← Fame Under Fire
Fame Under Fire
Blake Lively v Justin Baldoni: trial evidence battle and what the jury may not hear
00:29:37
Legal bids to block witnesses and viral footage before trial
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- [00:00]
Johnny Diamond
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
- [00:07]
Sean Kent
Support is available 24. 7 with VRBoCare. We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help. Because a great trip starts with the right support.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Hello, and welcome back to Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me, Anishka Matanda Dougherty. Just a month left until I'm in the courtroom in the Southern District of New York giving you daily updates on the Blake Lively Justin Baldoni trial. Just to recap, we told you last episode, the sexual harassment claims have been dismissed, but three claims survive, including retaliation, and Justin Baldoni and the rest of the defendants continue to deny these claims. Now, we have gone over in detail which evidence both sides want in front of that jury. But over the weekend, we got to see what they absolutely do not want brought up in court and who they do not want taking the stand. And it is fascinating. Joining me to break this all down is our resident trial attorney, Sean Kent from South Carolina. Hi, Sean.
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Sean Kent
Hey, Anushka. How are you guys doing?
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
I mean, our relationship has been tested in the past couple of days, hasn't it, Sean?
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Sean Kent
I. I learned a very valuable lesson. Don't have a secondary job when you're dealing with Anushka because she needs to make sure things are going on point for a specific amount of time. I have learned a valuable lesson. I would like to apologize. I will make sure that secondary job does not get into the way any more of Fame Under Fire. I said name.
- [01:37]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Oh, he knows the name of the podcast. Only taking 107 episodes, but, yes, I'm used to you picking up the phone after one ring, and he wasn't responding to me yesterday, and I was like, oh, my God, he's dead. Turns out he was just in court. But, you know, Sean, I was freaking out because there's nobody I can go through motions in limine with. My least favorite thing to say, but most favorite thing to read. This is what we got filed in the docket. They are so revealing. But can you just remind everybody what on earth the motion in limine is?
- [02:05]
Sean Kent
So they file these motion in limine, which is just a fancy way to say we want to limit what the jury hears because some of this stuff would cloud their mind so badly that one of the sides believes they would not get a fair trial. So they file these motion and limine early and say, judge, don't let the jury accidentally hear any other stuff, because once you hear it once, you can't. The phrase we use, unring the bell. And so that's why they File these motion of limine early so nobody can hear this stuff in front of the jury.
- [02:34]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
So we have 19 motions in limine filed by the defendants. And we have eight motions in limine filed by the plaintiff, Blake Lively. We won't go through them all because we're going to be here all day. And as we have established, allegedly Sean has another job. But we have picked some that are going to be of particular interest. And a lot of this is ground we have covered before. We are, may I say, predicting these legal arguments. Now we've got the crystal ball, but we're going to alternate. This is fair. We don't like one side more than we like the other. Contrary to what's going on on social media. We're going to start with Blake. Now, this is motion eliminate number eight. Do you guys remember this video?
- [03:12]
Sean Kent
First of all, congrats on your little bump.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Congrats on your little bump. So the document asked the court to preclude defendants from calling non party Shashti Floor as a witness. I apologize if I'm not pronouncing that. I did watch the video of her pronouncing her name many, many times. Shashti Floor. Now, she is the journalist in that junket who says congratulations on bump to Blake Lively. So the document carries on. It says her sole connection to this litigation is that on August 10, 2024, a day after the film's premiere, and as defendants harmful narrative concerning Ms. Lively was gaining traction online, Ms. Floor posted to her YouTube channel a 2016 press junket interview she conducted with Ms. Lively. That's the video you just heard, which the doc. The document the motion in limine lays out was titled, quote, the Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job. Ms. Floor, it continues, has since publicly characterized the interview as a, quote, traumatizing experience and maintains that her decision to post the 8 year old video in 2024 was unrelated to Mr. Baldoni. Or it ends with us. It goes on saying, quote, Since August 2024, Ms. Floor has posted hundreds of videos on her YouTube channel. That's correct. We have checked this. Critical of Ms. Lively and sold merchandise through her Etsy shop containing disparaging messages about Ms. Lively and expressing support for defendants. Okay, so one of the reasons they don't want this going forward is because they say Ms. Floor's testimony will inevitably echo. Sean, you've said this before. You've said it since the start. Inevitably echo her numerous public statements describing Ms. Lively as a rude person and exuding quote, mean girl energy. Now they say that this is inadmissible under 404A. I'm getting flashbacks to Diddy.
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Sean Kent
Here it comes.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Here come these 404s. Sean, what's 404A?
- [04:56]
Sean Kent
When we talk about 404A evidence? And it goes to a bunch of litany of rules. Federal rules, 404, 404 A, 404 B. All of these rules are designed for one thing. Very specifically, we are trying to keep impermissible character evidence away from a jury. And that's what that rule specifically starts out for. We want a jury to decide a case based upon what Blake believes happened and what the other team says did not. We don't want extraneous information from the outside. So 404 evidence specifically says the character of somebody is almost always impermissible. And if you go back to what we have talked about in Nushka before, what we also don't want to have is a layperson, a regular person. And this goes into some of Blake's motions. Also give opinion testimony. We only allow opinion testimony to be suggested by an expert.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Okay, so this makes sense to me in the way that she could get up there and speak to her character, and then that would make the jury think she's more or less likely to act in a certain way. And then you're basing that off of an individual's experience and opinion. However, her point that she had nothing to do with the defendants, she had nothing to do with it ends with us or with Melissa Nathan or any of them. And she posted this organically. Doesn't that directly speak to the defendant's argument that this wasn't a retaliation campaign? This stuff came up naturally. It's not our fault that you did a bad interview and she's going to testify that she posted of her own accord.
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Sean Kent
And that's why we talked about the exceptions. Because then when you start with 404A, you usually can't get into character. There's other rules, 607, 608, 609, that allow someone's reputation there in the community to sometimes come in. And that's what Justin Baldoni side is saying is this isn't her opinion. This is Blake's reputation in the community.
- [06:51]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
I thought it was interesting, and I hadn't immediately thought about this. And when I was reading the document, they lay out, okay, she might get up there and testify that she posted this organically, which. Which doesn't speak to a retaliation campaign. But actually what we need to prove is that they bolstered the video, not that they caused her to post it. We need to show that she posted it. After the film came out, it blew up. It gained traction at, like, an unprecedented rate. And I was like, that's a. It's a niche, interesting distinction in the retaliation campaign.
- [07:20]
Sean Kent
Absolutely. And that's why. It's pretty clear why Blake wants that to stay out. Because. And that's one of the things. And I'm glad we brought up 404, because we talk about it and you've said it. Propensity, evidence. You talk about prejudicial effect on certain things, and is it probative? And those are the phrases that we lose, that the court does a balancing test. And when we talk about this balancing test, Anushka, what they do with almost all of this evidence is they start out with 404 evidence. They say this should or should not be allowed in. But after we do that, we're going to get into what's called a 403 balancing, and we're going to check and see if we allow this stuff in. Is it prejudicial? And is the prejudicial effect of allowing her to say that Blake was a mean girl before any of this stuff happened, does that overtake the probative value that it would give to the jury? The jury needing to have information to make a decision? And that's a balance that every court has got to decide when they're trying to admit this type of 404A evidence in. In front of a jury.
- [08:25]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Okay, let's go to the defendants. This one speaks directly about Justin Baldoni. This is motion in limine number three. It says, quote, Lively, Blake Lively may attempt to introduce evidence concerning her claim that Baldoni admitted to sexually assaulting other unspecified women. Defendants respectfully submit that Baldoni never made any such admissions and never engaged in such conducts. Regardless, Lively's inflammatory evidence should be excluded. They continue, quote, any sexual harassment that Lively may seek to prove in this case pales in comparison to allegations of sexual assault. For these reasons, evidence related to sexual assault should be excluded here. Doesn't this all come down to what the actual evidence is that she's going to present? Because there they're saying, you know, he completely denies this, but we don't have a sense of whether it's going to be hearsay or whether she's got, you know, something a bit more substantive to put in front of the jury.
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Sean Kent
And this one requires a little bit deeper of a. I don't want to say a deeper dive, but a More complex analysis. One, the first question you have to make the decision of is Justin Baldoni still a defendant? And remember, most of those cases making him as an individual defendant have been left out. Or is he just a witness? Now let's assume that he is just a witness. What they are saying is if you are a witness, the only thing that should be allowed to come in in front of the jury is, is your credibility for truthfulness. Because when you take the stand, what the jury should be able to judge is if you're a liar or not because you're giving information. And so they should bring out anything that could show that Justin could or could not be a liar. So Blake should be able to go through every time they think he has lied about something. Justin's team is saying you're trying to bring in things that go into, remember our 404 analysis that go to my specific character. And that is specifically what 404 evidence does not allow. Whether it's true or whether it's not true, you should not be able to get into character information. And two, we're saying it didn't happen. And three, even if it did happen, it has nothing to do with your retaliation claim because you did not know anything about it at the time. The example I think I gave to you the other day is we have a lot of self defense claims going on in South Carolina. I've had some before. And so what ends up happening is we get the discovery, we get all the evidence and we find that somebody has shot and killed somebody else. And later in the discovery, we discover the person they shot was wanted for murder, had assaulted four or five other people at the same time, has a prior criminal record for shooting four or five people. But the problem is our client didn't know these things at the time. So even though this person is potentially a bad person, you still have to show that the person who shot them at the time knew these things. And so the jury should know it. If you don't know it, you just can't bring in the fact that they're a bad person. And that's what Justin's argument is. True or not true, you didn't know all this stuff about me.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
The next one from Blake. This is motion in the mini number one, which is precluding improper character evidence and late opinion concerning Ms. Lively's reputation. So we're going to talk about something that we've spoken about multiple, multiple times on this podcast. But it says throughout the case, defendants have insisted, both in and out of court, that the reputational harm Ms. Lively suffered was not caused by anything the defendants did, but instead by an organic backlash to Ms. Lively's own statements that relied substantially on unflattering conduct by Ms. Lively from years past. It goes on to say they're trying to smuggle into evidence a combination of gossip, rumor, hearsay, and speculative lay opinion in lieu of admissible evidence. Their objective is to attack Ms. Lively with impermissible character evidence while misleading the jury into believing that their curated laundry list of old events must have played some role in the overwhelmingly negative ship in public sentiment against her in August of 2024. Now, we have covered in detail the plantation wedding. It says alleged plantation wedding, but it's not alleged. They did have a wedding on a plantation. Boone hall, around the corner from you, Sean, as you know, but I didn't know. She also ran a website called Preserve, which critics have said romanticized the antebellum south, which is a period of history in the US before the Civil War, pre emancipation, a society that was defined by slavery and horrific violence. Now, she also did a photo shoot called the Allure of the Antebellum. So she's facing critic, and that is what that article, Blake Lively wants to return to a time of cute hats and slavery is about. And all of this evidence, all of these exhibits, they want kept away from the eyes of those jurors. And then the article where she is alleged to have used a slur against the transgender community in something that she said, and they're saying this is just going to prejudice a jury against her. We've just gone over that. Sean. I completely understand bringing these exhibits in when it comes to a defamation claim, because her cognizable damages, that's up for dispute. Because have you defamed her if her reputation was already so bad? But does that still stand for a retaliation claim as well? Because the defamation's gone. Do you get what I'm saying?
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Sean Kent
Absolutely. And there's two ways to answer that. One that goes through damages. If your reputation was already damaged, how could we have damaged it anymore? So maybe we did do the retaliation, but you're not entitled to any damages because you are already damaged. And if you look at the words of the motion limity, they specifically say they want to exclude lay witness testimony. So when they're saying lay witness testimony, this is what we talked about earlier. They're trying to exclude. Here's my phrase, John Q. Public, from getting on the stand and said, Blake is a bad person. This is the opinion of her. Because here's the thing, if you take those evidence and just randomly put it on, you're saying, well, you guys must see that people hate her. Well, that's an opinion. And remember, we talked about this opinion. Testimony is not allowed in front of a jury. To get in front of a jury, you must be qualified as an Expert under Rule 702 in federal procedure. And what an expert is, is somebody who has a heightened sense of credibility. They have certain knowledge, they have certain training, they have certain skill that makes them. You remember we went through the Diddy case. These people are trained as experts. And as an expert, what they're allowed to do is first they get qualified. You've gone to school, you've written books, you've done talk shows, you've testified before as an expert. Yes. The court now qualifies you as an expert. So then the person can look at the jury and says, in my expert opinion, based upon qualification, she's a mean girl. Without that, you can't. But she's going to have to testify. And when she testifies, her credibility comes with her. And they're just going to ask her about it.
- [15:01]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
One thing that you just said that was like, ooh, is there a world in which she could prove that there was a retaliation, there was retaliatory activity, there was a smear camp campaign, but she cannot prove her cognizable damages because they've managed to convince people that her reputation was shot anyway. So she can kind of win, lose, win, lose, lose, win. That could happen.
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Sean Kent
It happens all the time. That we find for the plaintiff and award the sum of $1.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Get out of here.
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Sean Kent
That has happened, that they're saying you are right and not to jump ahead. But now you're starting to understand these motion and lemonies. Isn't there a certain motion and limine, Old Blake says, I don't want this jury to know how much money we got.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Yep.
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Sean Kent
And now you're starting to put together what the lawyers are doing. The same analysis you're doing is what the lawyers are doing. Because wait a minute, they could find for us and be like, you don't need this money, or you're not entitled to this money. Something happened to you and you were not damaged. Your reputation was awful before that. I mean, all of that goes in now. You're starting to understand the purpose of the motion. And limine. It's a test match that both sides are playing because they're doing exactly what you're doing right now, Nushka. They're playing the case out and they're saying what'll happen if this happens?
- [16:08]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Yeah, we're going to get to what you just said because I'm going to motion in limine number seven from the defendants. The document says the Wayfarer parties anticipate that plaintiff will seek to introduce excerpts of a secretly taped 38 minute recording of an August 29, 2024 conversation between a third party and Steve Sarevitz, in which he states an intent to vigorously defend his studio, Wayfarer, against any claims brought by plaintiff and or her husband. Now in this, as it continues saying in the sound bite, Sarevitz states, in response to question from Ms. Ayub, that's who is the third party about protecting the studio. And he says, quote, I just want to give a warning because it's quite graphic language now. He says, quote, I will protect the studio like Israel protected itself from Hamas. There were 39, 000 dead bodies. There will be two dead bodies when I'm done. And so not dead, but dead to me. You're dead to me. So that kind of dead, but dead to a lot of people. If they ever get me to that point, then I'll make it worth their while because I'm going to spend a lot of money to make sure the studio is protected. But I don't think we'll go there. The document continues saying this statement has to do with the merits of the case. Plaintiff has cynically omitted the qualifying phrase quote, also not dead, but dead to me. You're dead to me. So that kind of dead. The recording is irrelevant in that it does not make any material facts of the case more or less likely. The statement does not relate to plaintiff's claims for sexual harassment and or retaliation. Obviously, sexual harassment is struck anyway. I just want to fact check that a little bit because in her second amended complaint, she does include the quote where he says, also not dead, but dead to me. But my first question is, I didn't even know you could bring up secretly recorded stuff. I would have assumed that was illegal.
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Sean Kent
Great point. And so we have to look at, when we're talking about secret recordings, what state that we're dealing in? Here's our little law lesson for today. Depending on your state in the United States, each state is either a one party or a two party recording state. In a one party state, what that means is one of the people in the room have got to know that they're recording the statement and they don't have to tell anybody else. And so if you're sitting in a meeting with Your boss, and you want to record him, you don't got to tell him. You can hide a phone, you can hide a recorder, and you can use it as much as you want. Want. New York is a one party state. New Jersey is a one party state. California is a two party state, which means everybody in the room must know that they are being recorded. So you must tell everybody they're being recorded. All this means is you cannot, on your own take a recording. Though, if you're not a party to the conversation at all, you cannot put a recorder in the room and leave. Finally, the last part of analysis is, so long as you are not part of the party who illegally did the recording, you probably get to use it. So in other words, if you didn't do anything illegal in the action of getting it, and you said, I had nothing to do with it, then you probably can use it. So let's say, Anoushka, you are having a meeting with your higher ups and you're doing it in New York. You leave the room and you put a recording in there to listen to what they are saying. You come back later and grab that recording, like, aha, I got you. Well, technically that would be illegal. You then take that conversation and you sell it to TMZ and they publish it. Well, TMZ hasn't done anything wrong and they can do whatever they want to do with it.
- [19:25]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
You're pretty good at this law stuff, Sean. But what I want to say is, and I want to point this out, there is no debate about whether he said this. There's no debate about whether Sarevitz, who is the billionaire backer of Wayfarer and funded, you know, funds that production house. There's no debate about whether these words actually left his mouth. So I completely understand, like, as you've just walked us through, the probative value versus the prejudice show something or other on the jury.
- [19:53]
Sean Kent
Wonderful. You hit the nail on the head. Exactly.
- [19:55]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Because of the gratuitous nature of the language and because of the offensive references that a jury might just immediately go, this is a terrible person. And that's why the defendants want this taken out. One of the reasons why, however, isn't there a school of thought that it is, is absolutely relevant to retaliation? Because he is literally talking about his monetary capability and desire to make them, as in Blake and Ryan Reynolds, dead to people, which seems to mirror the ideas of what a smear campaign or retaliatory activity is.
- [20:30]
Sean Kent
So this is the legal analysis both sides are going through. And I'm Loving, you're doing this because now you're starting to understand good lawyers prepare for cases, great lawyers, which what it sounds like both of these sides are doing is going through every single thing that can come up in front of the jury, trying to figure out what can hurt and trying to figure out a way to keep it out before it gets in front of the jury.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
There's also another motion in this motion number eight, which is on the side of the defendants, where they ask that mentions of Steve Saravit's wealth and payments of the defendant's legal fees be precluded as evidence. They say his wealth is irrelevant to the plaintiff's claims and that Saravit's financial status threatens to prejudice the jury. In the current political climate, the term billionaire may have negative connotations to some, perhaps many potential jurors. For similar reasons. Payment of or responsibility for legal fees and costs incurred in defense of Lively's allegations should be precluded as it lacks any relevance to the claims, to the merits of the plaintiff's claims. But my question is, if Blake's team tried to argue that the countersuit that was filed by Baldoni, that $400 million countersuit, which the judge said was making claims that were legally frivolous and factually baseless, was part of the retaliation campaign because it was only filed in order to get negative publicity out there about her. And it turns out that their legal fees are being paid for by this man, doesn't it become relevant, his financial status?
- [21:54]
Sean Kent
Yes. And I think if I'm a betting man, what's gonna happen is the court is gonna keep both of their financial statuses out because they both have filed motions. He's like, we're not gonna talk about finances from either side. I think what's gonna happen. But you're not wrong. I think it is irrelevant. And I love. We keep doing that. This. All of the evidence is relevant. Okay? All of it. That's why you keep going back to doing the prejudicial probative bar. You understand what I'm saying? Because all of it's relevant. Everything you can say is relevant for the jury to hear, but we still keep going back to the prejudicial probative bar. And is it so necessary that we don't have to worry about the prejudice? And that's the question the judge is going to ask. But I think. And this one is going to be an easy one, I think the judge is going to let both of them talk about their finances, or neither of them talk about Their finances.
- [22:39]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Yeah, I should say that Blake Lively's motion in limine number four, I'll slit her. And Ryan Reynolds net worth and financial status be precluded as well. So nobody wants to talk about their money. So another one. This is motion alimony number three. We're not going to go into this because we've done this so many times. But Blake wants the references to nice Paul. That is a variant of Deadpool in Deadpool vs. Wolverine that is supposed to be woke Deadpool that the Internet and indeed the defendants have claimed is a mock portrayal of Justin Baldoni.
- [23:08]
Sean Kent
She just had a baby too, and can't even tell. I don't think you're supposed to say that. That's okay. I identify as a feminist. Right.
- [23:16]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
She says, just strike this out. And they point to the judge's previous ruling saying, this very well may be mocking Justin Baldoni. But how do we know that Ryan Reynolds isn't mocking him for the sole reason that he thinks this man has ran a smear campaign against his wife? But I was just. I wanted to highlight that was in there because I know we went over that in great detail. Does the creation of the nice poor character that actually they were bullying Justin Baldoni in. I mean, that was like a. That movie made over a billion dollars. So on the global stage. But I want to get to this last one. This has come up a lot. I got a lot of questions about this. Is it true that Justin Baldoni is trying to preclude evidence of the alleged bad experiences of other women? So, yes, this is actually motion limine number one for the defendants. It says Lively seeks to introduce a broad range of other bad act evidence concerning the alleged experiences of seven other women. It calls it a grab bag of awkward comments, minor confront and perceived slights that would have been inadmissible even if Lively's sexual harassment claim proceeded to trial with a single exception. Lively was unaware of these other bad acts while working on the movie. So because the sexual harassment claim is gone, they're saying, why are these seven women going to get up and testify if she didn't have contemporary knowledge of their complaints or their alleged instances of this, that and the other when she filed that complaint. So it can't speak to that good faith understanding, that good faith belief. Except for Jenny Slate, who played the sister of Justin Baldoni in the movie, who she KN about the comment that Justin Baldoni made about her. Her leather trousers, which he said made her uncomfortable. Doesn't a lot of this come down to whether Blake can Prove she knew about stuff when she made that complaint?
- [24:54]
Sean Kent
No, like, sometimes I just cannot say it better. Just. Yes, like, the reason I'm shaking my head is like, that is legal analysis. That's it. Can she prove she knew about it before or contemporaneously to her making her complaint? It goes back to the example that I told you about. When someone's screaming self defense defense, this guy's an awful person. Well, when did you know they were an awful person? If you found out through your discovery and through later, you can't use it now.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
I believe the next thing that's going to happen is the judge is going to rule on this, right?
- [25:23]
Sean Kent
Yes, absolutely. He will rule on it in advance of trial so they can prepare.
- [25:27]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Now, Sean, since we've been speaking about this on the podcast and we've been posted online, we can see that there is a lot of backlash against Blake Lively. A lot of people really don't like her. People who are following this case. And the number one question is, why is she still pursuing this case, this lawsuit, this trial? Why does she still want into the witness stand? Why doesn't she just settle the lawsuit now?
- [25:48]
Sean Kent
And we talked about this. You would be shocked how many direct messages we've gotten is like, if I were Blake, I would just dismiss the case. You know, Blake can just dismiss the case. Blake should just go away and be done with it. The simple answer is the following. She cannot just dismiss her case. There was like, you're crazy. Yes, you can. No, a plaintiff. And it seems counterintuitive, but you can't just dismiss a case case. So what ends up happening is everybody knows you file a lawsuit now after you file a lawsuit, which is just a formal document to somebody else saying, here, I'm suing you. Well, then what ends up happening is that person then answers the lawsuit. This is my answer. I think you're a liar. So we have two documents going before the answer is filed, and we have just the lawsuit you can dismiss. You can say, you know what? I thought about it. I want to be done. I'm over it. After the other side has answered, they have spent money, they have spent time to formally answer. You don't have a right to just unilaterally dismiss your case. A case can be dismissed on only basically four ways. One, and this is the hardest one, you go to Justin and you say, I would like to dismiss my case. Case. Justin, will you sign and agree that we tell the court that we've agreed to dismiss? And Justin can say, nah, brah, you gonna get on that stand and you're gonna let me rebuild my reputation. We're going forward. I've spent entirely too much money. We're gonna try this damn thing. And that happens a lot. Two, you can go to the court. You can ask the court's permission. Your Honor, we would like to dismiss our case with permission of the court. And all the court's going to say is go back to example number one, meaning, did you ask Justin? Did he say yes? Nah, brah, you're going forward with the trial. Number three is if what we just had are summary judgment motions, as you just saw, and the court was able to throw some of those things out, you understand? The court was able to say, you know what? We don't think there are legal actions can make all of this stuff go. And before. Fourth example, that is seldom used but has happened before. Somebody just dies.
- [28:07]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
Like I thought you died yesterday.
- [28:09]
Sean Kent
Like you thought I died. So there you go. Somebody just died. Where you at? I died. I'm not around.
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Anishka Matanda Dougherty
No. That's fascinating. I mean, it's also important to point out that Blake Lively seems really keen to get up on the stand. Like, she has got stuff she wants to say. And if you talk to her lawyers and you talk to her representatives, they say that, I mean, they've made clear in the statement that the retaliation claim, they say, was the kind of core, the heart of why she filed the lawsuit. And that, of course, is going to trial. And she wants to get up there. Ryan Reynolds is on her witness list as well. So what has been referred to as a a lister power couple will be taking the stand. Justin Baldoni will be taking the stand. Jamie Heath. This is shaping up to be very interesting. Sean, thank you for moving your core appearance today so you could appear on the podcast.
- [28:55]
Sean Kent
Thank you for having me. Much appreciated.
- [28:59]
Anishka Matanda Dougherty
That was our resident trial attorney, Sean Kent from South Carolina. And that's it for this episode of Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me, Anoushka Mutanda. Doughty, Keep sending us your questions on WhatsApp at 03306-78114. That's 03306-78114. And don't forget to subscribe and turn on your push notifications so you never miss a thing. Watch on iPlayer. Listen on BBC Sounds.
- [29:24]
Johnny Diamond
Hello, I'm Johnny diamond and I'm the presenter of the Radio 4 series how did We Get Israel and the Palestinians? We explore the complicated backstory of that Middle east conflict as the region endures another wider war. Through conversations with experts with a variety of perspectives, we travel back through the centuries to examine the history of history of the land that's now so contested between Arabs and Israelis. And we try and understand the past that's brought us to such a present. How did we get here? Israel and the Palestinians? Listen on BBC sounds.