On the show today, we need to introduce you to the ultimate comfort TV show that just might fix your life.
And the situation between It Ends With Us co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni has escalated to an extreme level. Both sides have revealed more scathing complaints about each other and just this week more people have been drawn into the lawsuits.
Now Justin Baldoni’s team is planning to sue Blake Lively ‘into oblivion’, claiming they have some very damaging information about her. And she’s not the only famous name they are going after.
THE END BITS
Listen:
One Lie You'll Hear About Meghan Markle This Week & The New Sean 'Diddy' Combs Allegations
Hugh Jackman’s Staged Photos & Why All Your Favourite Celebrity Couples Just Broke Up
The Blake Lively Smear Campaign Unpacked
Read:
Blake Lively's sexual harassment claims are no less valid just because you don't like her.
The high-profile Ryan Reynolds joke that Justin Baldoni thinks is about him.
Leaked audio and bullying claims: The mess that continues to follow Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
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CREDITS
Hosts: Laura Brodnik & Em Vernem
Executive Producer: Kimberley Braddish
Audio Producer: Scott Stronach
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
So much.
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and borders that this podcast is recorded on.
From Mama Mia. Welcome to The Spill, your daily pop culture fix. I'm m Burnham and I'm Laura Brodney and on the show today. So much has happened when we were doing our Hot Pod summer series with Blake Lively and Justin Balderoni. Do not worry. We are breaking down everything for you as well as some brand new allegations that have just come out.
But first, but first, because we're going to have a very intense, I think podcasts with all of these different allegations and lawsuits and men who have done potentially bad things, I thought i'd start us off on a little cozy note. So this is a TV PSA that is very very important. Obviously, each week on the Spill we talk about new releases with we can watch, and we do have brilli honest reviews where we're critiquing like brand new TV shows and that have come out. But I think it's also important to highlight when very important TV shows, especially TV shows with multiple seasons, drop onto streaming services and people can watch them for the first time.
Ah, I do love that. Oh, you know when you like a kind of nostalgic for a TV show and then you open up your Netflix account and then it's like the first thing that you see. Yes, I love that.
There are some TV shows that, if they're not easily accessible on a streamer, can be very difficult to watch. And just before Christmas, I got a little personal gift from Netflix when they dropped all six seasons of Parenthood, one of my favorite shows of all time, on the streaming platform because I forgot to post to socials all of holidays, like I just forgot Instagram existed when we came back. I love to take like a little photo or like a video of my TV when I'm watching stuff to share to people what I'm watching, because that's like not a screen, that's what I'm choosing to watch in my own time. That's very important. It can look a little bit disturbing because I've got a lot of flowers around my TV and I always have like ten candles lit at all times, So if you look past that, you can Yeah, I know, if you look past that, you can see what I'm watching. And I put up two Instagram stories about Parenthood finally being on Netflix. You could watch it before on some like like TV streaming platforms, but I just find that really hard because first of all, not a lot of people have those streaming services, and there's so many ads in there. It can be really disjointed because the ads weren't where they were when the show was on network.
TV, and it was hard to watch as well.
Yeah, it would lose my place. So now that's on Netflix, it's like Christmas is just continuing because I'm watching one of my favorite shows. So I put those Instagram stories up. It's the point of that. And all of a sudden, I was just inundated with messages from spillers saying that it was their favorite show too, and they couldn't believe it was on Netflix and they've started watching it again. All messages from people saying, oh, I have never watched the show before. I actually didn't even know what existed, and now I'm watching it and I love it. So I'm in now group chats about fifteen different people. Sorry everyone, I haven't got back to, but there's a lot of you that I'm talking to separately, and everyone's at different parts of the show. So I'm like, oh, wait, I'm going to say this this person because she's on season two, but this other person's on season three. Anyway, that's my personal So if you haven't watched parenthoods, then I thought I should tell all the spillers because there's a little subgroup of us on Instagram now who were like all watching the show together.
You should make one of those broadcast channels and just say Parenthood Chat.
Oh that sounds hard. Everything about what you just said, Okay, But for anyone who hasn't watched you you haven't watched it.
I have watched it.
You have watched it.
I love that feet I watched it because my mom watched it. Your mom and I have the same TV. I should just send her all the recommendations you send me.
Yeah, me and Evelyn out here shaping pop culture.
She'd love that. She loved Parenthood and I'd watch it when she was watching it. But I think a lot of the reason why so many people missed it was because it was I remember it being at a very awkward time, and it was like kind of combating another TV show that was on at the same time, and I can't remember what it was on TV that everyone else would like.
Well, it came out in twenty ten, I should say it was on Austraine TV maybe all the way through. I remember, like get I used to go get the DVDs from the video shop, like after it had gone off air. But it's basically just a really sweet family drama, very wholesome, but just like very comforting and lovely to watch. But it's I think it's the cast that makes it so good. So it's about these parents living in Berkeley, like in San Francisco, played by Bonnie Badillia and Craig t Nelson, and they've got four adult kids. Peter Krause plays the oldest son, and then Lauren Graham. It's the first big TV show that she did after Gilmore Girls, and she's so good in it. It's Dak Shepherd's big acting role. It's so weird to see him now because we know him so well from I forgot.
He was in there.
And he's like the younger like, yeah, he's like the kind of loose rocker brother who finds out he has a son. And Julia, the younger sister, played by Erica Christensen. So there's four adult siblings and it's just about their families and their kids and their relationships, and it's just really lovely, comforting watch, Like the cast is so incredible, and I think for so much many people they just say it is their favorite show because is this really comforting thing to watch. And some family dramas like Brothers and Sisters, maybe that's the show you're thinking about, came out around the same time. That's it in like, you know, that same kind of group of years, and I think a lot of people maybe liked that better because that was a bit more salacious and a lot of people in that family are like quite famous and in terms of like the characters are very famous, and I love Brothers and Sisters too, but I find that Parenthood is the, I guess more like low key relatable version of that.
Especially the depiction of siblings and their relationship. I felt like it was very realistic.
Yeah, exactly. So it really kicks off with Lauren Graham's character, Sarah Braveman, who's a single mom. She's got two kids, they've got no money, they moved back in with her parents, and I don't know, that just made me think of like when my mum moved was a single mom and moved like our siblings back to be with our family and kind of like it's like a very realistic thing without being dramatic. And I don't know, I cry all the time. It's in Parenthood especially. There's a scene in the first episode where Lauren Grahames's character is talking to her son and she says like, I'm really sorry you deserve a dad but you don't have one. But I'm here and I'm not leaving, and I'm just gonna have to be enough. And I think if you were raised by single mom, like lines like that just hit so hard.
It's so good.
So it's on Netflix the six seasons, just nice little like it's a brutal world out there for a little comfort watch.
It is.
So just before Christmas, I was in my parents' house, not just vibing, enjoying a little cocktail, and then my phone just started blowing up.
I know where It's like, where were you when it happened? I remem too. I was in an arcade with my nephew because it was his sixth birthday, and we were doing those car racing games and I had just lost and I looked up at that and I looked down on my phone and saw the news and I was like, this is just a take. I was checking your phone while I'm driving, I know, but huge worldwide headlines everywhere.
It was absolutely insane. All I saw was like, immediately everyone just sharing this link to an art. It was a New York Times article and it was going through the defamation that was made against Blake Lively from Justin Baldoni, like pretty much a smear campaign, or Blake Lively and smear campaign. Like the word smear campaign is something that I've always seen on social media that we talk about, but it's never something that I feel like I hear from the celebrity mouth, Like it's always something that media just makes up. And this just felt so real and it immediately made me think of the Johnny Depp amber Herd case and I clicked into it. I read the whole thing and my mouth was on the floor. Like some of the stuff in that I'm sure everyone's already read it, but from everything from quote to text messages to outlining every little detail of what happened to her, it was just so packed with information. And then from that New York Times article, I feel like everything just spiraled into something much bigger.
Yes, absolutely, because that was only the start of the situation. So Blake Lively filed the complaint on December twenty and then obviously she and her team had been working with The New York Times for a long time before that to get them all this information and have it all one place, and so that came out on the twenty first, and then it just really kicked off from there. Justin Baldoni, like the response around him was very swift in terms of his Talent agency parting ways with him. There was a rumor going around that Brian Reynolds had called them directly. They said no, he had another podcast. The host of that left, So it was like very kind of swift that everyone was jumping on Blake Lively's side over this. And then Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer, who is his production company, responded to the complaint first. So Brian Friedman, who's the attorney for Justin Baldoni, came out and basically he called Blake Lively a liar and said that she had made all these false accusations against Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, and it represented because there was a lot of people named in there, not justin Baldoni. I think people really sent it on that because he's been so the public face kind of against Blake Lively in the whole Items with Us situation. But there's a lot of people named that, and a lot of people who work for him or around him.
Especially the text messages, right, Yeah, Like I feel like when I read the text messages you could even see the text that he was sending was still quite carefully worded, yeah, versus the people he was talking to where were just like loose with whatever.
Yeah. Absolutely, And then his legal team said that it was a desperate attempt from Blake Lively, like this whole situation to fix her own negative reputation, which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film. What I think is interesting about this is that everyone quickly jumped on to this like we were wrong about Blake Lively, or we were all o her this big apology or this and that, and I think kind of just like watching an unfold, that wasn't exactly the correct situation because I think the public discussion around her, I mean, obviously, as we talked at the time, there was the really negative people being like she's evil, she's this, she's that, and that's like a separate thing. But I think a lot of the critique at the time was around the way she handled herself in interviews and the way she was like launching brands around it and all that sort of thing, And I think that's completely separate. Like it can be true that she marketed the film in a bit of a selfish way and that it's justified that people can be upset with her about this, but this is different. No one knew this level of the stuff she's allegations around, like sexual misconduct and all those kind of things and unsafe working situation comments that are made. That is like so separate to oppress to her where she was engaging with the public. Like I just think people have they go to extremes. They can't hold two different thoughts in their heads.
Yeah, And I feel like the same thing is happening with Justin as well, Like now everyone's turned in support of Blake Lively and it's like turning it except for like a lot of people on TikTok oh.
Yeah, But I mean it's hard to know because it just depends which part of two talk you get. On like you can be in one place with it, just like justice for Bake Lively. She's the greatest person in the world, and other people be like she's an evil mastermind and and she wasn't, oh you know, the wildless thing that she was in love with Justin. He rebuffed her and this is why she's doing it. And I was like, wow, this is why you just can't be on TikTok too much.
But people love reading in between the lines, and I feel like that behavior hasn't changed, even though it's from a different person. So instead of just focusing on like the absolutely awful allegations and focusing on the case and the New York Times piece, people are like similar to what we did with Blake Lively, like going into like her previous interviews and dissecting that and saying that she was awful to all these interviews. Everyone's doing now the same to Justin, Like are bringing up like the vows he had with his wife on like on his wedding, and it's just like it just like makes everything really messy and everyone forgets that this is actually going to be a lawsuit, Like people are going to be in court and.
Have to deal with this, Yeah, exactly, And I think the kind of interesting thing from that about your saying about how people are viewing these two different people the intersection of this that kind of does bring them together in terms of how much people of their own corps just started disliking Blake Lively during the press tour and Justin Baldoni's team, like the allegations if you look at the text messages and things of how they knew they'd be able to do that, And that's something we were saying at the time of like, there's nothing people love more than hating a rich, successful, conventionally beautiful woman. So I think that's where it becomes interesting that he and his team, if the lawsuit is to be believed, and obviously that's like all still in the works if it's to be believed, there's certain things they were able to do or some things they planned to do, but then they didn't even have to do them because the public just just took these small things and ran with it.
Yeah, And the text messages in particular are the ones that are so interesting on how it started with Ryan Reynolds blocking Justin Baldoni on Instagram and from that very moment, which no one picked up on. Yeah, Justin Baldoni was like, we need assault this before it becomes a thing.
Yeah, absolutely, and how that sort of set his plan in motion. I mean, some of the allegations that are in Blake Lively's lawsuit are so horrific. And that's the thing too, where I find uncomfortable with people being like, well, is she a good person or a bad person? I'm like, oh, we can't, like in terms of like is she nice to people, do people like her? All that sort of stuff, And I'm like, Oh, it just shouldn't even matter, Like she could be I don't know. I've never met Blake Lively, so I have no idea, but she could be a very unlikable person and still doesn't mean she can get assaulted or be uncomfortable at work, you know. I feel like that's a I think even if she was a terrible person, if it happened behind the scenes, she should be supported and protecting the same way. Like, I think it's a very dangerous route to go down of like who deserves protection if they're nice to journalists and fans and stuff. But some of the allegations about him coming into her trailer while she was breastfeeding, which is interesting because then his team released something where she was saying, I'm pumping, but you can come in, and then people are saying, like, well, inviting someone into your trailer when you're pumping as opposed to actually breastfeeding a baby are two very different things. Like this is how kind of granule it's got. There's an allegation that Justin Baldoni brought one of his friends in to play the obstetrician in one of some of the medical scenes, and so she's like lying on a table with a sheet over her because you know she's a woman who's about to give birth and having someone who's his friend and seat of a trained actor there. There's allegations about intimacy coordinators around her who said they could have them all this sort of stuff. Yeah, around like those comments. Even there's allegations because what she's saying in the complaint and the lawsuit is that they had a big meeting to sort all of this out and he agreed to all these terms, and one of them was that Justin Baldoni said that he was communicating with Blake Lively's dead father. Oh my god, yes, I forgot about that, And there was like apparently there was an agreement made where he promised that he would like stop saying certain things to her and her staff, and some of them were a bit explicit sexual things, and some of it was him like saying that he was conversing with her.
Talking about and talking about like his addiction to porn that he used to have. Yeah, had stuff, but like obviously alligator but very specific allegations.
Yes, absolutely, Na. So there's so many other moving parts this story. One is that Justin Baldoni's former publicist, Stephanie Jones, who was the owner of the publicity firm he was with and her agency, Jones Works, is suing Justin Baldoni and his company and his current publicist because of how her company has been embroiled in all of this. So what do you mean, Because she's saying that they conspired for months to attack her and her company and had secretly coordinated behind her back like Justin Baldoni had with his own company. I mean, this is a very kind of grassroots way of saying it. She is suing him, her former client, for like allegedly sort of embroiling her in this smear campaign against Blake Lively.
Got it. Yeah, Blake Lively is suing him, and then she's suing him as well.
And then yes, and then the owner of his former publicity agency is suing him. That's the whole thing about the phones being taken. And now also Justin Baldoni and much a lot of different people who were named in the New York Times story are now suing the New York Times.
Oh my god.
I mean there's a lot of information there, but again just on a very surface level, we'll be here for six hours suing them for they're saying, like you know, some of it's been misconstrued. They're saying they cherry picked different messages without showing full text change that would change the story. The New York Times has come out, and so they absolutely stand by their story and they'll fight the lawsuits. So that's all happening. So that's a lot of this. Yeah, And also you just think that with the New York Times, it would have just been so meticulously I mean, any outlet that puts out a big story like this, you get lawyers involved, they fact check everything.
And they would have known they would have been sued and they.
Have so much Oh yeah, and I'm sure they had like sort of been like, we have all the evidence to back all this up, but that's going to be a very long situation. So yeah, just to just so everyone knows where their players are. So Blake Lively put the complaint against Justin and his company and his associates and then is suing him. Then Justin's former publicity agency is suing him, and then Justin is suing The New York Times, who is defending themselves. So that's where everyone's at.
But Juan's not countersuing Blake. No, but.
Not yet, but he is going to. And the reason we know that is because his lawyer has come out and given a really big interview talking about the lawsuit, talking about the case, and then goes on to say exactly what they plan to do with Blake Lively.
Are you going to sue Blake Lively too into oblivion? Megan, Wait till you see this lawsuit. It's all going to be based on evidence. It's not going to be just a lawsuit. It's going to be the kind of lawsuit that is full of evidence, admissions, documents which prove exactly what she did and how she bullied her way through the process to take over the movie and used her PR people to try and destroy Justin. There's a number of different defendants here. Stephanie Jones will be all over this complaint. That is the PR agent was supposed to be working for Justin Baldoni. Leslie Sloane's another PR agent will be part of this lawsuit. That was Blake Lively's. Blake Lively will be sued and we're carefully considering other people that will be sued also. Ryan Reynolds for.
Sure, into that's the first time M've heard that interview. So that was Justin Baldoni's lawyer, Brian Freeman talking to Meg and Kelly Mick and Kelly's all loving this, of course, the look on your face end.
Was and Ryan Reynolds for sure, Oh.
My gosh, I think there's so much how danty block Justin Well, I mean, this is where even more allegations have come out, and they're on a very personal level between Blake and Ryan and Justin in particular. So one of the allegations that's come out from Justin's team is that Blake and he said Blake and Ryan invited him over for dinner and he thought he was going to their new York penthouse for a celebration, and he says when he got there, it was almost like an intervention, And he's alleging that Ryan Reynolds screened at him, made him really upset, confronted him, and he was like really shaken after that, and the power and balance was really off. And there's a lot of times where Justin Baldoni names Ryan Reynolds and like the different parts of his complaint.
Oh my god. But the actual So when do we think it's going to be filed the lawsuits?
Well, I mean that interview has been a couple of days a couple of days old now, but I say they're getting all the like puzzle pieces together to do it. What's interesting is that they've started releasing a few different text exchanges where they say that's where the whole breastfeeding thing came out, where they're saying like, oh, look, no, no, if you look at this text message she says, come to my trailer and stuff like that. So it's getting really messy, and there's a lot of allegations around Blake Lively coming in and like as he's saying, like taking over all that sort of thing, which we did know to an extent, because remember when the movie was happening, it came out that Justin Baldoni and his team had done a cut and Blake Lively had recut it with the help of Ryan Reynolds and her own editors and had made a different version of the movie. And that's the one that came out.
Yeah, and then at the same time, we were seeing the press store happening, where Justin was going doing press on his own, yes, and Blake Lovely and the entire cast were owned completely separate.
Yeah exactly.
We didn't even see him at like the premiere.
Yeah exactly. And that's something else he's saying. So some audio has been lenked, and he's been talking about the fact that he was pushed aside, he was upset, all that sort of thing. Again, I think it's just there's so many different levels of things happening here. I think it's just important not to equate Blake Lively potentially taking over the movie, which again maybe she did, maybe she did push her cut through, but doesn't Yeah, it doesn't cancel out all the other stuff she's saying. It's like they're two very different conversations. You got the power players in Hollywood which was the initial conversation we were having back when the movie was out and the press was happening around like who has the power, who's overstepping each other, who's bringing in different people, all that sort of stuff, which I feel like it does obviously feed into the situation, but I feel like that's very different to her feeling like he touched her and appropriately, because also some of her allegations are that he wouldn't like practice kiss So nowadays in Hollywood, if you have an intimacy coordinator, it's very choreographed, like you'll kiss me here at this time, then you'll put your hand here, and everyone consents to every step, whereas the Blake Lively allegations against Justin Baldoni is that he would just go rogue, touch her anywhere, kiss her in way she was uncomfortable with, like to touch her body in different ways, And I just think that's such a separate thing to like what their production teams were fighting over, Like it's a much more serious situation.
Could have been one of the most beautiful nights of my life career wise. I literally was sent to the basement with all my friends and family for over an hour. I wasn't allowed to be seen. She didn't want me anywhere near her or the rest of the cast. They start laughing because of the ridiculousness of this whole thing, and I realized, like on a night that was supposed to be so materialistically joyful, I was in the basement with the people that I loved the most, and we were all joyful and laughing because none of that shit matters. We're in this business because we're artists and we believe in what we do, and I believe that will follow each of us, and that truth will prevail and that late and love will win.
That audio is that like something that he was like spoke into like a phone, like.
A voice note that he sent to people on his team. So he's like doing a voice note from the event.
Oh and that got leaked and don't know who leaked it.
No, but I don't think his team's really covering up that they leaked it, because it's meant to sort of paint him in, you know, a victim line and saying that this powerful woman in her team pushed my family and my loved ones side down to a basement, literally a basement. I don't know how many theaters have basements, but apparently this one did, and they're waiting down there and like tucked away, and he's talking about how much the filmmaking matters to him more So, it's all very you know, it's all very kind of set up for that moment. So I guess a few things to take away on this, and one of them is like Justin and his team and his lawyers must think that they have a lot of stuff on Blake and Ryan in particular to be able to go after them to this extent, because suing them and suing the New York Times are two almost very different things. Like for the New York Times, they're trying to prove that what they they haven't told the full story. For the lawsuit against Blake and Ryan, they're trying to prove that they did a lot of nefarious things behind the scenes and that they acted inappropriately. And they must think that they have enough to cancel out the horrific things Blake has said. Like I found that very hard to believe.
It feels like both sides feel like they have enough. Yeah, and I'm very confused, but I feel like this is from all, like especially all the stuff that's getting leaked like text messages, audio. I think it's going to be really messy.
Yeah, and I just think I don't know, Like listening to that voice note, I was like, I don't know if that was the right move to leak that. I don't think it was because it makes you think, I mean it got again. Depends which side of the story you're leaning into. But for me, it makes me think, but why were you pushed away? Why would no one else with the cast company you? Why have they all supported Blake? Why have like to me that doesn't paint you in a good light of saying like I've been separated from the cast and crew and none of them will look at me like I understand. Maybe there's you know, he's so far being like pushed down the public opinion and people, so many people are so on Blake's side. Now maybe he feels that this will get a bit of sympathy out there. But it's a very messy situation. But yeah, I'll be very interested to see what type of a lawsuit they do file against Blake and Ryan, because they've dropped a few things, but they keep eluding well not even looting. They're saying, we have all this stuff on them, so very messy, and I think it's going to continue on for many months.
Thank you so much for listening to the Spill today. We unpacked so many things that happened over the break. We also unpacked everything that happened over the break in relation to the Sean Combs cases. We did that yesterday, so if you haven't listened to that episode, just go back and give it a listen. We'll also link it in our show notes. The Spill is produced by Kimblely Bradish with sound production by Scott Stronik and we'll be back here in your podcast feed at three pm tomorrow.
Bye bye,