Blake Lively v. Justin Baldoni
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What happened during the film promotion of It Ends With Us?
Back in the summer of 2024, if the movie It Ends With Us was at all on your radar, you probably heard stuff like this.
Why did Blake Lively face backlash?
Many are accusing Blake Lively of using the film's promotional campaign to promote things other than the movie, like her hairline, or a lot of the interviews give off a fun flowery image, and not using the movie to discuss the far more serious topic of domestic violence. Blake Lively, who starred in the film, was busy promoting it. But the promotion was weird. And it made her look pretty bad.
Meanwhile, Blake is getting backlash for this now-viral 2016 interview she did when she was pregnant. First of all, congrats on your little bump. Congrats on your little bump. The reporter who was not pregnant said the experience made her want to quit her job.
All over the internet and the press, people were talking about how frivolous and insensitive Blake Lively was being. Because while Blake was saying sort of off-center things like telling women to gather their girlfriends and wear their florals to go see her new rom-com, Justin Baldoni was out talking about a very different aspect of the film.
How did Justin Baldoni's approach differ from Blake Lively's?
The part that comes after the meet-cute, when the relationship becomes abusive.
Because what is a typical abuser or a typical victim? I think that there is no typical anything. I think that unhealthy relationships are on a spectrum. And this was a really important one. So we partnered with our dear friends at No More. It was the only way that I could direct this movie is if I had a group of women specifically behind me who are specialists in this space. And from the very beginning, we worked very hard to create a very truthful and honest story that could reflect the reality of what millions and millions of people go through every day.
It Ends With Us, this film, made a killing at the box office. But the promotion left people scratching their heads. We don't usually see co-stars so out of sync. So what really happened on set and in promotion of It Ends With Us? And what does it say about the way the Hollywood machine, the media, and public opinion work today? Welcome to Infamous, a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media. I'm Vanessa Gregoriotis. And I'm Natalie Rubinette. This week, we're discussing what's been all the talk in Hollywood this winter, and that is the confrontation between Blake Lively and a man whose name I never knew before, Justin Baldoni. That's right. It's an epic Hollywood story, but it's even more than that. It's all about information in a post-truth world and how everything is up for manipulation, even virality.
Yeah. In the words of a Hollywood chronicler at Puck, he said that this situation unmasked the rat fucking underworld of Hollywood crisis PR like nothing since the Harvey Weinstein exposes. What do you think about that? That might be a little bit of a stretch.
What allegations were made against Justin Baldoni?
Of course, that's a little hyperbolic because the stakes are a little lower here, I would say. And I mean, sexual harassment does factor into this story in a way that we're going to discuss in a second. But, you know, to me, this really just revealed the world of image management and how that functions. Right. And the reason we're talking about this is the movie It Ends With Us, which Blake Lively starred in. Justin Baldoni also starred in and directed. Vanessa, you watched it. Tell me about this film. So Blake Lively, of Gossip Girl fame and other fame, and married to Ryan Reynolds, who is this huge Marvel actor who we're going to definitely be talking about in this episode, stars with Justin Baldoni, man, never heard before, very good-looking man, actor, director. The movie that they're in is called It Ends With Us, and it's a Colleen Hoover book that was very, very popular about, I mean...
It's about a bunch of different things, but basically the idea is that it's an abusive relationship that Blake finds herself in with Justin and And Blake has in her past some traumatic memories of growing up with abuse in her household. So it's really a movie about domestic violence. It's in this weird zone where it feels a little like a romantic comedy.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What happened during the film promotion of It Ends With Us?
0:05–0:13
2
Why did Blake Lively face backlash?
0:13–1:18
3
How did Justin Baldoni's approach differ from Blake Lively's?
1:18–3:20
4
What allegations were made against Justin Baldoni?
3:20–4:42
5
What does Blake Lively's lawsuit claim?
4:42–5:00
6
How did social media influence public perception?
5:00–7:48
7
What role did publicists play in this controversy?
7:48–7:59
8
What is the significance of the box office success?
7:59–40:37
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Infamous
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