Lifestyle
Blake Lively accuses 'It Ends With Us' studio of harassment and smear campaign
This past summer, the press tour for the release of It Ends With Us, a movie that deals with domestic violence, saw public opinion turn against one of its stars, Blake Lively.
But behind the scenes, Lively alleges in a legal complaint published by The New York Times, she faced sexual harassment, repeated violations of her physical boundaries, and a “multi-tiered plan” designed to “destroy” her reputation.
In the undated legal filing, which the Times said was filed Friday to the California Civil Rights Department, she accuses co-star and director Justin Baldoni and his team of attacking her public image after a meeting was held to address “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Baldoni and a lead producer on the movie.
If the California Civil Rights Department accepts the case, it could investigate, potentially resulting in legal action.
An attorney for the studio, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement emailed to NPR that Lively’s allegations are “categorically false” and “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation.”
At the Jan. 4 meeting, attended by Lively, Baldoni, studio CEO and producer Jamey Heath and others, the complaint alleged they discussed “inappropriate conduct” experienced by Lively and other cast and crew. All parties agreed to a list of conduct that would cease which allowed for the movie’s production to resume, lawyers for Lively said in the filing.
The list of agreed-upon demands included, the complaint says: No more showing nude videos of women, including the producer’s wife, to Lively and/or her employees; no more mention of Baldoni’s or Heath’s previous “pornography addiction” to Lively or to other crew members; no more descriptions of their own genitalia to Lively; and “no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex, or on camera climaxing by [Lively] outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project.”
Baldoni’s and Heath’s studio, Wayfarer, also agreed to provide an intimacy coordinator on set at all times, and other safeguards on set, according to the filing. The studio also agreed not to retaliate against Lively, it said.
The complaint includes excerpts from text messages and emails between Baldoni and his representatives that Lively’s lawyers said they obtained through a subpoena.
The movie, adapted from Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel, is based on the relationship of the author’s parents. In it, Lively plays Lily Bloom, a florist who falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni). During their relationship Kincaid turns physically and emotionally abusive.
The complaint says Lively, a producer on the film, was under contract to follow a marketing plan that directed the cast to focus “more on Lily’s strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence,” and to avoid depictions of the film as “sad or heavy … it’s a story of hope,” the complaint says.
During the film’s promotion, Lively drew backlash from fans for her attempts to speak about a story of domestic abuse with a lighthearted tone. Many social media comments, meanwhile, commended Baldoni’s promotional message for viewers to always have hope.
Around that time, the complaint alleges, Baldoni and his team were staging a well-financed plan “in retaliation for Ms. Lively exercising her legally-protected right to speak up about their misconduct on the set, with the additional objective of intimidating her and anyone else from revealing in public what actually occurred.”
The filing says Baldoni hired a crisis communications specialist who allegedly developed a plan to change the narrative on social media in the director’s favor in a way that could not be traced back to the studio’s team. Text exchanges between Baldoni and the Wayfarer PR team allegedly discuss the creation and amplification of misleading stories designed to discredit Lively, according to the actress’ legal team.
“He wants to feel like she can be buried,” wrote Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel in an Aug. 2 message to the crisis management specialist, Melissa Nathan, excerpted in the complaint.
Freedman, the studio’s lawyer, said in the statement to NPR that Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the movie’s marketing campaign, “due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met.
“What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals,” Freedman added.
Chloe Veltman contributed reporting.
Lifestyle
Blake Lively's 'Sisterhood Of the Traveling Pants' Costars Blast Alleged Smear Campaign
Blake Lively is receiving support from some of her oldest costars and friends … America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn and Alexis Bledel have issued a statement amid her “It Ends With Us” lawsuit.
The 3 actresses — all of whom starred in the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” film franchise with Blake in the ’00s and have remained her good friends — issued a joint statement on Instagram … where they made it clear they were standing behind BL amid her legal battle.
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
They wrote … “Throughout the filming of ‘It Ends with Us,’ we saw her summon the courage to ask for a safe workplace for herself and colleagues on set and we are appalled to read the evidence of a premeditated and vindictive effort that ensued to discredit her voice.”
As the women continued, they noted that they were upset to see “the unabashed exploitation of domestic violence survivors’ stories to silence a woman who asked for safety” … and noted that the “hypocrisy was astounding.”
Before they signed off their statement, they praised Blake for speaking out, adding … “We are struck by the reality that even if a woman is as strong, celebrated, and resourced as our friend Blake, she can face forceful retaliation for daring to ask for a safe working environment.”
TMZ broke the story … Blake sued “It Ends With Us” director and costar Justin Baldoni, in which she alleged a smear campaign was conducted against her after she accused him of sexual harassment while filming the drama.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, later slammed the lawsuit … calling it an attempt to “fix her negative reputation.”
He also vehemently denied the claims made against Baldoni, noting they were “false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.”
Lifestyle
Sunday Puzzle: Can you conquer this Christmas carol puzzle?
On-air challenge: Every answer today involves a Christmas carol or a popular Christmas song.
- Rearrange the letters of TINSEL to spell a word. Then rearrange the letters of THING to spell a word. The two words together are the title of a Christmas carol. What is it?
- Take the phrase “He Threw Rings.” Change one letter in each word to get the first three words of a popular Christmas carol.
- The leading newspaper in Nebraska is the Omaha World-Herald. What Christmas carol has “World” in its title? What Christmas carol has “Herald” in its title?
- The refrain of what popular Christmas song consists of only two-letter words?
- Name two colors that come before “Christmas” in Billboard top 40 song titles.
Last week’s challenge: Last week’s challenge came from listener Joseph Young. Change one letter of a place on earth to get a familiar phrase much heard around this time of year. What is it? The answer consists of three words (5,2,5).
Challenge answer: Change one letter of “place on earth” to get “peace on earth!”
Winner: Heather Reed of Eureka Springs, Ark.
This week’s challenge: This week’s challenge comes from Dan Ezekiel, of Ann Arbor, Mich. Think of a two-word brand name for a food item that is marketed as upscale. Remove the last two letters of the first word and the first letter of the second word. Read the result from left to right and you’ll get a one-word brand name associated with the budget-conscious. What is it?
Submit Your Answer
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it here by Thursday, December 26th, 2024 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: include a phone number where we can reach you.
Lifestyle
Commentary: Do we believe in elves? Of course! Otherwise we'd miss out on the magic
We all buy into a suspension of disbelief in certain areas of our lives. We play the lottery (someone’s gonna win), channel what our dogs and cats are thinking (I know this is not just me) and expect our plants to thrive even when we don’t water them (maybe that one’s just me). We are capable of being extraordinarily optimistic.
Of course, if ever there were a season for magical thinking, it’s Christmas. I have a friend who clearly cast a spell on her two cats and got them to pose — glumly but nonetheless — in festive knit hats for a Christmas photo. We believe in Santa Claus, reindeer that fly, and elves on shelves that descend from the North Pole and embed themselves in our homes.
OK, I’m a little late to the party that embraces these elfin figures inspired by a 2005 book: 10 inches or so, of diverse skin colors and genders, all uniformly dressed in sleek red unitards, accessorized with a white collar and red-and-white cone-shaped hats.
They swing from makeshift trapezes and zipline across Christmas trees. They tuck themselves into shoes, sandwiches and other kooky spots. More than 22 million have made their way into homes around the world, and they are quite cosmopolitan. They did a Vogue fashion shoot dressed by Thom Browne and other designers.
They don’t bring gifts. Technically they are Scout Elves, and theoretically their job is to watch over children and report back on naughty or nice behavior. But some parents, wisely, can’t brook a surveillance state in their home and choose to not inform their kids of this bit of the lore. The elves may live to delight children, but (spoiler alert for any young children who read the Los Angeles Times — and thank you for reading!) it is the job of parents to come up with activities for the elves.
The daily surprise is their real purpose: One morning a girl might awaken to see the elf nestled next to her bed; another day a boy might find his household’s elf ensconced in the kitchen in the midst of making pancakes. A few days ago, my friend Tony reported that his daughters awoke to find their elf had turned on the mini Christmas lights and switched hats with a snowman ornament. (Clever dad.)
For all the work that parents do, couldn’t the elves do more for parents? Why can’t they cook dinner or make the beds or drive you to work? If we can have driverless cars, surely we can have elves driving cars. That would be an elf to take off the shelf every single day. But they tend to be more puckish than productive, and that’s part of their charm. It’s a season for fun.
The magic of these elves shouldn’t strain our imaginations too much. The tooth fairy deposits money under a pillow and no one ever sees her — or him or them. We believe in Santa and we never see him, just the half-eaten cookies and gifts he leaves behind. We’ve seen a million pictures of Santa with his puffy cheeks and snowy white beard. Yet no child really cares what he looks like.
I once wrote about the proliferation of Santas at Christmastime — in stores, on the streets. At an event in Culver City, a Black Santa held court listening to children recite their Christmas lists. The adults stood by, pleased at the ecumenical nature of the Santa event and the fact that none of the kids commented on this Santa not matching the pictures in storybooks. Why would they? Who cared as long as he was getting their Christmas lists down?
For years at a Catholic church in the South Bay, the hugely popular early evening Christmas Eve Mass featuring a children’s choir would come to a close after Holy Communion with the priest standing before the congregation. He would start to say a few words only to be interrupted by the sound of jingling bells. The lights would dim, and up the main aisle would come Santa Claus carrying a big red bag. The children would laugh and applaud, parents would take pictures, and Santa would walk over to a Nativity scene on one side of the church, kneel for a moment, and then wave and exit through a side door into the dark evening. There is no Santa Claus in the “greatest story ever told,” but there was one that night in the church. And everyone embraced him.
There can be a very human temptation to pick apart magical beliefs, a tendency that sets in at some point in childhood — or perhaps that marks the end of childhood. But at this time of year, I see inspiration for a different approach. Instead of letting our dreary realism call into question the Santas and the elves, we could hold on to our holiday imaginings and lean into that other very human impulse: the will to believe, against all odds, in better times and a better world year-round.
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