Latest news with #March2026
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Taylor Swift officially subpoenaed as a witness in Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni's legal war
Taylor Swift has officially been subpoenaed as a witness in Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's ongoing legal feud. Baldoni's attorney Bryan Freedman subpoenaed the 'Cruel Summer' songstress on Friday to testify in their upcoming trial, which is scheduled for March 2026, sources with direct knowledge told TMZ. A spokesperson for the pop star blasted the subpoena in a statement to Page Six: 'Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, she did not even see 'It Ends With Us' until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history.' 'The connection Taylor had to this film was permitting the use of one song, 'My Tears Ricochet,'' the statement continued. 'Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did, this document subpoena is designed to use Taylor Swift's name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.' Reps for Swift and Baldoni did not immediately respond to Page Six's requests for comment. Baldoni dragged Swift into the legal war in January, when he launched his $400 million countersuit for defamation against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, 48, over their 'It Ends With Us' drama. In the legal docs, he alleged Lively, 37, weaponized her friendship with Swift as an attempt to take control of their 2024 film's production. The 'Jane the Virgin' alum, 41, claimed, in a complaint obtained by Page Six, that one of Lively's 'famous and, famously close' friends praised one of Lively's script rewrites regarding the rooftop scene when he was invited to her and Reynolds' New York City penthouse. Though he did not name the Grammy winner explicitly, he referenced her in a text about that evening. 'I really love what you did. It really does help a lot,' he wrote of the scene in question. 'Makes it so much more fun and interesting. (And I would have felt that way without Ryan or Taylor).' Lively allegedly described Swift and Reynolds as her 'creative barometers' and 'dragons' she was 'lucky' to have in her corner. 'The message could not have been clearer. Baldoni was not just dealing with Lively,' said Baldoni's attorney at the time. 'He was also facing Lively's 'dragons,' two of the most influential and wealthy celebrities in the world, who were not afraid to make things very difficult for him.' The legal mess allegedly caused a strain on Lively's relationship with Swift, 35, who couldn't 'help but feel used' by her friend in the feud, a source told us in February. Lively has since offered her gal pal a 'genuine and heartfelt' apology, another insider claimed last month, and Swift is reportedly 'ready to move forward' without any 'hard feelings.' In addition to Swift, a source told the Daily Mail last month that the couple's other pal Hugh Jackman — who co-starred in Reynolds' 'Deadpool & Wolverine' last year — could also find himself pulled into the legal drama. Lively launched the current war with the director in December 2024 when she sued Baldoni for emotional distress and lost wages. She also claimed Baldoni and his crisis PR manager orchestrated a scheme to 'destroy' her reputation.
Bloomberg
22-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Ralph Lauren Sees Robust Sales Growth Slowing Amid Tariffs
Ralph Lauren Corp. expects sales growth to slow down in the latter part of its fiscal year, a sign that even companies that have reported robust sales momentum are forecasting a hit from tariffs. The apparel company expects revenue to increase at a low-single-digit percentage, excluding the impact of currency changes, in the fiscal year that's expected to end in March 2026. Analysts on average projected about a 4% gain.
Irish Times
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
How Blake Lively became a target over her legal battle with Justin Baldoni: ‘It's a perfect storm of misogyny slop'
Rarely has a film been so unpresciently named as It Ends With Us . This domestic abuse drama was released in August 2024 and was a huge success, earning more than $350 million worldwide. But that was only the beginning. What has followed is an off-screen conflagration that is not only threatening to consume the careers of the film's lead actors, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni , but continues to set social media and the entertainment industry ablaze. We've still got a long way to go before it really ends – a trial is set for March 2026. It's easy to see why this case attracted so much attention initially – everyone loves a good celebrity dust-up – but having begun as just another Hollywood feud destined to be adapted into a prestige miniseries a decade hence, the Lively/Baldoni saga is morphing into something larger and possibly more ominous. For one thing, the case drags the dark arts of celebrity public relations into the spotlight like never before. For another, it has attracted an inordinate amount of attention from rightwing political figures in the US. Combine these two trends and we are seeing a disturbing blurring of lines – between genuine and manufactured 'public opinion', and between celebrity and political discourse. [ Inside the alleged Hollywood smear campaign against Blake Lively: 'We can bury anyone' Opens in new window ] The ins and outs of the saga itself are labyrinthine. In a nutshell, Lively alleges that Baldoni sexually harassed her during the making of It Ends With Us (in the story, Lively falls in love with an abusive man, played by Baldoni). He alleges that Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, tried to take control of the film , which Baldoni also directed and co-produced. In a flurry of suits and countersuits, each side has alleged misconduct, and accused the other of orchestrating a 'smear campaign' against them. READ MORE Many Hollywood figures and organisations have come out in support of Lively, but America's right wing has taken an inordinate interest in the case, and is overwhelmingly siding with Baldoni. Fox News, for example, has run nearly 80 stories on the case on its website this year. Joe Rogan mentioned it on his podcast with comedian Brendan Schaub, accusing Lively and Reynolds of 'trying to take over the movie'. And then there's Candace Owens , who has discussed the case at least 25 times this year on her YouTube show and podcast, eagerly responding to each new development in granular detail. Owens's allegiance is unambiguous: 'She has proven herself not to be a kind person,' she said of Lively in January. 'And that's largely due to the fact that she is a modern feminist.' By focusing on such ostensibly apolitical celebrity content, Owens has boosted her following considerably, appealing to viewers (predominantly female) who may have little interest in rightwing politics, or knowledge of her more extreme beliefs, which range from downplaying the Holocaust, to appearing with Kanye West in a 'White Lives Matter' T-shirt, alleging that Brigitte Macron, wife of French president, Emmanuel, is a man, and calling Volodymyr Zelenskiy a 'welfare queen'. Now we are seeing articles headlined How Candace Owens is Uniting Conservatives and Liberals with her 'It Ends With Us' Coverage – although that appeared in conservative-leaning women's magazine Evie , whose coverage has also been largely anti-Lively. Another rightwing commentator with a newfound interest in the case is Megyn Kelly , the former Fox News presenter. In February, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Kelly made Lively/Baldoni the central topic of her onstage presentation. She described Lively as 'an avatar for leftist overreach', and attempted to tie the case to a broader rightwing grievance narrative: 'You've been gaslit to high heaven every time you've picked up a newspaper in the United States, every time you've turned on CNN ... you have been the victim of overbearing and controlling leftists who think they are the final arbiters of what's best for you and your life.' In the same way the 'manosphere' has used male-oriented sports and fitness content as a gateway into far-right politics, some are seeing this new celebrity focus as a way to draw women down the same path – and calling it 'the womanosphere'. Taking to heart Andrew Breitbart's famous dictum that 'politics is downstream from culture', the right's goal has long been to 'take back the culture', as self-tagged #ConservativeInfluencer Abby Shapiro (sister of rightwing commentator Ben) proclaimed in a 2020 YouTube video titled 'Conservative women, it's our time.' [ Blake Lively accuses director Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment during filming of It Ends With Us Opens in new window ] [ Hollywood power couple Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds hit with $400m law suit by Justin Baldoni Opens in new window ] 'I used to think that that sounded really silly,' says feminist YouTuber Ophie Dokie of Shapiro's message, 'and then fast forward to 2025 and that's who people are listening to about things like Hollywood pop-culture gossip, which I did assume, until very recently, would be a more liberal conversation. It truly is not any more. It does feel very dominated by Conservatives, and intentionally so.' Blake Lively Justin Baldoni in It Ends With credit should read: Photograph: Nicole Rivelli/CTMG, Inc It's not just rightwing figures weighing in against Lively; everyone seems to be at it. Go on X or YouTube or TikTok and you'll be served up an endless stream of videos discussing and analysing the case in forensic detail, overwhelmingly from an anti-Lively point of view. Content creators have been in a feeding frenzy over the case: there are celebrity gossip 'tea channels', body language experts, AI-powered pseudo-journalism – all supported by an army of 'mommy sleuths', laptop detectives whose examination of every nuance of the case often verges on conspiracy theory. Is Lively out for revenge because she was secretly in love with Baldoni? Is Lively's new comms manager, Nick Shapiro, a former CIA agent, using 'black box tricks' to stifle negative stories? Did she burp and fart all the time on the set of Gossip Girl? Content scrutinising Baldoni's behaviour or background in similar detail is much harder to find. All this activity has whipped up a maelstrom of clickbait: content creators, celebrity media and prominent public figures feeding off each other's output, recycling and regurgitating the same low-quality, primarily anti-woman information – all boosted by engagement-targeting social media algorithms. 'It's a perfect storm,' says Dokie. She calls it the 'misogyny slop ecosystem'. As an example, she points to a clip followers of the Lively-Baldoni case will doubtless have seen several times: an interview Lively did while promoting a Woody Allen movie in 2016, in which she was judged to have been rude to Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa. Flaa says, 'Congrats on your little bump,' to Lively, who was pregnant at the time; 'Congrats on your little bump,' Lively replies to Flaa (who is not pregnant). 'The amount of people who have recirculated that clip and who have spoken about that specific interaction, and then they'll make 20, 30 minutes [of content] about it, and their audience will eat it up because they also thought she was really rude in that clip,' says Dokie. 'And it's like, if everybody wasn't recycling that clip, you wouldn't have known about it, because that happened 10 years ago.' Flaa, incidentally, is now selling 'Justice for Justin' T-shirts on her Etsy site. 'Probably misogyny slop has always existed,' Dokie says, citing figures such as Anita Hill or Monica Lewinsky who were vilified in the predigital media age. 'But I feel like around the time of the Depp v Heard trial, there was this real increase in social clout, almost, in making fun of women who are alleging abuse.' All of this feels a long way from Lively's original complaint, which was that Baldoni was abusive towards her. When filming of It Ends With Us resumed after the actors' strikes, in January 2024, Lively only agreed to continue if Baldoni signed a 17-point agreement 'for the physical and emotional safety' of her and her team, according to a legal complaint she filed with the California Civil Rights Department. The conditions include: 'An intimacy co-ordinator must be present at all times when [Lively] is on set'; 'No discussions of personal experiences with sex or nudity, including as it relates to conduct with spouses or others'; 'No spontaneous improvising of any scenes involving physical touching, simulated sex, or nudity.' The filing also complained that Baldoni criticised Lively's weight and body, that he entered her dressingroom without permission while she was breastfeeding, and, that he claimed he could speak to her dead father. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds: Baldoni filed a $400 million lawsuit against the couple. Photograph:Baldoni responded with a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times, which broke the story, denying team Lively's claims and alleging that they had 'cherry-picked and altered communications stripped of necessary context'. The same day, Lively filed a federal lawsuit against team Baldoni, repeating the allegations made in her initial filing. In response to that, in January this year, Baldoni filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, her publicist and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of attempting to take control of the film, and detailing a long list of rebuttals and counterallegations. It's become less a matter of 'he said, she said' than 'he sued, she sued'. We've been here before, and not that long ago. In 2022, the entertainment world was gripped by another 'trial of the century': Johnny Depp v Amber Heard . The similarities are striking: a famous woman alleging abuse; a famous man counterclaiming victim status himself, and online opinion apparently coming down heavily in favour of the man. Hashtags such as #JusticeforJohnnyDepp and #AmberHeardIsAnAbuser dominated social media in advance of the US trial. (Depp initially sued the sun newspaper in the UK for calling him a 'wife beater' and lost; he then sued Heard in the US for defamation, and won.) Data experts later found that much of Depp's social media support was 'inorganic': spread by accounts that were suspiciously co-ordinated, prolific, recently activated and/or single-minded in their focus on Depp/Heard and nothing else. An in-depth investigation by Tortoise media suggested most of the anti-Heard activity was almost certainly manufactured, and pointed fingers at hired troll farms in the Middle East. A similar picture is emerging with Lively-Baldoni, says Zhouhan Chen, founder of social media data analysts Information Tracer . Chen helped investigate the Depp/Heard online activity and he has been looking at Lively-Baldoni. In his analysis of the top 500 tweets on the subject, he found that support is overwhelmingly pro-Baldoni – sharing hashtags like #BlakeLivelyIsALiar and #JusticeForJustinBaldoni – 'by a ratio of 1:150 to 1:300, depending on which metric you use'. Judging by the age of the accounts and the number of times they have posted, 'I would estimate more than 80 per cent of pro-Justin Baldoni posts are inorganic,' Chen says. As well as the abuse allegations, Lively's legal complaint alleged 'a multitiered plan that Mr Baldoni and his team described as 'social manipulation' designed to 'destroy' Ms Lively's reputation', and that they 'created, planted, amplified, and boosted content designed to eviscerate Ms Lively's credibility'. The filing included text exchanges between Baldoni's publicist, Jennifer Abel, and crisis communications expert, Melissa Nathan. In one exchange, Abel writes to Nathan that Baldoni 'wants to feel like [Lively] can be buried'; Nathan replies, 'You know we can bury anyone.' In another exchange, commenting on a shift in online sentiment against Lively and for Baldoni, Nathan writes to Abel: 'And socials are really really ramping up. In his favour, she must be furious. It's actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women.' Baldoni's lawyers argue that the text exchanges 'lack critical context', and that Lively is using the same PR tactics she is accusing Baldoni's side of implementing. Hollywood has always used PR and behind-the-scenes media influence to construct or dismantle a celebrity's reputation, says Prof Sarah Banet-Weiser of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, who researches gender and media. 'But what happens in the current moment of unregulated, unmoderated digital media that circulates so fast and that has so many nodes? You can make it look like it's grassroots, when, in fact, it's very calculated and very intentional.' Blake Lively on the red carpet at the UK gala screening for It ends with us. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images From their supporters' perspectives, the victimhood is the other way round, and it is men such as Depp and Baldoni who are being persecuted. One Hollywood crisis-management veteran described Lively-Baldoni to me as a 'come to Jesus moment': 'The #MeToo movement was brought on by liberal progressives who started a movement of 'let's believe all women, all the time, no matter what'. And slowly but surely, that shroud has been breaking.' (In fact, #MeToo's initial slogan was just 'believe women', not 'believe all women'.) 'This is a right-wing multimedia campaign that is about painting women as inherently lying and manipulative,' says Banet-Weiser. 'That's why people say, 'MeToo has gone too far', that's what Andrew Tate says, that's what radicalised young men say: that women are trying to manipulate them, they're liars, they make false accusations, their whole goal is to ruin men. That is the broader cultural context in which this case, and the media attention to this case, starts to make sense.' While privileged white women such as Lively and Heard might not be the ideal torchbearers for all victims of abuse, in this context they are painted as avatars for 'modern feminism' and 'leftist overreach', all the better to contrast them with a more traditionalist, conservative ideal of femininity. 'That idea of some women being seen as manipulative and lying, and other women being seen as virtuous and responding to a higher calling of motherhood and family and husband, seems to characterise some of the gender cultural dynamics at play right now,' Banet-Weiser observes. 'This demarcation of ideal femininity, at least in the US, is rooted in a very particular reactionary, authoritarian politics.' Nobody really knows who is telling the truth in the Lively-Baldoni saga. But if the case does come to trial, as well as likely sending the internet into meltdown, it could shed light on far more than simply who said and did what to whom. Whatever the outcome, the battle being fought right now, outside the courtroom, on social and mainstream media, could be more significant: in terms of women coming forward as victims of abuse and sexual violence, especially, but also in terms of how much we trust what's presented as 'popular opinion', and by extension, how easily it can be manipulated, whether in pop culture or in politics – assuming they're still two different things.
Forbes
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Latest In Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively Feud: Lively Plans To Testify, Lawyers Say
Blake Lively plans to take the witness stand at her impending trial against her 'It Ends With Us' co-star and director Justin Baldoni, which is slated to begin in March 2026, her lawyers said, as their sprawling legal battle continues to develop. (Here are in-depth explanations for Lively's claims and Baldoni's claims.) Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds attended the 2025 TIME 100 Gala on Thursday. (Photo by Dimitrios ...for TIME) May 8, 2025Lively's legal team told multiple news outlets she plans to take the stand and testify once her trial begins: 'The ultimate moment for a plaintiff's story to be told is at trial. We expect that to be the case here. So we would, of course, expect her to be a witness at her trial. Of course she's going to testify,' Gottlieb told People (Forbes has reached out to Lively's legal team for comment). May 1, 2025Lively gave her first televised interview since filing her lawsuit against Baldoni to promote 'Another Simple Favor' on Seth Meyers' late night show, in which she acknowledged she can't discuss much about her legal battle with Baldoni—whom she did not address by name—but stated she has faced the 'highest highs and the lowest lows of my life' over the past 'intense year,' adding she feels 'fortunate' she has been able to speak about her experience because many women are 'afraid to share their experiences' or do not have the opportunity to. May 1, 2025'Another Simple Favor,' Lively's first film since 'It Ends With Us' and a sequel to the 2018 film 'A Simple Favor,' premiered on Amazon Prime Video and received mostly positive reviews from critics. April 28, 2025Baldoni's lawyers submitted a letter to the court opposing Marvel's request to quash the subpoena, doubling down on their claim that ''Nicepool' is a defamatory and mocking portrayal of Baldoni' and that such a portrayal could establish malice for his defamation claim, while accusing Marvel's counsel of 'refusing to engage' with Baldoni's Wayfarer Studios to resolve the dispute. April 25, 2025In response to Baldoni's allegation that a character in the 2024 Marvel film 'Deadpool & Wolverine,' Nicepool, was crafted by Ryan Reynolds as a caricature of Baldoni, Marvel Studios sent a letter to New York federal judge Lewis Liman asking the court to squash Baldoni's subpoena for relevant documents, stating the claims are irrelevant to Baldoni's claims of defamation and that releasing confidential Marvel documents would harm the studio. April 24, 2025In an amended response to Jones' lawsuit against Baldoni, which she filed in December accusing him of defamation and breach of contract, Baldoni accused Jones of colluding with Lively to file a 'sham legal proceeding' in New York court in September under a company affiliated with Lively, Vanzan Inc., against unnamed defendants as a 'transparent ploy to obtain subpoena power' without Lively's name attached so the parties could obtain text messages—which were central to Lively's claims, and the basis for a New York Times story—sent among Baldoni's team. In a statement to Deadline, Jones's lawyer Kristen Tahler accused Baldoni's team of 'presenting zero new evidence' and of conducting 'a desperate ploy by a team who tonight all but admits they're in trouble.' April 24, 2025Lively attended the Time 100 Gala as an honoree, where she made a speech apparently alluding to her ongoing legal battle: 'I have so much to say about the last two years of my life, but tonight is not the forum," Lively said, in a speech in which she largely focused on abuse against women, a central theme of 'It Ends With Us,' and revealed her mother was a victim of abuse. April 13, 2025'It Ends With Us' storyboard artist Talia Spencer defended Baldoni in an interview with '60 Minutes Australia,' stating she felt Lively 'smelled [Baldoni's] kindness, mistook it for weakness and tried to take advantage and take power,' alleging Lively 'tried to' take control of the film, resulting in a 'massive compromise' of Baldoni's vision for the movie. April 8, 2025An actor who played a small role in 'It Ends With Us' as Lively's character's gynecologist pushed back against Lively's description of a birthing scene in her lawsuit as 'invasive and humiliating,' telling PageSix Lively wore a 'full hospital gown, black shorts and torso-covering prosthetic' and was not 'nearly nude' as she had claimed in her complaint. March 20, 2025In a counterclaim to Jones' December lawsuit against Baldoni and Abel, Baldoni alleged Jones attempted to undermine Abel's authority as a PR representative for Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios production company, claiming she suddenly terminated Abel from her PR firm, seized her phone and leaked texts to Lively's team, which the lawsuit says was done in response to Abel voicing her intent to leave Jones' firm and Jones' fear she would take Baldoni as a client with her. March 20, 2025In her motion to dismiss, Lively slammed Baldoni's 'vengeful and rambling lawsuit' as a 'profound abuse of the legal process,' urging the court to 'dismiss all claims against Ms. Lively with prejudice, deny leave to amend, and award Ms. Lively all relief sought,' including attorney's fees and damages for 'reputational and emotional harm.' March 18, 2025Reynolds filed a motion to dismiss Baldoni's lawsuit, in which he is named as a co-defendant, alleging Baldoni's lawsuit does not prove Reynolds defamed him and is instead 'a list of grievances attempting to shame Mr. Reynolds for being the man Mr. Baldoni has built his brand pretending to be.' March 7, 2025Lively attended the South by Southwest premiere of 'Another Simple Favor,' a sequel to the 2018 film 'A Simple Favor,' where she received a warm reception from the crowd and spoke primarily about her work on the film, though co-star Anna Kendrick dodged a question that appeared to allude to Lively's legal battle, and one protester held up a sign that said 'Justice for Justin Baldoni' outside the theater. March 6, 2025At a hearing Thursday, Lively's attorneys argued certain information should be treated as highly classified 'attorney's eyes only' material, which lawyer Sigrid McCawley said would help minimize the risk of 'irreparable harm if marginal conversations with high profile individuals with no relevance to the case were to fall into wrong hands'—apparently suggesting messages between Lively and celebrity friends may leak. The judge did not rule on the request Thursday. Though it's unclear which 'high profile individuals' McCawley was referring to, Baldoni's lawyer Bryan Freedman has previously suggested he could request Lively's friend Taylor Swift testify, after she appeared to be referred to in Baldoni's lawsuit. March 5, 2025The Los Angeles Times published an investigative report on Baldoni's career, citing multiple unnamed employees at his Wayfarer Studios production company, some of whom said he injected 'toxic positivity' and his Bahai faith into the workplace culture in a way that felt 'professionally inappropriate.' Representatives for Baldoni and Wayfarer told the Los Angeles Times there have 'never been any reported complaints regarding the workplace culture' and Wayfarer's work is rooted in 'various faiths and backgrounds.' March 4, 2025Lewis Liman, a U.S. district judge, said the New York Times' motion to dismiss Justin Baldoni's $400 million case against the newspaper provided 'substantial grounds,' suggesting the lawsuit—in which Baldoni accused the Times of working with Lively's team to smear him—could be dismissed. Feb. 28, 2025Shapiro, who formerly served as the CIA's deputy chief of staff between 2013 and 2015 before starting his own strategic consulting firm, will advise Lively's litigation team on legal communications relating to the lawsuit she filed against Baldoni in New York federal court. Feb. 20, 2025Attorneys submitted a letter on behalf of Lively and Reynolds asking a new, more extensive protective order be imposed that would shield 'personal, sensitive or proprietary information' from the public after claiming they and their allies have been victimized since the legal battle began. The letter goes on to say that it is "inevitable" that the release of more discovery in the case will further violate their privacy, expose them to threats and create "a climate of possible witness intimidation." Feb. 18, 2025Lawyers for Lively filed an amended complaint that included new accusations Baldoni's behavior made at least two additional, unnamed female cast members uncomfortable and that both of those women brought their complaints to Lively, who documented them in writing and reported them to higher-ups on the film (the complaint references Baldoni's 'unwelcome behavior' but does not specify exactly what he is accused of doing). The suit claims Baldoni was made aware of at least one of the additional cast members' concerns and responded to her in writing at the time, promising "adjustments would be made'—but alleges he instead launched a PR campaign to discredit any future claims made against him. Forbes reached out to Baldoni's attorney, Bryan Freedman, for comment on the new complaint Wednesday. Feb. 13, 2025Baldoni and Lively's letter to the judge, filed in New York federal court on Thursday, said mediation or reaching a settlement would be 'inappropriate' and 'premature' for this case, suggesting their legal feud could eventually head to trial. Feb. 12, 2025Hoover, who deactivated her Instagram account as the legal battle between Lively and Baldoni continued to play out, has wiped any photos with Lively or Baldoni from her account. Most posts related to the film at all have been deleted, including an post supporting Lively that went up shortly after she filed her initial lawsuit against Baldoni: "@blakelively, you have been nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient since the day we met. Thank you for being exactly the human that you are. Never change. Never wilt," she wrote. During promotion for the 'It Ends With Us' film, Hoover appeared to take Lively's side when a clear rift emerged among the film's cast and crew. Lively refused to promote the movie alongside Baldoni and the pair were never interviewed or photographed together during its highly publicized press tour, Hoover and most of Lively's co-stars, including Jenny Slate, Brandon Sklenar and Isabela Ferrer, appeared at her side rather than Baldoni's. Hoover still follows Lively on Instagram, but does not follow Baldoni. Feb. 11, 2025A three-year-old video interview of Blake Lively admitting to Forbes she's ruffled feathers in the film industry by attempting to have more 'authorship' over her projects has gone viral. In a resurfaced interview from the 2022 Forbes Power Women's Summit, Lively said just following direction as an actress "wasn't fulfilling for me" and that she's received backlash for stepping in and trying to be part of costume design, writing and other aspects of a project. She said she's had writers, producers and directors "welcome that and invite that," and others who resented her for stepping on toes. She also said she hasn't always upfront with her plans to step in to other parts of a project when she was hired as an actress, and that she 'wouldn't reveal that I actually need to have authorship in order to feel fulfilled... Sometimes that might have felt like a rug pull.' Feb. 8, 2025Filmmaker Judd Apatow joked about "It Ends With Us" at the 77th Annual Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards Saturday night, calling it "such a terrible movie" and referencing the Baldoni-Lively lawsuits. "I loved Wicked. I saw it four times in the first four days," Apatow added. "It was the highest-grossing movie musical of all time. Do you know that? Usually to make that much money, you have to sue Blake Lively." Feb. 7, 2025Comedian Chelsea Handler, who hosted the Critics' Choice Awards, also poked fun at the legal battle, which has played out dramatically in the media over the last six weeks. Handler thanked the pair for providing a "distraction" from heavier headlines: 'I want to personally extend my gratitude to Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively... I'm grateful. I think we're all grateful. And I think we're good. I think everybody in this room, no matter whose side you're on, we can all agree to accept that there's probably not going to be a sequel. It ends with us, guys." Feb. 5, 2025Baldoni's lawyer suggested in an interview with TMZ he could call on Taylor Swift—a close friend of Blake Lively's who may have been alluded to in Baldoni's lawsuit against the actress—to testify once the case goes to trial. After TMZ's Harvey Levin asked about deposing Swift, Freedman didn't rule out the idea, calling it a 'game time decision' and adding he would seek testimony from anyone who may have relevant information (Freedman also said Swift was present alongside Baldoni, Lively and Ryan Reynolds at a meeting about Lively's proposed script edits to 'It Ends With Us' that is referenced in Baldoni's lawsuit, though the suit only refers to the alleged attendee as 'Taylor' with no last name). Feb. 4, 2025Jed Wallace, owner of the crisis PR firm Street Relations, sued Lively in Texas federal court for defamation, alleging she falsely claimed in a civil rights complaint and her lawsuit that Wallace participated in an alleged smear campaign against the actress at the behest of Baldoni's public relations team, which he says caused him 'millions of dollars in reputational harm.' Feb. 4, 2025'A Simple Favor 2,' Lively's latest film, will open at the SXSW Film and TV Festival next month, Director Paul Feig said, after rumors the film had been shelved, partially due to the Lively/Baldoni legal battle. Feb. 3, 2025New York federal judge Lewis J. Liman told lawyers for Lively and Baldoni that he would move up the trial date, set for March 2026, if the case continued to be 'litigated in the press.' Liman ordered both sides to adhere to the New York Rules of Professional Conduct, which stops lawyers from making public comments that have a 'substantial likelihood' of tainting a jury, but stopped short of sanctioning Baldoni's attorney, Freedman, despite claims from Lively's team that he has gotten close to defaming her and has made 'extrajudicial statements' about her and her character. Feb. 1, 2025Baldoni's team published a website dedicated to supporting his lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds that links to to an amended complaint filed on Jan. 31 and contains a timeline of events outlining what he says happened on the set of 'It Ends With Us,' including corresponding text messages, emails and a statement Baldoni has said he was pressured into releasing by Reynolds and Lively that would have seen him take the blame for the "troubled production" of the movie (he refused to put out the statement). In addition to the statement, Baldoni released a text message exchange with Lively that showed she chose not to meet with the on-set intimacy coordinator he hired, leaving him to relay uncomfortable information from the meeting on his own. Jan. 30, 2025Lawyers for Lively and Reynolds said in a letter to Liman that they plan to move to dismiss the lawsuit filed against them at a pre-trial conference scheduled for Monday, Feb. 3. Jan. 29, 2025The Hollywood Reporter cited unnamed sources in reporting Baldoni has "lost three jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars' since Lively first filed suit against him in December and that an in-the-works "Pac-Man" movie project he was set to direct is now in jeopardy. Jan. 27, 2025Liman told Lively and Baldoni's lawyers to prepare for a March 9, 2026 trial date and set a pretrial conference to discuss, among other things, complaints from Lively's team about the conduct of Baldoni's lawyer. Lively's lawyers have claimed Freedman is trying to paint potential jurors by creating a website to release communication between the two actors and documents from set, and accused him of making an "endless stream of defamatory and extrajudicial media statements." Jan. 27, 2025 The Daily Mail first published a nearly seven-minute voice note it says Baldoni sent to Lively at 2 a.m. during the filming of "It Ends With Us," in which he allegedly apologizes for not being open enough to script changes she made, admits he is a 'a very flawed man' and makes a reference to her breastfeeding her then-newborn child. Jan. 21, 2025Baldoni's legal team countered Lively's claims that he acted inappropriately while filming a slow dancing scene for the film by releasing a 10-minute video from set that includes three takes of the same scene, which Baldoni's team says is the entirety of the footage shot for that scene, during which Lively alleged in a lawsuit Baldoni 'leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, 'it smells so good.'' The footage shows a similar interaction, where Baldoni is seen nuzzling Lively's neck, and she says, "I'm probably getting spray-tan on you," to which he responds, "It smells good." Lively's team says the footage fully corroborates her account, and 'any woman who has been inappropriately touched in the workplace will recognize Ms. Lively's discomfort.' Baldoni's lawyers said the footage proves both actors clearly behaved "well within the scope of the scene and with mutual respect and professionalism.' Jan. 16, 2025Baldoni filed a federal lawsuit in New York against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, her publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane's firm Vision PR alleging his co-star "tormented" him, his family and his partners, falsely accused him of sexual harassment and used him as a "scapegoat" to dodge the negative press surrounding. He also pushed back on claims he sexually harassed her, instead claiming she "calculatingly devised" fake stories to destroy his reputation and livelihood, seized control of the film he was directing and set out to damage his career and Wayfarer Studios "if they did not bend to her incessant demands' (Here's more on Baldoni's lawsuit). Jan. 10, 2025Deadline reported Baldoni's former publicist Stephanie Jones, who sued the actor and a handful of others for defamation and breach of contract in December, has issued subpoenas to WhatsApp, Signal, website hosts Hostinger and Name Cheap, digital publishing platform AnyFlip and chatbot company Gab AI in attempts to discover who may have been behind posts and websites aimed at harming Lively and Baldoni's reputations. Jan. 10, 2025Feig, who directed Lively's upcoming film "A Simple Favor 2," responded to viral rumors the film had been shelved "indefinitely," partially due to the Lively/Baldoni legal battle, calling it "total BS" and confirming the film "is finished and coming out soon." Jan. 8, 2025In an interview with Baldoni's attorney, Bryan Freedman, TMZ founder Harvey Levin said about the co-stars' competing accusations about online campaigns to damage one another's reputation: 'Both sides tried to skew this story. We've been on the recipient end of that ... It has happened on both sides in the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni war. Both sides.' Freedman responded by saying, 'That's good to know.' (In recent days, Freedman has denied Lively's allegations that she faced a smear campaign by Baldoni's PR team, claiming Lively's team was instead working to smear Baldoni.) Jan. 7, 2025Freedman appeared on Megyn Kelly's YouTube show to discuss Baldoni's plans to sue Lively 'into oblivion' and pushed back on several of the actresses' allegations, accusing Lively of not reading the source material for the film, refuting claims she was sexually harassed and accusing her of orchestrating her own smear campaign against Baldoni. The interview also included newly released sound from a voice note from Baldoni explaining that he was "sent to the basement" of the film's premiere because Lively "didn't want me anywhere near her or the rest of the cast' (Here's more on what Freedman said on Kelly's show.) Jan. 3, 2025Freedman told NBC's "Today" he "absolutely" plans to file suit against Lively after she alleged she was subjected to "sexually inappropriate behavior" by Baldoni on the set of their 2024 film, but wouldn't say exactly what the countersuit would allege, though denied Lively's claim that Baldoni and his team launched a smear campaign against the actress. Jan. 2, 2025Glaser, the first solo female to ever host the Golden Globes, warned viwers in advance that she wouldn't be poking fun of Baldoni and Lively while on stage. 'I think the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni thing is such a hot-button thing right now that even a mere mention of it will seem like I could be on the wrong side of things, even though I would never be,' Glaser told Yahoo Entertainment. 'I also don't want to give (Baldoni's) name any — I'm mad I even know his name, to be honest with you, so I don't need to say it anymore.' Dec. 31, 2024Baldoni filed a $250 million libel lawsuit against The New York Times for the paper's reporting on Lively's allegations, accusing the outlet of having "cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful 'untouchable' Hollywood elites"—Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds (on Jan. 31, Baldoni added defamation allegations against the Times to his sweeping lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds, and his attorney said he would drop the original suit against the paper). Dec. 31, 2024Lively formally filed a lawsuit in New York federal court against Baldoni, his publicist, Wayfarer Studios and other defendants for "retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns." Dec. 24, 2024Baldoni was sued by his ex-publicist, Stephanie Jones, over an alleged conspiracy to discredit her and steal her clients. Dec. 24, 2024Vital Voices, a nonprofit that focuses on empowering women, rescinded an award it gave to Baldoni, who has made a career expressing his support of women's stories and co-hosted a podcast about masculinity called "Man Enough," which his co-host pulled out of the same day. Dec. 21, 2024Baldoni was reportedly dropped by his talent agency. Dec. 20, 2024Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department claiming Baldoni invaded her privacy by "entering her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed," pressured her to lose weight four months after giving birth and coordinated a PR campaign with a crisis firm "designed to 'destroy' Ms. Lively's reputation." Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We're launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day's headlines. Text 'Alerts' to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here. The message, which was obtained by the Daily Mail and has since gone viral on TikTok, appears to be Baldoni apologizing for his reception to changes Lively proposed for a scene in "It Ends With Us." Baldoni says his reaction to the changes "fell short" and thanked her for telling him how she was feeling about his response, according to the newspaper. "I f***ed up, that is a fail on my part," he appears to say. "One thing you should know about me is that I am willing to apologize when I fail... I am a very flawed man, as my wife will attest." Baldoni then appears to talk for almost another five minutes, in which he says there is 'nothing more exciting to me' than working with Lively. The message does not specifically say which scene Baldoni is referring to but his lawsuit against Lively mentions tension over a rooftop scene in the film that Lively rewrote and presented to Baldoni as her own work before telling media outlets that her husband, Reynolds, actually wrote it. Baldoni directed and co-starred with Lively in 'It Ends With Us,' the movie adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling book of the same name, which released last August. Rumors of a rift developing between Lively and Baldoni during post-production began to emerge around the movie's release, and were further fueled during the film's press tour when Lively appeared to avoid mention of Baldoni in interviews. Speculation emerged that there were disputes over creative control and sources told TMZ Baldoni had "fat-shamed" Lively by inquiring about her weight, telling an on-set trainer he wanted to avoid injury while lifting the actress in the movie. Baldoni and Lively were never photographed together while promoting 'It Ends With Us.' As rumors of a feud grew, Baldoni hired Melissa Nathan, a crisis PR manager who represented Johnny Depp in his defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard. According to texts published by The New York Times, Nathan suggested plans including 'full social take downs' by creating 'threads of theories' and planting pieces in the media of 'how horrible Blake is to work with.' Lively said the alleged smear campaign had caused 'severe emotional distress' for her and her family, prompting her to back out of hosting the 'Saturday Night Live' season 50 premiere. Lively's initial complaint included excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails, which were the main focus of the Times article at the center of Baldoni's lawsuit. The text messages were largely between Baldoni, his publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis management expert Melissa Nathan, and were obtained through a civil subpoena, Lively's complaint said. A lawsuit filed by Baldoni's ex-publicist Stephanie Jones, the founder of the Jonesworks publicity firm, days later revealed she was the source of the text messages, which were obtained from Abel's work phone. In her own lawsuit against Baldoni, Jones claimed Abel was fired for conspiring to steal clients from her firm and Jones later had Abel's company-issued phone 'forensically preserved and examined in detail.' Lively's team then obtained the texts through a subpoena against Jonesworks. The texts show discussions on how to coordinate a social media campaign against Lively, and how Baldoni wanted to feel like Lively "can be buried' under negative media. The messages show the trio talking about the 'shift on social' against Lively, and reveal that Baldoni was aware of the negative messaging against her. Messages from Baldoni also show him encouraging the P.R. team, flagging social media posts for them to use and, in one case, suggesting 'flipping the narrative' on a positive story about Lively and Reynolds, according to The Times. In other messages, he reiterates that the campaign needs to be untraceable. Around the time of the 'It Ends With Us' premiere, Lively was the subject of intense criticism online targeting how she promoted the film, the opportune release of her haircare line and other behaviors. In one promotional video, Lively encourages the audience to "grab your friends, wear your florals and head out to see (the movie)." Fans instantly criticized Lively's upbeat tone and claimed she was attempting to promote the movie as a lighthearted love story, cheapening the movie's serious take on domestic abuse. Comments on the video attacked Lively—"shame on you and your PR team for turning a blind eye," one said—but praised Baldoni for how he handled promotion. Lively was also criticized for seeming to promote her newly launched hair-care line, Blake Brown, off the back of the film, but it was later revealed that the two were never supposed to launch at the same time. Production delays caused by Hollywood strikes in 2023 pushed the premiere of 'It Ends With Us,' then coinciding with the predetermined launch date of the brand. At the same time, Lively was freshly criticized for her reaction to an interviewer in a resurfaced 2016 clip. Lively's lawsuits claim the public's attacks were part of the smear campaign she says was orchestrated against her. A number of celebrities have come out to support Lively since she filed her initial complaint, including Hoover, Lively's 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' co-stars and actress Amber Heard, who claimed to be a victim of a similar social media takedown. Hoover, who The Times reported also refused to do press with Baldoni, posted to Instagram after Lively first made her allegations to call her "nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient." America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel and Amber Tamblyn, who starred alongside Lively in her 2005 breakout role in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," slammed the 'vindictive effort ensued to discredit her voice' and Heard said she has seen similar social media campaigns "firsthand and up close,' calling it "horrifying and destructive.' Actresses Kate Beckinsale and Abigail Breslin shared their own stories of harassment and retaliation in the wake of Lively's lawsuit, and director Paul Feig posted that Lively "did not deserve any of this smear campaign.' Lively's "It Ends with Us" costar Brandon Sklenar posted a link to the initial New York Times story and Jenny Slate, another co-star in the film, said she stands by her "loyal friend." Amy Schumer posted a story on Instagram that said, 'I believe Blake.' Political influencer Candace Owens posted in support of Baldoni after he was stripped of his Vital Voices award, writing that he should "have his day in court" before such drastic measures are taken.
Geek Tyrant
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
THE BATMAN 2 Set To Begin Shooting Next March… But Will Matt Reeves Direct? — GeekTyrant
It looks like The Batman: Part II is finally gearing up to step out of the shadows and in front of cameras. According to the latest issue of Production Weekly, the highly anticipated follow-up to Matt Reeves' gritty take on Gotham's vigilante is expected to begin filming in March 2026. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that Matt Reeves isn't listed as the director. As you might imagine, this omission has sparked a wave of speculation. Reeves' absence from official industry documentation, especially at this stage, is causing fans to worry that he may not be returning to direct the sequel at all. Reeves has previously hinted at personal matters affecting his schedule. In a previous interview, he said: 'There's [been] a lot of stuff going on in my life in the last year or so, and [Colin Farrell has] been such a good friend. [He's] such a beautiful man. 'We're still finishing the script, and there have been so many things going on. This next year is about getting into production and getting the movie going.' It was also previously reported: 'If you knew what Matt Reeves was dealing with, you'd leave him alone. I mean, it's not a Chadwick Boseman situation, but it's close. You should leave Matt Reeves alone.' On a recent episode of The Hot Mic, insider Jeff Sneider addressed the situation, saying, he doesn't know whether Reeves is still on board or not. He added, 'I wouldn't be surprised' if the next time we see Batman on the big screen, it's in the DCU, and speculates that James Gunn is working on a Superman/Batman crossover film. The Batman sequel has been in limbo for a while, with delays and little clarity from Warner Bros. or DC Studios. It's hard to imagine Reeves not directing the next Batman movie, but if another filmmaker is stepping in, the likeliest scenario is that Reeves gave his blessing to keep things moving. For now, fans of Robert Pattinson's brooding Bruce Wayne will have to wait and see how this plays out.
