Reevaluating Blake Lively: 'It Ends With Us' actress's legal complaint against Justin Baldoni puts misogyny in the spotlight
On Friday, Blake Lively filed a legal complaint against Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director in the film It Ends With Us. The 80-page document alleged that Baldoni, his producing partner Jamey Heath and their Wayfarer Studios hired a public relations firm to orchestrate a smear campaign aimed at destroying Lively's reputation after she made misconduct allegations against them during production. “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted,” Lively said in a statement. Bryan Freedman, representing Baldoni, his company Wayfarer Studios and all its representatives, called the allegations in Lively's complaint “categorically false.”
During the promotion of the film, it was evident that there had been a rift between the stars, with some reports pointing to creative differences between the two. But as the rumor mill churned, videos of past interviews with Lively, including new clips from the press tour, led to backlash against the actress. Lively was depicted as rude and a “mean girl” as well as “out of touch” for seeming to avoid the domestic violence aspect of It Ends With Us.
But the New York Times report, which featured text messages allegedly from the firm Baldoni hired, painted a much different picture than the one many fans saw over the summer. Now the story told about Lively is being reevaluated and the new information highlights how a savvy media strategy can set a particular narrative; one that often portrays women as the villain while giving men the benefit of the doubt.
Here’s what people are saying about the situation and what we can learn about the power of the media when it comes to fueling hate against a public figure.
‘A gendered weapon’
Internet culture writer Taylor Lorenz took to her Substack UserMag to criticize the media for refusing to use the word “misogyny” — the hatred or prejudice against women based on their gender — when discussing the alleged smear campaign against Lively, and the initial vitriol hurled her way. Lorenz called this erasure “part of a pattern,” claiming that “when high profile women challenge power structures, call out abuse or loudly express progressive values, they are met with calculated, well-funded campaigns to discredit and destroy their reputations.” Lorenz likened the alleged coordinated effort against Lively to one that was reportedly used to discredit Amber Heard during ex-husband Johnny Depp’s defamation suit.
Lorenz speculates that there are “no equivalent campaigns against men because men do not suffer misogyny.”
“Misogyny is a gendered weapon, while men in the spotlight may face criticism, it does not devolve into the kind of vitriolic, deeply personal, and sustained attacks designed to humiliate, discredit, and silence women,” Lorenz wrote. “Men are not scrutinized in the same ways that women are. They are not subject to the same avalanche of gendered threats and abuse.”
When we fail to name misogyny as the “central force” of these campaigns, Lorenz opined, “the news media perpetuates the idea that this is just how fame works, rather than how misogyny works.”
‘Misogyny runs deep’
One person not afraid to call the situation misogynistic is lawyer Kelli Jones, who wrote in a post on Instagram that it “runs deep” in this situation. “Everyone was so damn quick to attack the woman and give the man the benefit of the doubt,” Jones claimed. “People are so quick to give men the benefit of the doubt & reserve opinion because ‘they met him once’ or share a ‘friend of a friend who said he's a good guy’ etc. But quick to jump on a woman just because they don't like her & were glad to hear 1 bad thing and join the takedown. Spoiler: that's misogyny. And it comes from women too.”
She added that for all the people finding it hard to believe that Baldoni could be at fault, “ask yourself why you're so hesitant to fully support women without adding a ‘but.’”
She claimed that the same misogynistic system that allowed Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, convicted sexual predators, to thrive, is what also caused Lively’s downfall. “Literally nobody is saying it's all men. But it's enough,” Jones declared. “And that's the problem. And it's systemic, and widespread, and women are the ones today I've seen with the worst takes unfortunately.”
‘Your internalized misogyny is showing’
Influencer Kalen Kelly called some responses to the Lively lawsuit “heinous” in a post on Threads, “Ladies, your internalized misogyny is showing,” she wrote. “Say it with me: WOMEN CAN BE UNLIKEABLE AND NOT DESERVE TO BE SEXUALLY HARRASSED.” She added: “it does not and should not matter whether blake lively is likable or unlikable.”
‘I am so tired of this take’
Rachel Kath also pointed out that Lively’s “likeability” shouldn’t be a factor in whether or not we believe that Baldoni behaved inappropriately towards her, she wrote on Threads. The narrative that “they both suck,” Kath pointed out, just perpetuates the idea that a woman who speaks out must not be a true victim.
She also reminded readers that while the celebrities involved in this case likely won’t see the public’s reactions on social media, “women in your lives who have been abused, harassed, and/or assaulted will.” She added, “the way you react to cases that have evidence, and are in the public eye; says a lot about how you will react to cases that do not have the same amount of evidence or support. Consider this before you share your hot takes.”
‘All sexual behavior must be consensual’
In an article for Inc., Suzanne Lucas, a human resources consultant known on social media as the “Evil HR Lady,” weighed in on Lively’s initial complaints. She wrote specifically about Lively pushing back on Baldoni allegedly kissing her in a way she did not consent to during filming. While Lively may have agreed to participate in sex scenes with Baldoni as her character Lily, Lucas wrote that “she did not, according to the lawsuit, consent to other behaviors.” In the legal complaint, that includes unwanted, improvised kissing and whispering in Lively’s ear.
“Even in industries where sexual behavior is part of the job description, the law still protects individuals’ rights to set and keep boundaries,” Lucas stated. “All sexual behavior must be welcome and consented to by all parties.”
Since workplace boundaries aren’t always “clearly spelled out by contract,” Lucas declared that it’s “best to not even fiddle with whether lewd behavior was wanted or unwanted.” As she put it: “You should not tolerate it in your business.”
‘The only way to end impunity is to speak up’
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, who previously worked with Lively on a 2015 PBS documentary about sex trafficking, spoke about the troubling possibilities of social manipulation.
“Even in an age when wild lies and deepfakes catch fire on social media, it’s a little scary to think that a few P.R. professionals could manage to undercut one of America’s best-known celebrities so successfully, swiftly and effortlessly,” he wrote, noting that if it’s possible to damage a person like Lively, no woman may be safe. “As one of the people hired by Wayfarer put it, ‘People really want to hate on women,’” he wrote.
Kristof applauded Lively's courage, especially given the context of her lawsuit, which alleged at one point that she was made uncomfortable by Heath watching her nude while having body makeup removed. “I suspect that the last thing Lively wants is for us to be discussing people leering at her while she was naked,” Kristof speculated. “This suit prolongs the humiliation. But the only way to end impunity is to speak up.”
‘Read the full lawsuit’
Writer Coco Mocoe annotated Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni on her Substack. Mocoe, who declared herself to be a person who “preaches media literacy,” admitted in her piece that she, like many others, “fell for the storylines that were fed to the public during the release of the It Ends With Us movie earlier this year.”
“I believe multiple things can exist at once,” she wrote. “Someone can be snarky and mean but they can also be the victim of an unfair, hateful campaign against them as punishment for speaking up about an unsafe work environment.”
Mocoe encouraged her readers to review the lawsuit: “If you are someone who does not believe Blake Lively was the victim of a smear campaign, I encourage you to read the full lawsuit and see if your mind changes." she called the evidence against Baldoni and his team “damning.”
‘I don’t think we stand a chance’
In an opinion piece for the Guardian, Laura Snapes, who admitted to regularly slamming Lively’s behavior during the It Ends WIth Us press tour, wrote that her opinion changed after being presented with the actress’s evidence.
Snapes asked how many smear campaigns have “seduced our most base and ungenerous instincts into swallowing their line” while stating the ways in which it appears we have culturally “regressed” from “ostracising figures who act badly to grasping for politically legible ways to take against anyone whose greatest crime might be ‘seeming a bit annoying.’”
“Lively’s complaint has left my head spinning,” Snapes wrote. “What can you really trust? How do we question accepted narratives without descending into tin-hatted conspiracy theory? Why do so many people hate women this much? How much internalised misogyny roils under my own skin every day? I’d like to reach for a cute ending, to say that through assiduous, informed questioning and acute media literacy, cases like Lively’s might, you know, end with us. But the truth is I don’t think we stand a chance.”
‘No one is immune from being manipulated’
Slate writer Heather Schwedel agreed with Snapes about the difficulty untangling the web of lies allegedly created by media machines trying to craft their own narrative beyond the truth. “If this makes you question whether you can believe anything you read on the internet, that’s the right reaction to have,” Schwedel said, calling revisiting the summer coverage of It Ends With Us a “humbling experience” as “a lot of people seemed all too happy to board the hate train and run with the narrative that Lively was a problem.”
“I feel duped too,” she declared. “Here we thought we were sophisticated media consumers, but it turns out no one is immune from being manipulated.”
Schwedel also pointed out that while the less-than-flattering videos that circulated of Lively during the press tour may have made her seem “rude” or “difficult,” we should remember that there is no such thing as a perfect victim — and imperfect victims are “exactly the sort of person everyone is always going on about extending more grace to,” she wrote.
“So what if she was kind of annoying? She was also, allegedly, a victim of sexual harassment and retaliation, and the first thing has no bearing on the second,” Schwedel said of Lively. “She deserves credit, too, for exposing all of this.”
‘Real life consequences’
Glamour writer Stephanie McNeal penned an essay titled “You Fell for an Online Smear Campaign. Now What?” She highlighted the public’s role in allowing the negativity against stars like Lively to thrive online — even if they’re allegedly being pushed for nefarious purposes.
She cited blind gossip items, which are unverified and frequently shared by the public without much thought, for allowing unsubstantiated rumors to run wild. McNeal theorized that, as more and more people lose trust in mainstream publications and as media literacy declines, “many intelligent people accept these stories at face value,” and sometimes wrongfully assume that they are a greater source of behind-the-scenes truth than what established media outlets can provide.
“It’s easy to think that engaging with a blind item on TikTok or sharing an Instagram Reel breaking down apparent drama behind the scenes is a harmless and silly pursuit,” McNeal declared. “But by blindly engaging with these types of unverified and insidious content, there are actual, real life consequences. In the lawsuit, Lively’s lawyers state she has been emotionally devastated by the campaign.”
