
to get ahead of the story.
So the first person who spreadsthe rumors or the accusations
usually is the person who getsthe upper hand.
So if Caesar wants to go aheadand start one, he's got to get
ahead of you as soon as he feelswrong.
Chris (04:00):
But when you start the campaign it's not always true,
right?
Rob (04:05):
Well, so the whole point of a smear campaigns is to accuse
a person about like facts thatcould be true, because you don't
want to outright lie.
Cesar (04:13):
That would be defamation you're kind of embellishing the
truth, right, oh?
Okay kind of stretching it toits.
You know technically, uh, not alie so the first thing is speed
.
Victor (04:23):
So speed as in, like you , so you want to be the first in
the room, so like if you letone rip in a crowd full of
people, you want to be the firstguy to go.
What's that smell?
Rob (04:33):
right, right, do you have a dog?
Yeah, yeah do you?
Chris (04:38):
smell.
Yeah, what is that?
Victor (04:41):
yeah, you gotta pretend that that it wasn't you.
Is there a gas leak?
Oh my God, what is that Exactly?
He smelt it, dealt it.
Rob (04:50):
So what you want to target?
The first thing you want totarget smear campaigns are often
they target people who areeasier to persuade, so they're
called soft targets.
So the smear will first goafter their own base, people who
already support them or sharetheir worldwide view.
This creates a community of thefollowers who can now amplify
the story and they can start toslowly pull people away from the
(05:12):
TARC, because the whole idea isto isolate that person.
Now here's where Chris wassaying make outright lies.
The whole idea is plausibleaccusations.
These are not necessarilyoutrageous, but they could
highlight the target'sweaknesses, so something that
makes the accusation soundbelievable to outsiders.
So if you say something, you'relike oh yeah, jim was kind of
(05:33):
acting weird.
That's the whole idea.
You want to just kind of takethe confidence away from this
person.
Victor (05:37):
Could that just be something as simple as insults
or like?
Would it be full on like sexualharassment?
This guy was saying veryinappropriate things.
To me, as long as it'sbelievable.
Rob (05:48):
So it's about sharing bits of truths, but you're taking
them out of context, sodistorting what was said or done
to make it seem much worse thanit already is.
So this idea of what they callpoisoning the well man, that
just sounds horrible.
I think Chris thinks he'staking a master class in smear
yeah, I think he's like he'slike fucking marketing,
(06:11):
marketing.
All right, I'll show theseassholes we'll see what you say
in the next intro, rob I hatecursive and I hate all of you
and then this would getamplified through gossip.
so you're telling your softtargets, so you tell a story to
different people, always addingnew details and painting the
target in a bad light.
This creates a ripple effect,with people whispering rumors in
(06:34):
different circles and havingtheir own spin on it.
So one of the big things withsmear campaigns, though, is you
really can't have a paper trailbecause you need it to be
hearsay.
You need it to be hearsaybecause, if you start writing
things down now.
You can get in trouble for that.
So a big part of smearcampaigns is that is not usually
in writing.
Victor (06:53):
Yeah, but how do you set that up with, like your PR team
?
If you're a politician and youhave a campaign like, how do you
just go?
I need, like my team, to comeup with a smear campaign.
You guys can't write it down.
Rob (07:05):
Create rumors, create rumors, create threads, create
ideas, put it out there.
Cesar (07:10):
You could probably go into one of these Reddits or any
of these chats and use a burneraccount and just start saying
random stuff.
Victor (07:17):
Hey, I heard this guy really fucking sucks.
Cesar (07:20):
I work at so-and-so's office and I heard this that,
that, that that you have all theinformation and you're like yo,
this guy's.
Rob (07:26):
Yeah, and then usually, since things are not written
down, if someone is confronted,they can just avoid the
situation or gaslight, you right, they can deny involvement.
They can act like the person washey, you're overreacting.
I never said that, like I nevertold that to anybody.
Who did you hear this from?
Oh, told that to anybody.
Who would you hear this from?
(07:46):
Oh, so-and-so Well, it wasn'tme.
You know what I mean.
And the smear campaign won't bedirect.
So instead they'll use subtletactics like passive-aggressive
posts or comments, and once theyhave a base of supporters, then
they can start escalating,because now the narrative has
changed about this one person.
Put it out there, people startto believe it and then now, if
you were to up the ante, morepeople are going to start to
(08:06):
believe You're going to be likeoh yeah, I heard that from all
these other people saying thesame thing.
The ultimate goal here for asmear campaign now that we're
talking about the anatomy of asmear campaign you want to
destabilize the other person, soyou start to make others
question about their character,their motives and maybe even
their sanity.
So let's look at some examples.
(08:27):
We'll take a story of one ofthe historical story of smear
campaigns.
One was Marie Antoinette BitchOkay, the queen of France in the
late 1700s.
Victor (08:38):
That bitch, let them eat cake.
How dare you.
How dare you?
Rob (08:44):
So she became a target of one of the most infamous smear
campaigns in history.
At a time when the monarchy wasalready facing massive
financial struggles, marie waspainted as the epitome of excess
and irresponsibility, soespecially with the infamous
phrase let them eat cake, whichshe supposedly said in response
to the poor starving due to herbread shortage.
(09:05):
The problem she never actuallysaid it.
What?
Yeah, it was a piece ofpropaganda to show how out of
touch she was with reality overthe people she ruled.
She never actually said it.
Victor (09:15):
Let's go live now to the press conference.
I may have said somethingearlier in this podcast about
Marie Antoinette.
I just want to apologize to herfamily.
Rob (09:29):
I was going off of false information.
Victor (09:31):
I was lied to.
I was lied to.
Rob (09:33):
Hundreds of years later.
Chris (09:34):
you were lied to Hundreds of years later.
Victor (09:36):
I am sorry.
Chris (09:37):
Such nonsense, I would never say that.
Rob (09:39):
Her every move was scrutinized and twisted.
She was blamed for France'sfinancial crisis and accused of
being promiscuous and even tohave led relationships with
high-profile men.
All of this was used to frameher as a symbol of everything
that is wrong with the monarchy.
Well, by the time the FrenchRevolution kicked into full gear
, marie Antoinette's reputationhad been so thoroughly tarnished
(10:02):
by this smear campaign that itplayed part in her downfall and
public opinion had turnedagainst her.
The smear campaign didn't justharm her, because eventually she
was executed, but it helpedfuel the entire French
Revolution Night jumps queen.
They actually have a lot ofwritten evidence that she was
(10:23):
really worried about the poorand was actually trying to find
ways to help the situation, andthen they just wrote her up as
saying let them eat cake.
So here's another example Oneof the most infamous
presidential races in US historyin 1828, the US presidential
election between Andrew Jacksonand John Quincy Adams.
I remember that yeah, it wasn'ttoo long ago.
Cesar (10:46):
Yeah.
Rob (10:46):
So the race between Andrew Jackson and the incumbent, john
Quincy Adams, was one of thedirtiest in American history.
Jackson, a war hero, waspainted as violent and
uneducated brute.
His opponents spread rumorsthat his wife, rachel, was a
bigamist because her divorcefrom her first husband wasn't
fully finalized before marryingJackson.
(11:07):
The scandal deeply affectedRachel, who was publicly
humiliated and reportedlydevastated by the attacks.
Jackson's supporters didn'thold back either.
They accused Adams of being acorrupt elitist and even claimed
he procured a young woman for aRussian czar while serving as a
US ambassador.
Well, how did this end?
Despite the vicious campaign,jackson won the presidency.
(11:29):
However, just weeks after hisvictory, rachel Jackson's wife
passed away, which Jacksonblamed on stress and emotional
toll of the smear campaign.
Victor (11:40):
Wow, damn.
Rob (11:41):
Yeah, pretty bad.
Victor (11:43):
You don't go after a man's wife.
No, unless you're Ted Cruz,then his wife is fair game.
Chris (11:49):
You can just say the worst shit.
He just rolled over and died onthat one Just rolled over Oof,
oof.
Rob (11:54):
Everybody's always blaming me for everything, so let's fast
forward to today.
The rumored feud between BlakeLively and Justin Baldoni on the
set of it Ends With Us.
You guys see it.
Chris (12:06):
I heard the movie sucked what.
Rob (12:11):
What do you mean?
It's all over the internet.
Cesar (12:14):
I've seen screenshots with captions like oh, someone's
getting sued, but I don't knowanything of it.
Victor (12:21):
It Ends With Us has a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes.
It's not bad.
I remember when it was comingout she had to enlist the help
of Ryan Reynolds to startpromoting it for her.
Really, they were doing itaround the same time as Deadpool
and Wolverine and then all of asudden he's popping up on her
(12:41):
press junkets pushing theirmovie.
Cesar (12:44):
He's a marketing genius, yeah he really is.
Chris, can you get him on thephone?
Rob (12:49):
He sold me mint mobile, the biggest sack of shit wireless
he sold me mint mobile kids 15dollars a month me to the moon
and back.
That's a great deal so much likemarie antwren at smear campaign
.
What we're seeing today couldbe a mix of exaggerations,
distortions and and mediamanipulation.
(13:11):
But the real question is couldthis entire scandal be
strategically planted smearcampaign?
So let's dig into the details.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldonico-starred in the film.
It Ends With Us, a movie basedon a romance novel dealing with
some heavy topics like emotionaland physical abuse in
(13:33):
relationships.
Cesar (13:34):
Yeah, that movie was going to bomb.
Rob (13:35):
Actually, my wife read the book and she loved the book.
She saw the movie and was likethis is horrible and horrible
adaptation.
Victor (13:42):
So she's the one.
Rob (13:44):
Yeah, but here's where it gets even more interesting.
During filming, she claimedthat Justin Baldoni, who was
also the director, and JamieHeath, the lead producer,
repeatedly violated her physicalboundaries and made sexually
inappropriate comments towardher at times improvised unwanted
kissing, and openly discussedhis sex life, including moments
(14:11):
where he mentioned not receivingconsent in past encounters.
As for Jamie Heath, he showedher a video of his wife naked
and then watched her undress inthe trailer when she was
breastfeeding, despite herasking to look away.
So some pretty seriousallegations from Blake Listen
listen, okay, away.
Cesar (14:30):
So some pretty serious allegations from uh blake.
Listen, listen, okay.
Ryan reynolds is a big enoughstar that if any of this
actually happened, I think therewould have been hell in that
set to be honest, but would doyou want to be that woman that
runs to her husband every time?
Chris (14:47):
yes, her there's an issue .
Victor (14:50):
She's an actress.
Cesar (14:51):
She was an actress before him, he's, and he's almost a
billionaire.
Chris (14:55):
So yeah, she's a pretty big deal herself, though.
Cesar (14:58):
At least get taylor swift involved.
She could write a song.
Rob (15:02):
It's funny what you're saying so now.
As you can imagine, the studiodidn't take this lightly.
Wayfarer studios uh.
The production company agreedto bring in an intimacy
coordinator.
Victor (15:14):
What is that?
Chris (15:15):
I still don't know what that is.
What is an intimacy coordinator?
Cesar (15:20):
Don't they choreograph like sex scenes and love scenes?
Victor (15:23):
That's a job Like hey, you want to give him more tongue
?
Rob (15:27):
So an intimacy coordinator is a professional in the film
and television industries whoensures the safety and
well-being of actors duringintimate scenes.
Victor (15:35):
Oh, so they just go.
I feel like they're just thereto convince you to do whatever
dirty shit that the director hassaid.
Rob (15:42):
Based off her allegations, he came up with unwanted kissing
.
Cesar (15:46):
So what's this movie about again?
Rob (15:53):
Domestic abuse.
Yeah, domestic abuse.
Cesar (15:55):
Yeah, so the movie's about domestic abuse and this
guy's doing unwanted sexual.
Rob (16:01):
Allegedly, allegedly Okay.
Cesar (16:04):
I think it's par for the course he doesn't drop character
.
Rob (16:08):
He doesn't drop character, right, he's a method, method man
I don't drop character tillI've done a dvd commentary
justin baldoni fired back,claiming that blake used her
position to take control of thefilm's creative process.
specifically, he alleged thatshe insisted on joining him in
the editing bay during the10-week protected period, which
(16:31):
is typically a private periodwhere the director would work on
the cut of the film withoutinterference.
So he even said Blake, aseasoned pro in the industry,
knew the implications of herrequest.
She asked for more time in theediting bay and, according to
Baldoni, the initial two-dayrequest stretched to 10 days.
And, according to Baldoni, theinitial two-day request
stretched to 10 days.
Worse, she allegedly took overthe editing process, firing the
(16:54):
film's original editor andbringing in her own team,
including an editor who worksfor her husband, ryan Reynolds.
She even added extra music, andsome of them were Taylor Swift
songs, because I guess they'refriends.
Victor (17:07):
She basically tries to take complete control over the
movie and this is according tohim.
Rob (17:12):
Now, this is according to him, it's mine now the tension
didn't stop there.
Baldoni claims this caused arift between the film's crew,
ultimate leading to his removalfrom the project altogether.
Baldoni is quoted, uh, where hesays she's finishing it all.
I can't be involved music,sound, vf, vfx, everything I'll
make it through somehow.
I just need to feel it all.
So she pretty much took overthe entire movie after making
(17:37):
some allegations.
Victor (17:38):
It seems like.
Is there any proof on eitherone of these sides that
something weird was going on, oris it just?
Rob (17:44):
he says, she said when she sued him for a smear campaign,
there was a new york timesarticle which he sued after the
article came out where theysubpoenaed baldoni's uh text
messages with him and and his prteam and everything, yeah, and
a lot of this.
They've come out to light andnow all the text messages are
out.
So if you read the new yorktimes article, it's very blake,
(18:07):
lively side, pro, yeah, okay, hedidn't like that.
So now he sued the new yorktimes for basically taking.
If you read the New York Timesarticle, it's very Blake,
lively-sided yeah, okay, hedidn't like that.
So now he sued the New YorkTimes for basically taking
everything out of context, whichwhen you read it, it does not
sound good for him.
But it does leave out all of theother things that she did,
allegedly in response to theaccusations of Blake Lively made
against Justin Baldoni.
Both Baldoni and Heath, whopositioned themselves as strong
(18:30):
advocates for the Me Toomovement, feared Blake's story
would be a serious blow to theirreputations.
So, instead of addressing theaccusations head on, baldoni,
heath and their studio, wayfair,which is backed by billionaire
mogul Steve Sorowitz, decided tohire a PR firm to run a smear
campaign against Blake, but notjust any PR firm.
(18:51):
They hired Melissa Nathan Holyshit.
Founder of the Agency Group orTAG PR.
Nathan is known for handlingcrisis management for some of
Hollywood's biggest names, likeJohnny Depp, drake and the
Chainsmokers.
Victor (19:06):
So you can hire a PR team to fire back at another
celebrity.
Yeah, I need some fucking money.
You need money, bro.
You need money.
Rob (19:17):
This is like what they work on.
They call it crisis management.
Victor (19:21):
Hi Melissa, I'm going to give you a name.
I want that person gone.
Listen to this.
I was at a district meeting.
Cesar (19:28):
They were building a building right.
The owners of the buildinghired a PR firm to talk to the
tenants and to talk to theneighboring residents, because
the building had asbestos, hadeverything wrong that you could
think of.
So instead of going in andtelling the people what's wrong,
they hired a PR firm to do alltheir bidding and say, nope,
(19:49):
everything is good, everythingwas good, everything comes to
code.
So if a building can do it, allthese celebrities can do it too
Well.
Victor (19:56):
the people who own the building did it Well.
The building itself did notmake any.
Cesar (20:00):
You never know, bro.
You never know these days.
I can identify as a building.
Rob (20:05):
That was a great area in the story and I'm glad you
clicked that up.
Cesar (20:08):
I can identify as a building.
Rob (20:12):
And her firm.
They specialize in creatingreputation-shifting strategies,
especially for clients lookingto control the narrative, and
that New York Times article, oneof the text messages that were
out of context, she is quoted tosaying you know, we can bury
anyone.
Victor (20:29):
Oh my.
Rob (20:29):
God.
Victor (20:30):
That's the kind of that's who you want on your team
.
Rob (20:32):
That's really yeah, that's the professionalism I want.
And these campaigns, they'renot cheap.
It's reported that Wayfarer'smerit campaign against Blake
Lively was well-funded,allegedly with $100 million of
Sorowitz money behind it, andthe Baldoni camp pitched a
$175,000 four-month battle planto start threads and theories on
(20:56):
platforms like Reddit andTikToks to steer the narrative
in their favor.
Victor (21:01):
Dude, that's crazy.
I feel like I could do thatright.
How hard is that?
Just tell people hey, put abunch of Reddit threads, call
this person a son of a bitch, goon Twitter, start tweeting how
racist they are.
Rob (21:12):
That's pretty much what they were doing.
So these tactics, which arestraight out of the modern day,
played book for digital smearcampaigns, involving creating
fake social media threads,manipulating fan engagement and
fueling negativity around thetarget, in this case, blake
Lively.
His PR firm hires this guycalled Jed Wallace and he's a PR
(21:33):
crisis manager and is describedas a Ray Donovan type fixer.
Victor (21:38):
Oh, so someone's getting beaten up, and this is Blake's
team.
Rob (21:42):
No, no, no Baldoni's team.
So Melissa Nathan hired,subcontracted out this guy to
basically go in there and do alot of stuff.
Cesar (21:51):
When I was reading.
Rob (21:52):
There was another article and they were saying that this
guy, jed Wallace, is like if youneed a helicopter in, like the
sub-Sahara, this is the guy whoknows how to find it.
Oh my God.
Chris (22:02):
I wish I had one of those guys.
Victor (22:04):
Wow, I need one of those guys.
Rob (22:06):
No, social media online.
If you look them up, it's likeeven Melissa Nathan.
If you try to find what shelooks like, it's hard to find
anything about her.
Victor (22:18):
I mean, if she's in crisis management, she can hide
herself.
Yeah, it's like to hire her.
They're like go to this bar atsix o'clock, sit at this chair,
someone will approach you.
Chris (22:26):
Order the wontons are you waiting for someone?
Rob (22:32):
so he's known for handling delicate situations for powerful
people.
His firm, uh street relations,allegedly led the charge in
creating viral social mediathreads to shift the narrative
away from Baldoni's allegedmisdeeds and toward a more
negative portrayal of Blake.
How old is this beef?
Oh, this is in August.
All this stuff happened.
(22:53):
You know how all this came outTikTokers online when they were,
um, like doing their pressjunkets and everything.
They were never together.
And then someone went on theirsocial media and saw that
halfway through the movie orafter the movie had, uh, wrapped
up and they were editing.
Ryan reynolds unfriended justinbaldoni and then so did she.
(23:15):
They unfollowed them.
I'm not your friend so theywere like wait a minute they not
together and all of a suddenthey're unfriended.
And then this got picked up bymajor news outlets and then blew
up.
And then that's how all thisstuff started coming out.
Oh, it was like crazy.
So now, with all this talk ofstrategy, money and PR pr
manipulation, it raises aninteresting question could this
(23:38):
entire feud and smear campaignbe a carefully orchestrated
marketing move?
Chris (23:43):
if so, it did a terrible job, because this movie still
sucks yeah, I could say that,but I feel like they could spend
the money on something else,like better marketing than
trying to destroy each other.
But the movie's up movies suck.
Cesar (23:57):
Yeah, I think there's more clever ways to do it, but
you got people talking.
Rob (24:00):
Right.
Cesar (24:00):
Not me because I don't know anything of it, but the
people are talking.
Rob (24:03):
Yeah, I was trying to understand how big these
marketing budgets were.
For major box office likeRobert Downey Jr and Iron man
type stuff, it's $100 to $200million in marketing.
So that's what it takes to makesome of those movies, right,
right and hollywood.
The line between real lifeconflict and promotional tactics
it gets blurred.
Think about it smear campaignsin some cases can be a way to
(24:26):
generate buzz for a film.
This isn't the first time we'veseen anything like this either.
In the early days of celebritytabloids, stories about rivalry,
rivalries or on-set tensionwere often used to promote
movies and TV shows.
Chris (24:39):
I read somewhere about the movie the Wicked, the.
What I wonder?
The Wicked the Weekend?
The Wicked?
Victor (24:45):
Wicked, wicked, it's not .
Rob (24:48):
The.
Victor (24:48):
Wicked, I think it's just Wicked.
It's just Wicked With ArianaGrande.
Rob (24:52):
Yeah, pre-blackcent or post-Blackcent, why don't you
mind your?
Cesar (24:56):
own business, you old fuck.
Chris (24:58):
During their promoting the movie where she got paid
like 10 times more than anyother co-stars, and then that
kind of generated a little buzzabout like yeah, like they're
saying like she got paid, like,say-.
Victor (25:10):
She's Ariana Grande and who's the other woman?
So I think Ariana.
Rob (25:13):
Grande, she was getting paid more, but she worked with
the other actress to, I think,erin agrande.
Chris (25:15):
She was getting paid more but she worked with the other
actress to make sure that theygot paid the same amount I think
they took that out of contextand they said that she got this
much and everyone's got thatmuch, and it generated like a
whole buzz about like how isthat fair?
How is that that?
Rob (25:31):
and then they I think they got it fixed for her, which was
pretty nice for ariana to do'sactually pretty nice.
And let's just look at somecarefully crafted PR stunts that
were used to generate sales.
So you guys remember the 50Cent versus Kanye West?
No Me either.
Chris (25:48):
Me either when?
Rob (25:51):
I was going through these lists of like.
I've never even heard of thesefeuds, but apparently these were
feuds to generate sales.
In the end, they were just.
I've never even heard of thesefeuds, but apparently these were
feuds to generate sales.
In the end, they were just.
I don't even know if they'rereal.
So 50 Cent and Kanye West'squote unquote feud was nothing
more than a publicity stunt and,according to Nicki Swift, these
rappers released albums Yeezy'sGraduation and 50 Curtis on the
(26:15):
same day in 2007.
Cesar (26:17):
I do remember, I do remember?
Victor (26:18):
I do remember, yeah, but was that his big one?
Chris (26:21):
No, that was Get.
Victor (26:21):
Richard.
Rob (26:22):
I Try Him.
That's the only one I know ofhim.
Victor (26:24):
In that case, yeah, because Graduation clearly a
better fucking album than Curtis.
Rob (26:30):
Yeah, but 50 taught me, go ahead and switch your style up,
because if they hate, then letthem hate and watch your money
pile up.
I mean, that's all I reallyknow.
Your style up, because if theyhate, then let them hate and get
your watch your money pile up.
Cesar (26:40):
I mean, that's all I really know.
Preach it ain't no joke.
I remember that feud actuallynow and what happened?
Rob (26:45):
was it like a big thing?
Cesar (26:47):
nothing kanye.
His sales were even like triple50s yeah, it didn't work for 50
.
Rob (26:52):
And another one taylor swift and kat Katy Perry, their
supposed feud.
These pop stars began overbackup dancers and spiraled into
public shade, throwing withhits like Bad Blood and Swish
Swish, fueling the narrative.
Years later they reconciled,but many fans suspected that the
drama was completely for albumsales and media attention.
Victor (27:15):
Well, to be fair, so she does the pop version of diss
tracks.
Cesar (27:21):
Who has she dissed?
All her ex-boyfriends.
Victor (27:23):
The entire ex-boyfriends .
Rob (27:28):
But that's just.
I think that's just her ventingthe entire offensive line.
Well, some of them like towrite really long emails, oh,
really.
So smear campaigns have evolvedsignificantly with the rise of
the digital age, but why do theywork so well today?
So when we talked about theanatomy of a smear campaign,
speed.
Speed is a big factor, but intoday's digital age, speed is so
much easier.
(27:48):
So in Marie Antoinette's stageand history and politics, a lot
of these things had to come outwith pamphlets and hearsay and
inner circles, and that wouldtake months to spread rumors,
right.
But now a post, a tweet, it cango viral in minutes before the
truth even has a chance to comeout.
So on the flip side, there havebeen attempts to discredit
(28:09):
movements, itself proving howeasy it is to actually weaponize
social media for personal gain.
Now we have cancel culture andall these things that people are
scared about, because anythingcan happen and the speed of it.
Cesar (28:21):
You just won't be able to catch up I can't wait for uh
people to cancel us, becausethat would be we got big enough
for people to care I'm kind of abig deal so what do you call it
?
Chris (28:33):
this opposite of samira campaign, when you're trying to
hype something up?
Is there a word for that?
Cesar (28:38):
yeah, you're a hype man supreme promotion.
You're just promoting,promoting to try to fight back
smear campaigns.
Would you want to lean into thesmear?
Rob (28:48):
no, so I was reading about how to.
I would you want to get aheadof it and you want to tell your
truths.
But some people who ignore itare seen as like uh, deflecting,
and sometimes it looks bad.
But then some people who comeout immediately about it, it
also looks bad, so it's likewhat do you do in these
(29:09):
situations?
Cesar (29:10):
you, hire your fixer.
Rob (29:12):
Yeah, you hire your own pr team to fight it jay-z right
with the whole Diddy thing.
Cesar (29:17):
The lawsuit came out the next day.
He came out with his ownstatement saying that this is
completely false.
Chris (29:23):
This is this, this and this?
Cesar (29:25):
People could say, oh yeah , you see, these allegations are
false.
But on the other side, peoplecan also say, yeah, it was too
quick and I believe everything.
The other person is sayingBecause you're a guilty by
association.
Victor (29:36):
Bro people specifically to this.
Beyonce did a halftime show orsomething.
Cesar (29:42):
Yeah, it was a good one.
I saw it.
Victor (29:44):
And she looked beautiful and her daughter danced with
her.
Chris (29:47):
Yeah.
Victor (29:48):
And everyone on the comments were shitting on her
and her daughter about Jay-Z.
Cesar (29:54):
You can't win these days.
You can't win, you can't win,so I would lean into it.
Look at these people.
Victor (29:59):
How dare they show their faces with being friends with
diddy, all this other shit?
I'm like, I'm like, can't youjust be happy?
Cesar (30:05):
the same people who've been buying albums for years for
the jay-z stuff.
Chris (30:09):
It sounds like you kind of died off or just people the
news moves so fast, bro, thatlike he's got a lot of money to
stifle.
I think the key is the money.
Rob (30:18):
No money, no problems yeah, so if you, you know, it really
depends on who's richer.
So what are your final thoughtsabout all this stuff now, chris
?
Chris (30:26):
honestly, I don't know.
I think it's still I'm in themiddle.
I think it could be real, butalso could be the uh publicity
stunt.
First of all, I didn't knowsmear campaign was a thing, I
thought it was.
I didn't know there was a namefor it.
So, um, that was interesting.
But with that concept, I feellike nowadays, like you said, we
can use that for anything tohype it up, something right, or
(30:48):
give false information to um, togain, like you said, to gain on
like some stocks or coins, isall part of that tactic, right
technically, in just indifferent ways.
But, um, that said, I don'tknow what to.
I don't even know what tobelieve.
It's this.
I'll definitely follow up theseare what your thoughts smear
campaigns happen all the timeabout.
Cesar (31:10):
It's a tool to they use to actually get votes.
In terms of this particularsituation between blake lively
and this guy, I think thingswere said and things were done
that it leads me to believe thatit's more than just get votes.
In terms of this particularsituation between blake lively
and this guy, I think thingswere said and things were done
that it leads me to believe thatit's more than just for the
movie.
But if it was, if it turns outto be true, well then, good for
them.
Kudos to them because it made alot of money.
Um, and in terms of like, uh,social media now being used as a
(31:32):
tool for like, there's badactors and this is another tool
that they use to weaponizethings.
So, to be honest, things aregoing to get worse, I think.
I think, because we're soinundated with a whole bunch of
things, that the only way to getpeople's attention is to go
extreme.
Victor (31:48):
Victor it's hard to like stop your initial reaction to
just react instantly to what yousee because, like you're on the
internet for so long, you startreading oh, this guy was being
an asshole, this woman was beinga bitch.
Like the algorithms justcompound that.
When I was seeing all thisnegative stuff come out, like
lively, it was just like oh,even her co-stars at gossip girl
(32:10):
think she's a bitch.
Like just like random shit fromlike.
Oh, 30 years ago, this personthought she was a terrible
person and doesn't talk to heranymore.
So then you just startbelieving it.
That being said, if you go toBlake Lively's Instagram page,
her title has her name.
Founder of Blake Brown Beautyand Betty Buzz and Betty Booze
(32:31):
and if you go to JustinBaldoni's Instagram page is a
link.
If you're experiencing domesticviolence, click on this link.
So I mean, who's being moreheartfelt here?
Yeah, what's Betty Boo's?
What's?
Cesar (32:45):
that it's like mixers, then I definitely believe.
Blake Lively and the other guysells domestic violence things.
Rob (32:53):
He sells it.
Yeah, he sells it.
Cesar (33:02):
He's like hey, you ever experienced domestic?
Rob (33:03):
violence.
Do you want to do?
You want to do, you want tomake a?
movie as we've seen whether inpolitics, hollywood or social
media smear campaigns have alasting impact.
So next time you hear ashocking story or rumor, take a
moment to question Where's itcoming from?
Is it true?
Is it part of a largernarrative?
It's up to us not just to beconsumers of information, but to
(33:26):
critically think.
We want to thank you forlistening, but we need your help
.
If you enjoyed this episode, Iwant you to find that share
button and send this podcast toa friend, a loved one or maybe
just someone you want to breakthe ice with.
And while you're by that sharebutton, hit follow to stay
updated on new episodes.
Until next time, stay curious,peace.
Cesar (33:51):
And if you hear anything about us, it's all true and it's
all false.
Chris (33:56):
XOXO Gossip Girl.
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