The Baldoni/Lively Case Is Still Going And Getting Much, Much Sillier
from the so-much-drama dept
We talked about the celebrity fight du jour between actors Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively when it started, as it seemed for all the world like your typical Streisand Effect story. What began as a workplace harassment complaint of sorts, with Lively initially alleging several instances of inappropriate workplace behavior by Baldoni, has now exploded into a Hollywood court case with competing lawsuits from both parties. While I tend to shy away from the idea of parties purposefully employing the Streisand Effect for wanted attention, as opposed to inadvertently generating unwanted visibility, that sure looks like this is a case of the former. Baldoni and his legal team have taken every step possible to make every bit of this as public as possible, while Lively has done the opposite.
Now, I want to make clear that I don’t really have much of a take as to the merits of the case on either side. I just don’t know enough to have an opinion on the legal drama itself. That is what trials are for, after all.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some silliness to talk about as an update here. And when it comes to the status of the trial and what’s happening within it, there are several things going on.
First, like the New York Times before him, Ryan Reynolds has been attempting to exit this whole thing. Lively’s husband was sued alongside his wife for defamation and for interfering in Baldoni’s business relationships. Unfortunately, it appears that Baldoni’s suit may not have met some pretty basic threshholds for making such claims.
“The entirety of Mr. Baldoni’s case appears to be based on Mr. Reynolds allegedly privately calling Mr. Baldoni a ‘predator,’ but here is the problem, that is not defamation unless they can show that Mr. Reynolds did not believe that statement to be true,” Reynolds’ attorneys Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson told Us in a statement. “The complaint doesn’t allege that, and just the opposite, the allegations in the complaint suggest that Mr. Reynolds genuinely believes Mr. Baldoni is a predator.”
The statement continued: “Mr. Reynolds’ wife has accused Mr. Baldoni — privately and in multiple complaints — of sexual harassment and retaliation, and as pointed out by Mr. Reynolds’ motion, Mr. Baldoni has also openly spoken about his past of mistreating women and pushing the boundaries of consent. Mr. Reynolds has a First Amendment right to express his opinion of Mr. Baldoni, which should be comforting to a group of people who have repeatedly called Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds ‘bullies’ and other names over the past year.”
This is the “actual malice” requirement for defamation at work. Baldoni’s lawyers would need to prove not that Reynolds made the statements they claim he made about Baldoni, but rather that he made them knowing they were false in order to prove defamation. And that is notoriously difficult to prove. Save any smoking gun evidence of Reynolds openly admitting he was spreading lies, it’s very unlikely the defamation claims are going anywhere.
And, to that effect, Reynolds’ lawyers are going after legal fees as a result.
“Earlier today we moved for sanctions against the lawyers and parties responsible for the utterly frivolous claims brought against Ryan Reynolds,” Reynolds’ legal team said in a statement to Us Weekly on Tuesday, May 20. “Justin Baldoni’s lawyer and his clients filed a preposterous lawsuit falsely claiming that Ryan Reynolds extorted people he had never met, that he allegedly interfered with business relationships that do not exist, and somehow defamed people he never said a word about based on unspecified statements that do not appear anywhere in their 391-paragraph complaint. These are not serious claims—they are a desperate ploy for clickbait headlines that have no place in federal court.”
“Mr. Reynolds provided the Rule 11 Plaintiffs and their counsel an opportunity to save face, explaining these claims’ glaring and fundamental defects and urging that they be withdrawn more than 21 days ago,” the docs read. “Unfortunately, the Rule 11 Plaintiffs and their counsel unequivocally refused to do so, offering no response on these defects except to argue that these issues are appropriately resolved by motion to dismiss and may later be supported by discovery. But these claims’ fundamental failings are not about the parties’ dispute as to the legal arguments relating to their claims, or the facts, or even that all of their claims are weak and meritless (which, they are).”
If Baldoni’s real aim in all of this was to make all of this as public and publicity-driven as possible, well, it all kind of tracks from there.
And that’s further backed up by some truly absurd claims that Baldoni’s legal team have made about how to conduct Lively’s deposition. One lawyer said, I suppose perhaps in jest, that Lively’s deposition should be an event the public can attend or see for a fee.
“Since Ms. Lively is open to testifying, let’s make it count,” Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman tells PEOPLE. “Hold the deposition at MSG, sell tickets or stream it, and donate every dollar to organizations helping victims of domestic abuse.”
Here again we see the legal team from one side behaving in a serious way, while the other is not. Whatever the truth of their competing claims against the other, it is certainly not a good look for one side coming off as professional and the other, well, not.
And, frankly, recent news about how Baldoni is stressed over the public legal drama seems quite odd coming from the person who made this very, very public in a way it hadn’t been previously. As entertaining as this all might be, there must certainly be a better way this all could have been handled than whatever this fiasco has turned into.
Filed Under: actual malice, blake lively, defamation, justin baldoni, ryan reynolds, slapp
Companies: ny times
Comments on “The Baldoni/Lively Case Is Still Going And Getting Much, Much Sillier”
Lawyer's Fees
Reynold’s lawyers are going for Legal Fees?
Ryan Reynold’s war chest is multitudes larger than Baldoni’s. Fold that hand please, counselor.
As for the Hollywood nature of the proceedings, well, it is Hollywood. There’s no such thing as bad publicity.
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Why does the size of ryan’s war chest matter to the question of whether Mr baldoni wasted the time of the court annd whether that rose to the level of incurring rule 11 sanctions?
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Nah, screw that noise. Reynold’s being wealthier than a scumbag doesn’t mean that scumbag should get to cost Reynolds and Lively money for having to fight a legal battle due to said scumbag’s unethical actions.
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I have no problem with higher taxation rates for wealthy individuals, but bullshit lawsuits are themselves mostly a tool of wealthy individuals and thus unsuitable for percolating wealth in a socially conducive manner.
Re: Details Matter
Couple of points on the question of respective size of “legal war chests”. First, financial backing should always be irrelevant in a legal dispute. You don’t EVER want to be in legal dispute in a jurisdiction where the party with the most money wins. That’s not how justice works.
Second, bear in mind that Steve Sarowitz, the billionaire behind “Paylocity”, bankrolls Baldoni’s production company. This isn’t of course to say that Sarowitz would feel obliged to step in and contribute to Baldoni’s legal fees [especially given that his lawyers are acting like a bunch of jerks], but if Sarowitz felt that his business was going to be damaged, that might change. Fortunately Blake Lively’s legal counsel appear to be taking this seriously, so Sarowitz is likely out of the blast radius.
That’s not that unusual when a man accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault, or domestic abuse goes after a woman who has accused him of wrongdoing. They know they’ll fare better dragging an accuser through the court of public opinion than in a court of law where facts are at least relevant.
Now a major motion picture, they dream.
Taking bets Baldoni wants to “make a movie” of the whole thing.
Starring Lake Blively, Ramen Rindles and a “wacky” cast of ‘fun’ lawyers.
if he even TRIES this, he should be sued into bankruptcy. He’s a pervert, a sexual predator, a potential future-rapist etc. and shouldn’t be able to profit.
TBH ALL his fees from the last movie WITH Blace Lively should be part of his fine and donated to charities.
I hear Baldoni is pitching a script around.
“Holes – Keep Digging”
They’re talking to Streisand about the soundtrack..
Seems like Baldoni thinks that the common definition of defamation (pretty close to “they said bad things about me”) applies, not the legal definition (approximately “they said bad things about me that they knew were untrue when they said them” in this situation).
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Even the common definition of defamation includes that the bad things that were said were lies.
Saying bad things about someone that are true is just disparagement..
And outside of some kind of NDA, that’s generally not actionable
fairly open and shut
Suing someone for calling you a predator is not likely to go well if you have openly spoken about your past of mistreating women and pushing the boundaries of consent. Rather, it falls directly into the old ``truth is a defense” rule.
Public figure status, assuming always that Mr. Baldoni is a public figure, does not really matter here. If you have admitted facts supporting the conclusion that you are a predator, you can be a recluse and still lose the case.
Yes, maybe Rule 11 or state law equivalent. But perhaps the local anti-SLAPP statute, or the local offer-of-judgment statute can help as well.
Some Federal courts do not apply state anti-SLAPP, offer-of-judgment, or frivolity statutes. Therefore your milage may vary. And it is up to the plaintiff to explain why his quintessentially state-law defamation claim would not be in state court anyway.
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Right?
“I did predatory things.”
“You’re a predator.”
“I’m gonna sue u.”
“MSG” …hmmm, that is where they hold the circus when it’s in town, right? Seems appropriate.
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What? They hold the circus at monosodium glutamate? 😲
Y’know, I feel like we should call such an intentional attempt to use the Streisand Effect something… How about the Baldoni Gambit?
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“I am digging up. Up into the sky. I am certain of this, I cannot fail. Ahhahahaha!”
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Baldoni took it public to defend against SH allegations to prove them false
Did you want Baldoni to let his reputation and career be destroyed waiting a year for court and wait to show all of the receipts proving Lively is outright lying in order to try and get ownership of the rights to the film franchise via a morality clause? Every allegation she made in the legal documents that are public record have been proven false because there happened to be cameras rolling and microphones on so there is no ambiguity of what happened or what was said or the context of it. She gives edited texts, Baldoni posts full, in-context texts. She gives a version of a summary of a voice message, he posts the full voice message. It is why she has had the allegations amended 10 different ways when he posts more proof that she is fabricating everything. She amended her allegations to try and blame Baldoni for her having a bad PR reputation, but she is an a-hole in interviews and has been trying to sell her and Reynolds’ brand and products not the film or the issues dealt with in it. Basically, she’s trying to rewrite the narrative to say she is a victim and she clearly is not. Lively and Reynolds thought Baldoni would cave like the Deadpool director or producer did for Reynolds, and Baldoni did not so they tried other tactics to try and steal the rights from him. Are they tied to the Wayfair owner’s threats to his life and family, too? Could be. Lively and Reynolds have operatives working for them so they might be doing a no holds barred attack on the sense of safety of those in crucial areas of support for Baldoni. All because they won’t make their own movies, they have to steal them in order to feel anything positive about it. They have to know someone else wanted it enough to do the real work to get it to production then screw the people that did the work out of it so they can brand it to sell their products. Meanwhile Lively improvised scenes grabbing some guys balls in another simple favor and for some reason she is getting away with it. She bragged about it in podcasts with the director laughing that he thought it was a great improv, that unplanned molestation of a coworker. Baldoni is fighting for survival–Lively and Reynolds for attention and control of the narrative and trying to get rights to the move series. Freedman saying that about Lively streaming her testimony had to do with her pretending to be a champion for victimized women. Like, if you mean it, make it matter all this nonsense she is saying and doing that is clearly BS. Prove she really gets it and suffered the same and show them what strength is if that happened to her. Meanwhile Reynolds is cracking jokes about it all on SNL. She wasn’t supporting victims when supposed to be promoting the movie since she just tried to sell her hair care products and booze products, which she threatened to not promote the movie if she didn’t get her way. Oh and then brought people in to let her film her version of the movie though I don’t know how that got approved. People that have all the money and freedom to create what they want and they still have to beat up the person they see as having less power and try to steal from him. I hope Lively and Reynolds lose everything they tried to gain through these tactics and lose even more. Even Swift has backed away from Lively, and why would her dad make up a story like that if there wasn’t some validity to it? Baldoni’s team got the info they needed and probably an open line of communication in order to not get the phone records which portions would become public as a part of the legal case if it changed any of the information needed to support the filing or any new direction in it. They don’t have to reveal the deal they made. I’m thinking what they have is going to come out in the public record later whether it is testimony against Lively’s character from Swift who used her all of this time or from actual communication relevant to the case and Lively’s intentions in taking over the film. Lively was saying Swift was involved in choosing actors and supporting rewrites of the script and Baldoni saw her there and felt pressured to accept Lively’s rewrite so she was involved even if she pretended to not understand how manipulative her name dropping former friend was being or if she just didn’t take it seriously enough because she was busy living her own best life touring and being with her partner. I am 100% on Baldoni’s side. He just was not firm in telling her no and backing it up by replacing her or penalizing her for holding up production when didn’t get her way or spent too much money on wardrobe overbudget That was his error. I’m thinking it’s going to change how contracts are written especially for high risk actors like her that tend to create problems or try to take control more like a prenup or adding fines or nonpayment for certain behavior that interferes with production and promotion of films and other creative content. She always seemed fake to me. I have seen exactly one film she has been in and that was because Harrison Ford was in it. She’s making a mockery of the me, too movement and the public isn’t buying it. Reynolds is pretty much the same. It is more than just being a dutiful husband supporting something that she said happened at work. He was trying to brand the movie for himself as well with her name on it and get involved in advertising his movies trying to link them together along with Jackman in ads they created. They didn’t get money and fame doing those things so I don’t know why they are doing those things now that they don’t need the money or fame. It’s like they are self-sabotaging their success and reputation and it still isn’t clear what they actually want that they don’t have. Her SH allegations were proven false. Her PR allegations people that have done interviews are like, “Nope, she’s a butt hole.” and reposting old stuff whether someone reminded them about it or not. No one is posting interviews where she was likeable and genuine seeming. She can afford to get those interviews out there but there are none over the years. She just can’t accept she isn’t likeable and it is coming out the more she insists on keeping with those allegations. I think Baldoni was intimidated not attracted to her and she tried to capitalize on his belief that she had to be the actor for that part as a known name, but really they could have probably got someone just as good and spun the crap about her to promote a person that didn’t have so many alternative agendas going into it. Anyhow, I am not a fan of anyone involved necessarily but the principle of people using wealth and power to beat up those that are there for the love of the craft just because they can and to use any means that they can pay for to do it. It’s terrible. Social media helps equalize what happens in news and magazines by allowing all of the different perspectives and investigations to be put out there.
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I have so many questions.
Do you bill by the hour, the word, or is it a fixed price contract? Is there a bonus structure based on the case outcome? Are you freelance or staff? Do you identify the sites yourself, or are you directed to them by others? Is there an official script, or are you allowed to create your own content, and if so does it need approval.
I’m fascinated by the business of astroturfing legal cases.
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Hey Justin,
Probably best you let the lawyers do the talking.
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Perhaps this is his lawyers talking, using SlopGPT.