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Ahead of the Curve with Coco Mocoe
Blake Lively's Evidence Justin Baldoni Ruined Her Reputation
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When I first clicked on the news article that Blake Lively was suing Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment, I genuinely thought that it was just her retaliating for a fumbled press run for their joint movie. Even though the movie was a success at the box office, Blake Lively's reputation took a tremendous hit as stories of her being a mean girl and nasty, especially on set, began to circulate online. But as I read through the article, I realized that I had been duped. By the end of this video, I will have made the case to you that there is no right or wrong answer here. There is no Team Justin Baldoni or team Blake Lively, but rather you will come to the same conclusion that I reluctantly came to at first after reading about the Blake Lively lawsuit. That this is not about who is right or wrong, but rather that something deeply unfair and unjusticed happened that must be acknowledged. If it can happen to someone with as many resources and as powerful as Blake Lively, then it can happen to any of us. We think the Internet is free will, but we are much more convinced and swayed than we would like to admit, myself included. I'm someone who works in PR and marketing and preaches media literacy and seeing the real humans on the other side of our phone and computer screens. I have a whole podcast dedicated to that and even I myself fell victim to a deliberate plan conjured up by a PR team that is almost too good at their jobs to oust Blake Lively as an incredible mean girl as a way to rebound any stories that might pop up of a toxic and abusive work environment caused by Baldoni and his production company during the making of It Ends With Us. I am pausing here to add things. This entire video and my whole online presence is based on my own personal opinions that are always subject to change. This is not fact and I'm not a journalist. I encourage everyone to always do their own research and come to their own conclusions as I sometimes get things wrong. And that is okay. Just wanted to put that disclaimer and now we're continuing. I was very neutral and fair in my reporting of the It Ends With Us movie publicly. I even did an episode about it on this podcast. I can admit that I was swayed privately to have a disdain for Blake Lively that I now believe was unjust. I do think that they marketed the movie too light hearted for it being about domestic violence and I do believe that Blake Lively has moments of being snarky and mean throughout her decades long career and in the public eye. But two things can exist at once. Even though the Internet doesn't always seem to think so. Despite her being labeled as a mean girl, she does not deserve what happened to her. What we see throughout the course of this lawsuit filing is that if the Internet believes you to be a mean girl, then they will justify any awful treatment that happens to you thereafter. Whereas a man could literally be tried in the court and found guilty of different types of assault and he is still deserving of running for President. I don't expect everyone to have the time or energy to read the 70 page lawsuit or even the deep dive New York Times article since that does require a subscription. So I'm going to break it down for you on this podcast episode and I also uploaded a free article to my substack which with the PDF file from the lawsuit where I went in and highlighted and annotated things that caught my eye in case you don't have a subscription to the new sites that are sharing it out. Thank you so much for tuning into Ahead of the Curve with Coco Moco. This episode was going to be a deep dive into the subtle marketing trick that is known as controlled controversy, which a lot of people actually thought that it ends with us thing was as well. And this is essentially where a public figure or a brand will either accidentally or deliberately create some sort of mishap or drama around them to drum up hype for themselves or a project. It will often be something with low enough stakes that they're okay with the pushback that they might get. And I believe an example of this would be when Lady Gaga wore a meet dress to the VMAs in 2010's everyone was so mad at her. But now it's seen as iconic. And let me know some examples that you think could have been controlled controversy by artists or brands in either the comment section on Substack if you're subscribed, or you can do it in the Apple and Spotify podcast reviews since that really helps me grow and that will be the topic for next week. I asked you guys for examples of controlled controversy in the subset group chat and we had such an awesome discussion so I was really excited to film that episode. But then Saturday morning I was in my car with my mom and the Blake Lively lawsuit dropped and I was so thinking it was surface level. At first I'm like okay, it's just retaliation for her getting bad press. Until I read the article and wow. Because I had reported on the original PR fiasco that was it ends with us. I even went to a special screening of the movie Weeks before it came out and I left the theater terrified because I didn't know it was such a deep and scary topic. It was kind of marketed as a rom com and that was I think a fault of their messaging around the movie. But we will learn later that this was not Blake Lively's fault. I spent hours combing through the lawsuit and the articles to bring you this detailed episode of Ahead of the Curve with Coco Moko. I hope you appreciate the time and effort that I put into this. And if you're able to, leaving a review on Apple or Spotify podcast really helps the show grow and reach even more coconuts that love marketing and PR as much as we do. So today's episode is titled the Successful Smear Campaign Against Blake Lively. And in the free portion I am going to break down the 70 page lawsuit that Blake Lively filed against Justin Baldoni. As you guys know, I'm not a lawyer. I never claim to be. Instead, I work more on the marketing and PR side. And so it was really fascinating for me reading it from that angle and, and bringing in my perspective, there was a lot to digest in this 70 page filing. So I really hope that this breakdown is for those of you that are maybe curious, but you don't have the time or energy to go through it, but you trust that I can bring you the most important pieces of information that were presented by her team. And in the paid extended portion of this episode that is exclusively on CocoMoco substack. Com, I will be talking about the timing of why Blake Lively would announce the lawsuit now and not a few months ago, the interesting connection between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun that comes up in one of the articles. Justin Baldoni's PR agent who as I was scripting out this episode, she made a response to the damning allegations which her name was featured all over the lawsuit and her text messages that made her look really bad. So we'll go over her response in the paid portion plus my final thoughts. So thank you all to the new coconuts for joining us on Substack Free and Paid and those of you that have been here since the beginning. We had a bunch of new subscribers last week and I think it's because of the new feature where I can upload the first half of the episodes to YouTube as well. So let me know in the comments or reviews where you found this podcast from. Thank you for making me a Substack best seller. As you all know, I've never run an ad on this podcast in the two years that I've had it because I personally hate listening to podcasts. It's like 30 minutes, but then 15 minutes is ads. And they're the same ads over and over again that you're already hearing on all the other podcasts. Once you notice that about podcasts, you can't unsee it. So I really want to give you guys a great experience. What I wish I got from my favorite podcast that I don't anymore. So you will be getting a completely free episode, no ads, whether you're listening free or paid. And that's on Substack. I think if you're on YouTube you have the mid roll ads that YouTube puts in, not me. And then the paid portion you can find@cocomoco.substack.com and if you become a paying member of the bestselling substack, you get access to all of the extended episodes of this podcast ad free. And you will unlock the weekly Friday trend reports and you can be a part of our group chat where we discuss these topics. Thank you so much. And let's dive on in. So we are going to go over the 70 page lawsuit as I put in highlights, if you're watching this on YouTube or substack the video version where I'm going to have the pages of the lawsuit on screen as I'm narrating for you guys, the moments that stood out to me. I'm not a lawyer. I do not claim to be. This is just the things that caught my eye as I was going through spending hours combing through this. Now, lawsuits are not meant to be entertaining. They're not judged based on their entertainment value. But reading this entire 70 page thing, at no point was I like, this seems not important or this is like boring or mundane. Every single thing that they talk about in the 70 pages is very important. And had my jaw on the floor. Okay, so if you think that Blake Lively was not in the wrong, I really encourage you to at least go through this lawsuit, which we are going to do right now on January 2024. So that was almost a year ago. Blake Lively had privately raised alarm bells about sexual misconduct on set. Now, two important figures in this lawsuit is of course Justin Baldoni, the co director and co star. And then there's also a guy who's more of a private figure, but his name comes up a lot in the lawsuit. His name is Jamie Heath. Now this guy is Justin Baldoni's best friend, CEO of their production company Wayfarer, and he was the co producer. And it comes out later in the lawsuit filing that Sony, they're the ones that oversaw the movie, but it really seems that they kind of washed their hands of the production. Like, they were like, we'll take the distribution rights when you guys are done filming. But everything that happens on set, that has nothing to do with us. So what they say in the lawsuit is that Baldoni and Heath, the two best friends, the two co producers on top, they were the bosses. So when Blake Lively and other castmates and crew would raise alarm bells about sexual misconduct, which we're going to get into right here, there was no one else that they could go to. And the lawsuit even mentions that at no point did they have any sort of handbook for what the HR process was. And they even made jokes about not having HR, not attending HR meetings. So that is something to keep in mind. Mr. Baldoni's name is going to come up, but also Mr. Heath's name is going to come up. I think people, if they're looking at this surface level, they think that Baldoni was the one doing all of the sexual misconduct. No, he was one of them, allegedly. But it was also his best friend and co producer who comes up a lot in the lawsuit. So here are the things that I highlighted. One of them was, this is. Okay, so this is a paper. I've never filmed an episode like this, so thank you guys for being patient with me as I'm, like, structuring it. But there is a paper that was sent to the Wayfarer production company. So Justin Baldoni and his team from Blake Lively's team, when they were set to resume filming almost a year ago after the strikes ended. Now, the reason this is important is Blake Lively and the co producer, Jamie Heath, signed this letter acknowledging that they both saw it. Understood. And so the reason I bring this up is because Blake Lively had privately raised concerns about sexual misconduct on set in private that was acknowledged by Baldoni and his team. She did not make this information public until recently, which means that she could have put this information out there early, but she didn't. So I just want to let you guys know, I'm going to be reading off some bullet points of things that happened on set, according to Blake Lively and her team, that Baldoni's team acknowledged in this letter. Okay, no more showing nude videos of images of women, including the producer's wife, to Blake Lively and her employees. Now, they detail later in the lawsuit that what happened is the co producer, Jamie Heath, during the filming of the birth scene, he, like, unprovoked, showed Blake Lively A video of his nude wife and her private parts as she was giving birth. And Blake Lively was so caught off guard, she thought he was showing her first. And then was even like, does your wife even know that you're showing me this video? And he's like, she's not weird about it. Implying, like, Blake Lively would be weird for thinking that was weird. Okay, so that is the first bullet point. That's pretty damning. No more mention of Mr. Baldoni or Mr. Heath's previous addiction. They even at one point say that he, Baldoni, asked Blake Lively if she watches, and she felt obviously very awkward by this and was like, no, I've never seen it. Just to, like, get him to stop talking about it. So then in front of the crew later, he brought it up, like, did you guys know Blake Lively's never seen it? And she mentions that that's, like, really inappropriate, which it is. No more discussions to Blake Lively and or her employees about personal experiences with, including as it relates to spouses and others. There was also a mention where it says, no more mention of personal times, that physical consent was not given in acts. So in this lawsuit, it's implying in the letter that they acknowledged that there were conversations where Baldoni and Heath allegedly described acts where they had not been given consent from the other party. And in the lawsuit, Blake Lively mentions that this happened when they were in a car ride together. And then when Blake Lively, when she was getting out of the car, the driver said to Blake Lively, like, please don't ever be alone with Baldoni. Okay, so that comes up as well. No more mention from Mr. Baldoni of speaking to Blake Lively's dead father. And then no more pressing by Mr. Baldoni for Blake Lively to disclose her religious beliefs. So this comes up as well that Justin Baldoni is part of the Baha'I religion. I'm sorry if I'm saying it wrong. I believe it's B A A H, A I, I. So it's a newer religion from what I could see. They mention it in the New York Times article, but that him and Jamie Heath are part of this religion. And it came up a lot on set. And then Baldoni said that he allegedly is able to speak to the dead. And then he would tell Blake Lively that he was speaking to her recently deceased father and what her father wanted to say to her. So bizarre. Okay, so bizarre. Like, I'm woo woo. But, like, I don't think you bring that into the workplace. Because that's bizarre. Right? That's bizarre. Also. No more personal Physical touching of or comments by Mr. Baldoni or Mr. Heath to be tolerated by Bake Lively and any of her employees, as well as any of the female cast or crew. No more improvising of kissing. All intimate touch must be choreographed in advance with Blake Lively and an intimacy coordinator. Then I highlighted this and said, so weird in all caps, but it says no biting or sucking of lip without Blake Lively's consent. What? That's so weird. That's so weird. Okay, so again, there's a lot going on here that you guys can read through, which I will link out that free article down below if you want to see what I highlighted. Etc. And so this was a. They called it the protections for return to production. And it was a contract in which Wayfarer had to acknowledge and like talk about in this all hands meeting in order for them to come back to production. And after receiving the document, Wayfair responded that Wayfair, Sony and production respectfully acknowledge that Ms. Lively has concerns regarding to safety, professionalism and workplace culture. So they're acknowledging these bullet points. They do say, although our perspectives differ in many aspects, ensuring a safe environment for all is paramount. And then they said, and her team bolded this. We find most of them not only reasonable but also essential for the benefit of all parties involved. So this is acknowledging that the production company understood and acknowledged these concerns that Blake Lively brought up privately almost a year ago. Now they go on to talk about how what the public also did not know was that this was the beginning of a multi tiered plan that Mr. Baldoni and his team described as social manipulation. And then in their words, to destroy Ms. Lively's reputation. The plan was backed by virtually unlimited resources. Wayfair's co founder, co chairman and leading financer is multi billionaire Steve Sarawitz. And he owns and started this company called Paylocity, I think. And they're basically just like a software for payroll, but he is worth billions. And then they say in this that at the New York premiere on August 6 that Steve Sorowitz allegedly said, I don't know to who, that he was prepared to spend a hundred million dollars to ruin the lives of Ms. Lively and her family, that is in this lawsuit. I don't know where that information came from other than it was said at the premiere. And then they go on to talk about astroturfing. This is essentially the practice of publishing opinions or comments on the Internet in the media that appear to come from ordinary members of the public, but actually come from a particular company or political group. Okay. So this is essentially where I think that this has happened to me. I don't know for sure, because you can't really prove it because they're, like, anonymous or accounts with no history. But one time I made a video about an artist that I'm a fan of. I literally love this artist. And I just said how I didn't like one of their songs that came out, like, seven years ago that didn't even chart on Billboard. Okay. And the video was doing fine for, like, a day or two. And then out of nowhere, I got thousands of comments that were kind of saying similar sentences over and over again about how everyone actually loved that song. And I'm misremembering and I'm wrong. And I was like, why do I feel like this happened out of nowhere? Like, why do I feel like this is bot accounts or, like, astroturfing? So that does happen. If you ever make a video about a topic and then the comments are neutral and out of nowhere, it shifts, it could be astroturfing. So this is the part of the lawsuit where they really go into what kind of is happening with Baldoni and his PR team and how they were able to put an attack against Blake Lively, essentially. Now, what's confusing to me is they have text messages in this document, and one of the text messages is between Baldoni, what I believe to be one of his PR agents, and then Jamie Heath, the producer. That does not look good at all in this lawsuit. But according to the text message screenshot, because the blue message is what Jamie Heath said, this would have come from Jamie Heath. So I don't know how they got this screenshot. I can't imagine Heath is the one that turned over some of this evidence. Later in the article, some of what comes up is screenshots of messages that were text messages, but it looks like it was pulled from some sort of archival thing, like on a desktop. So we'll get into later in the paid portion of this podcast, where one of the PR agents speculated on a private Facebook forum where she thinks these screenshots of her private conversations originated from and released from. So in this portion, they're talking about how Mr. Baldoni is afraid that the information about him having sexual misconduct that was acknowledged in this letter, he is afraid that Blake Lively and the cast is going to make this public information. It doesn't seem that that was Blake Lively or the cast intention, as that information did not come out until months later. And so this was something Baldoni was already kind of nervous about. But then what seems to have set this in motion? The offensive attack from him. Instead of being defensive and being like, let's just monitor the convo. Let's see what happens. In the weeks leading up to the premiere of the movie, Baldoni realized that Ryan Reynolds had blocked him on Instagram. And so as a result, they seem to have. Again, all of this is alleged Baldoni's PR agent, who he's worked with for a very long time, named Jennifer Abel. So it's his publicist. She then hired or they say retained, a crisis communications specialist named Melissa Nathan and her company called the Agency Group pr, AKA Tag. They refer to it as Tag. Throughout this lawsuit, she is. The company is financially backed by a company owned by Scooter Braun. So we're going to get to that later as well. Allegedly, that was in an article. So Ms. Nathan sent a proposer to Baldone, a proposal to Baldoni and his publicist Jennifer Abel, in which they said would include a website, full Reddit, full social account takedowns. What does that mean? Are they able to block people? That comes up again later. Full social crisis team on hand for anything, engage with audiences in the right way and start threads of theories. So again, threads of theories. This means that they didn't have facts, in my opinion, to back up that he was innocent in the sexual misconduct. Instead, they were going to put out theories to undermine Blake Lively and any stories that she might put out. So all of this was set in motion because he realized that Ryan Reynolds had blocked him on Instagram. They also proposed to explore planting stories about the weaponization of feminism. Now, this is something that happened to Amber Heard as well, and that is something that did end up happening in this narrative. They even say at one point in the lawsuit filing that Blake Lively is close to Taylor Swift, who has had negative stories about her weaponizing feminism. And so that's something that they're willing to lean into. Okay, again, read it on your own. This is all alleged. The most damning piece for me is when Ms. Abel and Ms. Nathan, again, two publicist working on behalf of Baldoni exchange text messages. And this is what the messages say. So Baldoni had said to one of his publicists that he wants Blake Lively to feel like she can be buried. Okay, that's important. So now the publicists are talking amongst each other and they say, you can of course, do that. So, like, you know how to bury someone. I do think he needs to know I'm going to confidentially send you something that he's texting me. And Jamie on the side, just to arm you before this call, I think you guys need to be tough and show the strength of what you guys can do in these scenarios. He wants her to feel like she can be buried. Okay, now, the publicist on retainer replies, of course, but, you know, when we send over documents, we can't send over the work we will or could do because that could get us in a lot of trouble. Keep that in mind. Why could it get them in trouble? What are they doing? Are they manipulating algorithms? Are they manipulating social media algorithms? Are they heating up videos on the for you page? Are they cooling them down? Think about that. And then she follows it up and says, we can't write it down to him. We can't write, we will destroy her. We will go to this. We will do this. We will do this. We will do this. So she's saying, like, we'll tell him bullet points of what we can do, but we can't outright say, we will destroy her. He has to look at it as an information document for us to be armed with. That is all. Imagine if a document saying all the things he wants ends up in the wrong hands. And then she ends it with, you know, we can bury anyone, but I can't write that to him. I will. I will be very tough. What do they mean, bury someone? And how did they get these messages, by the way? How did they get these messages? Now, another text thread that is included now is Baldoni sent a screenshot of a Twitter thread about Hailey Bieber. And the Twitter said it says something like, Hailey Bieber's history of bullying many women, including Selena Gomez. Okay, this is a Twitter thread. And then Baldoni sent a screenshot of that to. They don't clarify who this message was. Okay. No, it was sent to Abel. So how do people get these screenshots? That's what's confusing me, anyways. And he said, this is what we would need. And then the publicist replied, yes. I literally just spoke to Melissa about this on the break, about what we discussed last night for social and digital focus on Reddit, TikTok and IG. And then I added a note here in relation to Hailey Bieber. If a woman is labeled as a mean girl in the media, then anything awful that happens to them is now justified. In the next page, they talk about how the retaliation campaign relied on more than just publicists and crisis managers spinning stories. That's normal in the PR game, right? People spin stories all the time. But they also. This is the most interesting part of the doc for me that I couldn't figure out as someone who works on the social side, it kind of freaked me out. They also retained subcontractors, including a Texas based contractor named Jed Wallace. Now, I tried to look this person up. Very mysterious. You can't really find any information about him online other than he's based in Austin, Texas. Wallace allegedly weaponized a digital army around the country from New York to Los Angeles to create, seed and promote content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and Internet chat forums. They would then feed pieces of this manufactured content to unwitting reporters, making content go viral in order to influence public opinion and thereby cause an organic pile on. They created, planned, amplified, and this is important, boosted content designed to eviscerate Ms. Lively's credibility. So boosted content and it wasn't paid. It wasn't paid promotion. So how was he able to boost it? I mean, a TikTok about this. They're almost implying, in my opinion, that this guy somehow has connections to TikTok, either through employees that work there, or he has a team of people that got jobs at TikTok and, or Reddit and. Or Instagram. And they were able to. TikTok got in trouble for this a while ago. They were allegedly heating up videos and cooling down videos. So if they liked your account, they felt like you were in line, you were hitting all the talking points they wanted, they would boost your account in the algorithm if you were going off script, if you were talking about something controversial or they didn't like your videos as a creator, someone at TikTok could hit a button and it would cool down your account so you wouldn't get any views. So they're implying that people that were making videos in support of Baldoni were being heated up in the algorithm. And anyone making videos that were contrasting Baldoni and more in support of Blake Lively, they were being cooled down. How was he able to do that? That's kind of scary. So on August 10, the day after the release of the film, Ms. Nathan's team reported that they had started to see shift on social due largely to Judd and his team's efforts to shift the narrative. That is what one of the publicists texted. And then this is another damning piece that really got me was one of the publicists said to the other publicist, the majority, okay, this is the day after the movie came out, okay, the majority of socials are so pro Justin and I don't even agree with half of them. Interesting. They then go on to say, Ms. Nathan then bragged to Ms. Abel that Baldoni doesn't realize how lucky he is right now. By which they were referring to the successful efforts to shut down stories that would have revealed how Baldoni's behavior, including connotations on set, had made Cass and crew beyond lively uncomfortable. So Ms. Lively was not the only one raising alarm bells. And I said, this is confirmation from his own team that other cast members felt uncomfortable by just a Baldoni and not just Blake Lively. They then text his own team is texting this evidence of his own behavior? The whispering in the ear, the connotations, like Jesus Christ. Other members feeling uncomfortable watching it. I mean, there's just so much. This is what they are saying about Justin Baldoni, his own team. Less than one week later, they again bragged about how they had shut down stories regarding HR complaints on set. They said, jen, this went so well, I'm effing dying. I have to call you later in a bit to tell you how this went. It's genius. Then the other ones or. And then she replied again. So, okay, we have the four major standing down on HR complaint. I think we are fine on that bit. Then say on August 16, Ms. Nathan circulated a Daily Mail article entitled String of hard to watch videos that have surfaced following Tone deaf Q and A to promote it ends with us that could tarnish 36 year old star's golden Hollywood image for good. And then one of the publicists said, wow, you really outdid yourself with this piece. And then Nathan replied, that's why you hired me, right? I'm the best. And then it comes up later that one of the journalists that they were working with who was publishing or helping publish negative articles about Blake Lively was the sister of one of the publicists. Okay, it's crazy. I really encourage you guys to read this whole lawsuit. As their own words reveal, the purpose of this social manipulation plan was twofold. It aimed to one, conceal the pattern of harassment and other misconduct by Baldoni, Heath and Wafer, and B, retaliate against Lively by battering her image, harming her businesses and causing her and her family severe emotional harm. Millions of people, including many reporters and influencers who saw these planted stories, social media posts and other online content had no idea they were unwitting consumers of a crisis pr, astroturfing and digital retaliation campaign. I had no idea that this was happening, okay? I had no idea. And that is precisely the goal of an astroturfing campaign. To light the fire and continue to stroke conversations, secretly blurring the line between authentic and manufactured content. So the first 10 to 12 pages of this document are outlining what they believe was evidence of astroturfing and a social campaign against Lively. And then starting around page 13, they go into more details of the Baldoni and Jamie Heath instances of inappropriate behavior on set. So they slightly touch on them in that letter that is mentioned in the beginning. But there's more detailed descriptions here. And I'll just go through a couple that caught my eye. For instance, Mr. Baldoni discreetly bit and sucked on Ms. Lively's lower lip during a scene in which he improvised numerous kisses on each take. Mr. Baldoni insisted on shooting the full scene over and over again, well beyond what would have been required on an ordinary set. That's weird, right? And then another one here, and I'm assuming this is maybe what his team was referring to with the. The text messages where they said like the whispering in the ear was weird and so they say. On another occasion, Baldoni and Lively were filming a slow dance scene for a montage in which no sound was recorded. Baldoni chose to let the camera roll and have them perform the scene, but did not act in character. Israel. Instead, he spoke to Lively out of character as himself. At one point, he leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from ear and down her neck as he said, it smells so good. None of this was remotely in character or based on any dialogue in the script. And nothing needed to be said because again, there was no sound. Mr. Baldoni was caressing Ms. Lively with his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with their roles. When Ms. Lively later objected to this behavior. This is the freaking ringer. Baldoni response was, I'm not even attracted to you. Another part he says that Ms. Lively objected to these additions. So he kept adding in more scenes that were not already part of the script because he wanted to make the film through the female gaze. Although he agreed to remove certain scenes, he made a last ditch attempt to keep one in, in which the couple orgasm together on their wedding night, which he said was important to him because he and his partner climax simultaneously during intercourse. Mr. Baldoni then intrusively asked Ms. Lively whether she and her husband simultaneously during intercourse, which Ms. Lively found invasive and refused to discuss. On the day of shooting the scene in which Ms. Lively's character gives birth, Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath suddenly pressured Ms. Lively to simulate full nudity. Despite no mention of nudity for the scene in the script, Baldoni insisted to Lively that women give birth. Of course, a man is like mansplaining. Birth to a woman with four kids and that his wife had ripped her clothes off during labor. He claimed it was not normal for women to remain in hospital gowns while giving birth. Again, a man explaining to a woman how birth happens. Ms. Lively disagreed, but felt forced into a compromise that she would be from below the chest down when the birth scene was filmed. The set was chaotic, crowded and utterly lacking in standard industry protections for filming nude scenes. Mr. Heath and Baldoni also failed to close the set, allowing non essential crew to pass through, while Ms. Lively was mostly nude with her legs spread wide in stirrups and only a small piece of fabric covering her hoo ha. Among the non essential persons present that day was Wayfarer Co chairman Mr. Sarwit. So that's the billionaire that said he could ruin her life. Allegedly. Ms. Lively became even more alarmed when Mr. Baldoni introduced his best friend to play the role of the ob gyn, when ordinarily a small role of this nature would be filled by a local actor. Odd. And then, to add Insult to injury, Mr. Heath approached Ms. Lively and her assistant on set and started playing a video of a fully woman with her legs. Ms. Lively thought that he was showing her pee corn and stopped him. Mr. Heath explained that the video was his wife giving birth. Ms. Lively was alarmed and asked Mr. Heath if his wife knew he was sharing the video, to which he replied, she isn't weird about this stuff. As if Ms. Lively was weird for not welcoming it. Ms. Lively and her assistant excuse themselves, stunned that he had shown them that video. And then this part was also pretty crazy. Mr. Baldoni added a detailed scene to the film in which an underage version of Ms. Lively's character Lily, loses her virginity. In both the book and the script for the film, there was no scene. Instead it was left to the audience's imagination. But Mr. Baldoni added in considerable details, including both dialogue between young Lily and her boyfriend about the loss of, as well as simulated scenes in which Mr. Baldoni filmed and included in his initial cut of the film a close up of young Lily's face. Again, a character that is supposed to be underage, accompanied by an audible gasp at the moment of insert. Ms. Lively was informed that when this scene was shot, after Mr. Baldoni called cut, he walked over to the actors again playing underage characters and said, I know I'm not supposed to say this, but that was hot. And did you two practice before? This is all in the lawsuit. You guys can read it, okay? I'm just reading out what it says. All Right. I'm not saying to have an opinion other than my opinion is that it is weird. Now let's move on. They then go on to discuss odd encounters between Lively and Baldoni and Heath in the form of conversations. Maybe not on set, but just between the three of them and others. Baldoni during a car ride said, did I always ask for consent? No. Did I always listen when they said no? No. Mr. Baldoni claimed this was an example of how we all have things from which we can learn and grow. Ms. Lively was unsettled by Baldoni's suggestion that he had engaged in conduct without consent. And when Ms. Lively exited the car, her driver immediately remarked that he did not want Ms. Lively to be alone with Baldoni going forward. Another one that I highlighted and put in all caps. Day 1 On the first day of production, Baldoni and Heath described their past relationship to Ms. Lively s relationship, including that one of them used to hook up with a woman. And Mr. Baldoni said that he decided the woman wasn't the one for him. So then Mr. Heath, his best friend had gotten with the girl after miss Lively found this description of passing along a woman to be disrespectful and disturbing. There's other things in which they discuss other conversations such as about. Etc. Again, this is a 70 page document. I encourage you guys to read your own. I'm just referencing the ones that caught my eye. Mr. Baldoni objectified Ms. Lively and other women by commenting on or criticizing their bodies as objects. Mr. Baldoni often referred to women in the workplace as sexy. And when they expressed discomfort, Baldoni would deflect or try to pass it off, which undermined Lively and others concerns. For example, on one occasion that Lively observed, he told a female cast member that her leather pants looked sexy when she arrived on set. When she rebuffed his comment because she was uncomfortable rather than apologizing, he brushed off by saying I can say that because my wife is here today. Like referring like it's not cheating because she can like hear me saying it. I don't. It's odd. She then talks about like wearing a low cut dress because she had to breastfeed that day, but being covered up with a coat and then them wanting her to like show the dress that was showing her chest more. And then Baldoni said I think you look sexy. And then b. And then Blake Lively said that's not what I'm going for. And then he said I'm sorry hot. And then Ms. Lively said I'm not going for that either. And Then he responded sarcastically, I guess I missed the HR meeting and walked off. Another woman on production spoke to Lively afterwards and offered empathy to share her own experience with Baldoni, commenting on her in actual terms. They then talk about how whenever they would rebuff Baldonis and he, well, innuendos and comments, then they would become really cold to them on set and their behavior would be unpredictable, so they felt like they were being retaliated against. When this would happen, they then say, to make matters worse, when Lively tried to have a meeting with Mr. Heath and other producers to discuss Baldoni's unprofessional behavior, that meeting turned yet into another violation rather than an ordinary meeting time and place. Mr. Heath arrived unannounced to Lively's hair and makeup trailer while she was topless and having body makeup removed by makeup artists. Lively told Heath that she was almost done and they could meet up once she was clothed. Heath, however, insisted that if she didn't allow him to enter her trailer to speak at that moment, then there would be no meeting with other producers. Lively reluctantly agreed, but asked Mr. Heath keep his back turned. A few minutes into the conversation, Lively noticed that Heath was staring directly at her and she was topless when she called him out. Heath brushed it off as a habit of wanting to look at a person when he's speaking to them. Ms. Lively and her hair and makeup artists were deeply disturbed by this interaction. And it was just the second day of filming, so keep in mind, this is the second day of filming and Blake Lively is already raising alarm bells about sex conduct by Baldoni. And then she's further violated, allegedly, when they try to have a conversation with her to make her feel comfortable. That's interesting, right? Throughout filming, Baldoni and Heath invaded Lively's privacy by entering her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including breastfeeding. Baldoni routinely degraded Lively by finding back channel ways of criticizing her body and weight. A few weeks before filming began and less than four months after Lively had given birth to her fourth child, Lively was humiliated to learn that Baldoni secretly called her fitness trainer without her knowledge or permission and implied to the trainer that she wanted her to lose weight. In two weeks, Baldoni told the trainer that he had asked because he was concerned about having to pick up Lively. In a scene when Lively caught strep throat, Baldoni offered her a gift to connect her with an expert that he had on retainer. When Lively went to fill out the privacy forms, she saw that the expert was not what Baldoni had represented. Them to be, but was instead a weight loss specialist. Again, Lively felt like he was shaming her for her body weight. Ms. Lively was also told by another producer that because Wayfarer did not have insurance coverage for Covid, that they were not implementing the right COVID protocols. Baldoni and Mr. Heath deliberately withheld from Lively that she had been exposed to Covid. And then Lively and her infant child contracted Covid because of this outbreak. Then they go into how Sony kind of brushed off the grievances and safety issues and sort of allegedly handed it back to the production. Was like, we're not involved in the actual making of the film, just a distribution. And I put here that it seems like a case of hot potato. And then she also mentioned somewhere in this, I'll. If I can find it, I'll add it on the screen. But that he would bring up things that she couldn't control or change in the course of filming, such as her weight and her age. And after the first day, when paparazzi photos leaked of them filming this movie, he came into her trailer and cried for hours, delaying production, saying that the press was saying that she was too old and, like, didn't look right to play Lily Bloom. And she's like, what do you want me to do? Like, I can't change that. And so it was just a violation. It seemed like maybe it was a manipulated way to shame her. But, yeah, that he was crying in her trailer for hours. And everyone on set was delayed because of this fiasco. They then go to talk about the. The strike that happened and how that delayed production. And that was kind of a moment where Blake Lively was able to say, like, she won't return to set unless these things are acknowledged and addressed. In which that letter, Baldoni's team acknowledged and said, we find most of them not only reasonable, but also essential for the benefit of all parties involved. I'm surprised that an intimacy coordinator wasn't, like, part of the contract to begin. So then, one of the provisions in the letter that both teams acknowledged was the 10th provision, in which it said, there shall be no retaliation of any kind against Lively for raising concerns about the conduct described in this letter or for these requirements. Any changes in attitude, sarcasm, marginalization, or other negative behavior, either on set or otherwise, including during publicity and promotional work as a result of these requests is retaliatory and unacceptable and will be met with immediate action. And I said in the notes, this feels like a foreshadow. Probably why the alleged smear campaign was so subtle and his team did not want a written record of what they were going to do. Neither Baldoni or Heath denied the veracity of Ms. Lively's examples. So again, they didn't deny what she was bringing up. Then they talk about how she was kind of set up in the press because they were told by Sony and the distributors that and this was signed in the contract, in the marketing materials that when they were to promote the movie, they all agreed that they wanted the messaging to be around, as they say, focus more on her character's strength and resilience, as opposed to describing the film as a story of domestic violence. So that was in the contract. And it even said, avoid talking about this film. That makes it feel sad or heavy. So these are in their promotional contracts. Okay? And so this was something that Lively signed and other cast members signed. So as they begin promoting the film, and at this point, Baldoni has realized that Ryan Reynolds blocked him on Instagram and has allegedly started this covert offensive move against Lively and tarnishing her reputation. Baldoni, and they say in the lawsuit, publicly embraced the marketing plan early on in May. But as they began to get closer to the film, and he realized that with the release of the film, nearly all cast members chose to appear in public separately from Baldoni, given his on set behavior. That is when he became concerned that the public would discover that something is much bigger under the surface. And that is when him and his team came up with a plan allegedly to deviate from the agreed upon marketing materials and instead only highlight stories about domestic violence and lean into the what? I mean, I think that should have been the messaging of the story the whole time. Like, I was traumatized when I saw the movie, so I think that was correct. But the reason it set up Blake Lively and the other cast is that they had agreed in a contract to not acknowledge the domestic violence in the promotional material. So Baldoni going against that contract then made him look like the good guy because he was the only one talking about it. And then his team, they talk about how they really, really wanted Baldoni to lean into the fact that he had been ostracized from the cast because he chose to lean into the domestic violence storyline and that that was why they were ostracizing him. That's what I believed. But that's not what happened. The cast was sticking to the contract. They then start talking about they have more messages between Baldoni and his publicist. And the team followed Baldoni's instruction. For her part, Ms. Abel concluded it doesn't feel performative now. That you've done major substantial press on the topic. And on August 11, 2024, Ms. Abel laid out a posting timeline to Baldoni and the team, stating a theater surprise. And then I think survivor content first thing tomorrow morning, which will then be helpful for the news cycle. And I remember Baldoni posting an Instagram story of like, a DM he got from a woman about, like, how she'd experienced domestic violence and felt touched by the movie. So it's interesting seeing this play out in real time in the lawsuit and their messages. By repositioning Mr. Baldoni's marketing of the film on information and belief, Baldoni hoped to create the false impression that he had chosen not to appear alongside other cast members. Baldoni directed his team to share his public Instagram feed the private messages he received from survivors sharing their stories of domestic violence. Baldoni's team talked him out of this idea, writing they do not recommend using private DMS as content. Baldoni went so far as proposing to share a video of a woman's birth moment. I don't this keeps coming back to like pregnancy and birth and I don't know if there's like a kink there, but it just keeps happening. But his team talked him out of it, warning that it might be perceived as weird and was too intimate. Still, Mr. Baldoni's team was more than willing to deploy survivor stories, reactions and images to protect Mr. Baldoni's image. Then they go into when they were formulating a retaliatory plan in the lead up to the movie coming out. So this is them talking about, like, for example, things involve Ryan Reynolds. And they say on May 17, 2024, Baldoni texted his publicist Jennifer Abel that Ms. Lively's husband had blocked him on social media, stating, we should have a plan for if she does the same when the movie comes out. And I said, here seems Ryan Reynolds blocking Baldoni was the catalyst for upping the smear campaign versus letting it passively play out. 26, 2024. Baldoni sent Abel a Variety article about Francis Ford Coppola's inappropriate behavior on set during production of his movie Megalopolis, including the alleged kiss of cast and crew as described by unnamed sources in the. In conveying the article, Baldoni stated, this is the shit that I'm sure they want to do, unnamed sources, etc. So interesting. They then talk about how tags services include messaging and narrative developments, media relations, crisis communication and management, and digital and social strategy. So about a week or two before the movie comes out is when they then are not only working with their longtime publicist, Jennifer Abel, but they then recruit Tag management, which is owned by a company owned or there's a huge financial stakeholder, allegedly, which is a company owned by Scooter Braun. We'll get to that later. As set fourth above, on August 5, 2024, this is Days before the movie comes out, Baldoni sent Abel a screenshot of a thread on X regarding another female public figure's alleged history of bullying many women. This was a picture of Hailey Bieber and he stated, this is what we would need. Melissa Nathan, the Tag publicist, stated, all of this will most importantly be untraceable. There is a lot more to both of these quotes, but easier to discuss via phone in terms of capabilities and what I've personally experienced in and out of crisis scenarios. So this is them basically saying that they are having phone calls so that there is no text proof of what she is capable of and what she can do. Again, what is she able to do and why is she not allowed to disclose it? Do they have access to algorithms? Do they have access to employees at TikTok? Do they have access to employees at Instagram? How are they able to manipulate algorithms, Reddit threads? And as they mentioned in the lawsuit, Melissa Nathan's sister is one of the journalists that they were feeding articles to, allegedly who I believe was writing for Page Six or Daily Mail, one of the two. They then in one of the correspondence mentioned Taylor Swift's fan base that is adjacent to Blake Lively as to why they are taking it extremely seriously. So they said, saying that full transparency is key here. We've seen the most innocuous issues from form giant due to socials or the hugest crisis have no effect on social whatsoever. You cannot tell at this stage. But Blake Lively does have some of the Twitter Taylor Swift, sorry guys, dyslexia, Taylor Swift fan base. So we will be taking it extremely seriously. And then again they said all of this most importantly will be untraceable. So how did the information leak again? One of the publicists kind of alleges to how it leaked, which I'll talk about in the paid portion at the end. And then it says Baldoni, Heath and Wayfarer perpetuate a retaliation scheme against Lively in which Tag describes social manipulation plan and the boosting of content. Sometimes the very content that Tag and its affiliates had seeded. The suppressing of negative content about Baldoni and amplifying negative content about Lively. Again, I said, do they have employees working Inside Instagram and TikTok? How are they organically boosting? And they even mentioned at one point that I believe it was like one of the Reddit threads about Blake Lively that went viral that depicted her in a negative manner that was posted by Tag pr. They were able to link it back to Tag print. So they're in these Reddit threads. They then say, so Jennifer Abel is saying this about one of the meetings that she had. Thanks for the call. Confidentially, I'm out to dinner with A friend of 12 plus years who writes for People magazine, Fox News In Touch, Us Weekly, and she is fully briefed on the situation and is armed and ready to take this story of Blake weaponizing feminism to any of her outfits. Litz, the minute we give her the green light, she hates Blake, has heard this story before and will do anything for us. Just FYI with a smiley face. And again, I said so much of Hollywood impress is friends and favors. They then say how Mr. Baldoni wanted to feel like Lively could be buried. And they're just kind of going over the messages where they're talking about how they don't want a record of what they're going to do to Blively. And then Baldoni's publicist, Jennifer Abel, texted Melissa Nathan stating, I'm having reckless thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week of how horrible Blake is to work with just to get ahead of it. She's putting us through hell. So I'm interested if they're ever going to disclose what they meant by she's putting us through hell, because they don't really acknowledge what they meant in these messages. That was the, like, bulk of the lawsuit. And then I'm going to get into the paid portion where I'm going to be discussing what just came out, which was Baldoni's publicist, Jennifer Abel, who we mentioned a lot in this video. She posted in a private Facebook thread a response to all of this. So we'll go over that, her insinuation as to where the text messages were leaked, and then we'll also go over the timing, why Blake Lively released it when she did, because I think there's a strategy here, the Taylor Swift Scooter Braun connection, and then kind of just like final thoughts. So. And this part is scripted out like I usually do my podcast, so it's going to be a lot more cohesive than when I was going through the whole docket with you guys. So if you're interested in hearing more thoughts, then you can go over to kokomoco.substack.com and become a paying member of the bestselling substack if you're not already to unlock the extended episode. Again, no commercials. You guys, let me do this. You support me so I can bring the best quality podcast possible without cutting every five minutes for a random ad. I don't want to call out certain companies, so we are going to get into the paid portion now of this podcast. For those of you watching the free thank you so much and the paying coconuts.