Secrets of Disgusting Media, and Explosive New Details About Blake Lively, with Billy Bush and Bryan Freedman | Ep. 977

Summary

The Megyn Kelly Show: Secrets of Disgusting Media and Explosive New Details About Blake Lively (Ep. 977)
Release Date: January 7, 2025
Host: Megyn Kelly
Guests: Billy Bush and Bryan Freedman

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Introduction

Megyn Kelly opens the episode by introducing her guests, Billy Bush and Bryan Freedman. She sets the stage for a deep dive into the recent legal battles involving actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, particularly focusing on allegations of sexual harassment and subsequent smear campaigns.

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Billy Bush's Experience with NBC and Legal Battles

[00:00 - 05:35]

• Backstory with NBC: Billy Bush discusses his tumultuous tenure at NBC, including his public exit following the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape involving then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

• Legal Representation: Bush introduces his attorney, Brian Friedman, who previously represented him during his legal struggles with NBC.

• Deposition Anecdote: Bush recounts his initial negative perception of Friedman during his deposition but highlights how their professional relationship evolved positively over time.

  Billy Bush [04:10]: "He's a superb, terrible pickleball player, but superb."

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Family Legacy and Early Life

[05:35 - 10:08]

• Bush Family Ties: Billy clarifies his relationship within the Bush family, mentioning that former President George H.W. Bush is his uncle and explaining the familial connections.

• Upbringing: Raised in Manhattan's Upper East Side, Billy attended Colby College in Maine and began his career in radio before transitioning to television.

  Billy Bush [06:35]: "As my dad said, Billy was on the dean's other list. So the grades weren't exactly fantastic."

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Navigating Hollywood's Competitive Environment

[10:08 - 18:50]

• Challenges in Media: Bush elaborates on the cutthroat nature of the entertainment industry, sharing his experiences with executives like Rosie O'Donnell and Matt Lauer.

• Contractual Constraints: He discusses the limitations imposed by NBC contracts, which prevented him from highlighting his family connections, aiming to establish his own identity within the industry.

  Billy Bush [10:46]: "So I made it so that they could never bring that up."

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The Fallout from the "Access Hollywood" Tape

[18:50 - 30:08]

• Impact on Career: Bush delves into the immediate aftermath of the leaked tape, describing the emotional and professional turmoil he faced, including suicidal ideations and subsequent therapy.

• Forgiveness and Resentment: While he extends forgiveness to some individuals involved, he remains unforgiving towards others, particularly Andy Lack, former NBC executive who played a pivotal role in his firing.

  Billy Bush [18:45]: "I've forgiven him."

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Billy Bush's New Endeavors and Critique of Media Practices

[30:08 - 46:27]

• Launching "Hot Mics with Billy Bush": Bush announces his new YouTube and TuneIn show, aiming to provide a platform for uncensored and genuine conversations, contrasting with his tightly controlled stint at NBC.

• Critique of Morning Shows: He offers a scathing critique of the morning show environment, highlighting the lack of authenticity and the prevalence of backstabbing.

  Billy Bush [35:21]: "I don't think like that. I just, I can't work like that. I feel sick."

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Legal Drama: Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni

[51:20 - 133:45]

• Overview of Lawsuits: Megyn Kelly introduces the central legal dispute where Blake Lively has filed a lawsuit against Justin Baldoni and the production company alleging sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign. In response, Justin Baldoni has filed a countersuit against the New York Times for defamatory reporting.

• Interview with Brian Friedman: The episode features an in-depth discussion with Brian Friedman, Justin Baldoni's attorney, who vehemently denies the allegations and accuses Blake Lively of orchestrating a defamatory campaign to ruin Baldoni's reputation.

  Brian Friedman [57:49]: "Blake Lively was no victim here. She was in control, she was in power and she took over this film."

• Analysis of Evidence: Friedman presents evidence suggesting that the smear campaign was premeditated, involving manipulated text messages and coordinated efforts with PR teams to tarnish Lively's image.

  Brian Friedman [84:01]: "Everything in his words is protection. Not planting stories, not doing anything offensive."

• Megyn's Rebuttal: Kelly challenges the validity of the claims, highlighting inconsistencies and the absence of substantive evidence linking the smear campaign directly to Baldoni and his team.

  Megyn Kelly [93:02]: "But I grant you all of that. It seems very clear that Blake Lively's legal team made some very critical material omissions in their complaint."

• Ryan Reynolds' Involvement: The conversation touches upon Ryan Reynolds' alleged role in supporting Lively's actions against Baldoni, though specifics remain vague.

  Brian Friedman [132:52]: "If you are doing it to punish somebody for the sexual harassment allegations, that's one thing. But... there's no public allegation at that time that he's engaged in any type of sexual harassment."

• Closing Arguments: Friedman emphasizes the intention behind Baldoni's actions to protect the film's integrity and his own reputation, portraying Lively as manipulative and power-hungry.

  Brian Friedman [134:35]: "We're going to put every single text message out there... people can make their own determinations as to what happened."

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Conclusion and Future Developments

[133:45 - End]

• Upcoming Legal Actions: Friedman hints at further legal actions against additional parties, including PR agents and possibly Ryan Reynolds, underscoring the escalating nature of the legal battles.

  Brian Friedman [101:46]: "I'm just going to tell you, you're going to have to wait and see. It's coming up soon."

• Final Remarks: Megyn Kelly reflects on the complexities of the case, expressing skepticism about the veracity of Lively's claims and expressing support for Friedman and Baldoni.

  Megyn Kelly [135:00]: "I have to say that I say this not just because I'm your friend. I have no, absolutely no feelings about this guy Justin Baldoni."

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Key Quotes with Timestamps

• Billy Bush on Brian Friedman:

  [04:10] Billy Bush: "He's a superb, terrible pickleball player, but superb."

• Brian Friedman on the Nature of Allegations:

  [57:49] Brian Friedman: "Blake Lively was no victim here. She was in control, she was in power and she took over this film."

• Megyn Kelly on Media Reporting:

  [93:02] Megyn Kelly: "But I grant you all of that. It seems very clear that Blake Lively's legal team made some very critical material omissions in their complaint."

• Brian Friedman on Protecting Reputation:

  [84:01] Brian Friedman: "Everything in his words is protection. Not planting stories, not doing anything offensive."

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Insights and Conclusions

The episode offers a contentious look into the alleged behind-the-scenes conflicts in Hollywood, particularly highlighting the use of legal battles as tools for personal and professional vendettas. Through the perspectives of Billy Bush and Bryan Freedman, viewers gain insight into the manipulative tactics that can be employed by individuals with significant influence. The detailed legal arguments presented by Brian Friedman challenge the validity of Blake Lively's claims, suggesting a calculated effort to undermine Justin Baldoni's reputation and control over their collaborative project.

The discussion underscores the complexities of power dynamics in the entertainment industry, where legal and PR strategies often intersect to shape public perception. Megyn Kelly's role as a host facilitates a critical examination of these issues, encouraging viewers to question the narratives presented by powerful media figures.

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Note: This summary is based on the provided transcript of The Megyn Kelly Show Episode 977 and reflects the discussions and viewpoints expressed by the participants during the show.

Transcript

[Megyn Kelly]

Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM channel 111, every weekday at noon East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. We have two first time guests joining me today, but they happen to be two guys I know very well in my personal life and sort of professional life. Later today, for the first time, Brian Friedman, my friend and longtime attorney, killer, attorney who got me through that NBC nightmare, will be here to talk about the bombshell lawsuits that everyone on social media and in the entertainment industry is talking about. This is the first time he will have sat down for a real interview, going in depth on the matter that he is handling now for actor and director Justin Baldoni, who is suing the New York Times and who is being sued by his co star Blake Lively. They were together in a big hit movie about domestic violence this year. It's a fascinating story about Hollywood and the media and I'm looking forward to having Brian on. You'll love him and you will get a preview of who you will be messing with if you decide to mess with me. I love him, okay. But we begin with somebody else who I just absolutely adore. Everyone knows the name Billy Bush, right? And you probably know him from Access Hollywood. You know, Extra, one of these entertainment shows where he's been beaming into your living room for over a decade now. He hosts Extra these days. But he had a stint, long stint with NBC and a short stint with the Today show before they were trying to ruin the likes of me. They were trying to ruin a genuinely good guy, Billy Bush. Why didn't I pay attention and learn? Billy had his own very public exit from NBC and he is speaking out now as he is set to launch a new show, his own on YouTube and TuneIn called Hot Mics with Billy Bush, the perfect name. I love that. It launches this Monday and guess who's gonna be his first guest? Yours truly. But for now, with the preview of that and much more, Billy is here with me. Are you overwhelmed with back taxes or unfiled returns? Well, get ready because since COVID relief ended, the IRS hired 20,000 new enforcement agents proposing millions of pay up notices for 2025. If you're worried about IRS collection tactics, you don't have to face them alone. Tax Network USA can help you. Tax Network USA is the nation's premier tax relief firm. They've negotiated over $1 billion in tax relief for clients. Their services include penalty, forgiveness and hardship programs. Whether you owe $10,000 or $10,000,000, their experts are ready to assist you even if you're behind on taxes. Tax Network USA can guide you through the process. Contact them for personalized support. Handling IRS matters without professional help is risky. Protect your financial security with guidance from Tax Network USA. To schedule a complimentary consultation, call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com Megan don't let the IRS's aggressive tactics control your life. Empower yourself with Tax Network USA support and takes charge of your financial future. Visit tnusa.commegan today. Billy, great to see you. How are you?

[Billy Bush]

Oh, Megan. Boy, you said so much there. That got me. Just like he got all the juices flowing right there first. Brian Friedman, that brilliant man, the guy that represented me when NBC was hacking my head off, was his mentor, a lawyer by the name of Marshall Grossman. I think trained Brian Friedman, but I would say the. The mentee certainly outshine. All is well here, Megan. I'm so happy.

[Megyn Kelly]

I adore Brian. And I'll tell you something funny.

[Billy Bush]

I played pickleball several times out here. He's not bad, I have to say.

[Megyn Kelly]

Is that right? Yes. This is one of his favorite things to do. So this is a funny story about Brian. I met him because he took my deposition in a lawsuit, a dispute that I got into with my former agent. Okay. So I got into a dispute with my former agent, the details of which I'm not at liberty to disclose. Whatever. It ended, fine after all was said and done. But Brian took my deposition, and he was such a bastard in this litigation. I was like, he's such an asshole. I hate this guy. He was opposing counsel, right?

[Billy Bush]

That's great.

[Megyn Kelly]

And then I had to sit for eight hours across from him, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm. I'm in love. I love him. He was once. He actually got across from me. His questions were great. His inquiries were totally reasonable. We wound up really bonding in this deposition. And then when the shit hit the fan with NBC, he was brought into my life as an option. And when everybody else abandoned me, Brian, literally everybody had abandoned me. And Brian was on the phone and he said, just so you know, I don't give an F what anyone says about me. I've got you. And off we went to war.

[Billy Bush]

You had an angel looking out for you, I'll say that, because there's nobody better than him. He is superb, terrible pickleball player, but. But superb.

[Megyn Kelly]

You're living the life now. Are you in LA right now?

[Billy Bush]

I wouldn't say I'm in Los Angeles now.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay, because. So you, where were you raised? You're. I mean, let's just start with a little bit about you so that the audience. Because you're a Bush, most most famously, you're a Bush. And it is that Bush family. So explain Texas.

[Billy Bush]

We're not all from Texas, Megan. I'm from Manhattan, Upper east side, New York. Grew up, born in, you know, born at New York Hospital, upper East side, 86 between York and East End, and went to school in New York, then went off to boarding school with Tucker Carlson, who was several years ahead of me. And what an animal he was. He stoned it down in a huge way. We all had a lot of fun. Then I went off to Colby College in Maine, Waterville, Maine, and then took a first job out of college in, In, In Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, on the radio.

[Megyn Kelly]

Were you. You knew, like, while in school that you wanted to go into media.

[Billy Bush]

As my dad said, Billy was on the dean's other list. So the grades weren't exactly fantastic. So I, I knew that there was something I could do with the chutzpah and the, and the, and the energy I had. I just thought, boy, it's probably not a lawyer, doctor or financier or one of these things. And I found the college radio station and had a ball on that and said, I think this is it. And so I went that way.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, you were smart. It was a smart move because you're a smart, you're a very smart guy, but you recognize that you had a ton of personality and there was a, there was a way to exploit that God given gifts to do something really fun with your life.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah, I appreciate my parents, who grew up in a different era realizing that too, and not shoving me into, you know, the finance world. My dad was a private asset manager and, you know, something safe. I said, you know, they were great and said, no, no, no, this is you. Go, go, go. Which was great.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, so explain where you fall in the Bush family Legacy.

[Billy Bush]

So the 41st president, George H.W. bush, is my uncle. My dad is his young. Was his younger brother by 7 years. And so W43 would be my first cousin, of which there are like 16 of us. He's the oldest and I'm the youngest. So most people assume he's my uncle because he's 25 years older. But we are first cousins.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, wait, did you spend.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah, I just saw a great picture in here. Look at this. Great picture. This is. You'll love this. There I am in the middle of them in a sandwich.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, yeah, there they are. H.W. and W. With Billy Bush in the middle.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

So did you spend a lot of time when you were growing up in your formative years at the White House? No.

[Billy Bush]

But I did get one weekend one time. Mom and dad were invited to Camp David by senior, and. And so my brother and I went along. And afterwards, I had a lacrosse trip for my high school lacrosse team starting in Baltimore like, a three days later. And I was like, mom, you think I could just stay down there? And. And when H.W. heard that, he said, well, you stay with me. And then if you're down there, you got to stay there. My brother was like, you're not staying there without me. So he jumped on. We jumped on Marine One right out of Camp David, landing on the White house lawn. I'm 18. My brother's 21. We go up to the top floor of the White House. H.W. put a case of beer in the fridge. There was a pool table up there on the third floor. Beautiful views. We were drinking brews, playing pool, and having a blast.

[Megyn Kelly]

Wow. Little did you know how tame that was compared to how the future presidential son would be living while in the White House. And around it. Hunter Biden, your little case of beer seems so innocent.

[Billy Bush]

And then I returned as a young father with my three little daughters. When W was president, we spent the night and went to the Easter Egg Roll, and I gave White House bathrobes to all the Jonas Brothers who were performing. I hope they didn't forget that.

[Megyn Kelly]

So random. So it's fun. I mean, that must have been a fun upbringing to be connected to that kind of power, responsible for it yourself, because when you're the kid of the president, it's a very different story.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah, you got to be really careful in. In. It's actually not the greatest. When you get into the Hollywood, you know, world, other than Jerry Weintraub, who was HW's great friend, you know, it's not maybe the greatest asset. I remember, like, Rosie O'Donnell, like, you know, going after me and all the certain, you know, liberal people. I had to be myself. So my first contract with NBC, when I first arrived, I made it up. You could not mention that connection because I had to establish myself. So I made it so that they could never bring that up.

[Megyn Kelly]

Wow. Then you went a different way from what, Chelsea?

[Billy Bush]

Well, emphasis.

[Megyn Kelly]

When she.

[Billy Bush]

Emphasis on the Today show. Yeah, Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. I mean, not to mention Jenna, you're too nice to rip on her, but obviously she was interviewing her dad a lot. A lot. There's a track record there.

[Billy Bush]

Well, I said to her, she came to me early when she was like, how do I get out of this thing? I said, well, listen, here's what you do. I told her about my first contract. I said, they're gonna want to keep milking that relationship. And you have a lot of talent. You have a wonderful personality. You can do this. You just say no, and just tell them, no, I've done it enough. That's it. And start doing other things, bring other ideas to the table of things you can do. And she's done fabulously.

[Megyn Kelly]

So you. I heard you on Tucker, by the way, and it was great. I really enjoyed that discussion. Cause you're out promoting this new show that you're about to launch. And what I glean from it, Billy, is that for the first time since the whole cancellation, and the viewers may remember that you got infamously canceled and just absolutely mistreated by NBC in the wake of that Access Hollywood tape with Trump breaking the October surprise in 2016. And you were kind of an innocent victim in all of that. But since then, my impression has been you haven't really wanted to go there. You haven't really talked that much about it. You wrote, like an op ed. You issued one of those, you know, apologies that we all have to issue when we get pulled into these things. But you haven't been out there talking a lot about it. So why is that?

[Billy Bush]

Well, I think it just. Everything is timing, and it's amazing that it's eight years. I never would. Because I remember after being fired in October of 2016, I mean, for two straight years, maybe two and a half, I was pulling my hair out. Why can't they. I've been. Let me back in. You've thrown little Dino out of the cave. Let me back in. I'm really. I'm crying. I'm like, a mess. I can't understand it. How could the network that raised me, how could they do this to me? This is so wrong. And I just was. It was unbearable. But then time goes on, and there's a. I'm a consumer of stoic philosophy. There's a great book that my friend Ryan Holiday, with whom I came during this process, but Holiday wrote this book called the Obstacle Is the Way. And this obstacle, this terrible thing in your life that you're trying to avoid and run away from, well, maybe it's the thing you need to go right through the middle. So I said, look, this hot mic thing, no My mic's. The new show I'm launching is called Hot Mics with Billy Bush. And there's a wink in there, but it's also. Look, the hot mic silenced me eight years ago. Now the hot mics are right in front of me and giving me the opportunity to present my true and authentic voice. So here we go.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, it sounds like for the first time you're really gonna talk about everything that you've been through. And I think it's very cathartic to do it. You know, I mean, I've been out there now talking to the extent I can because, you know, I'm not saying anything about my own particular situation. But many, many people who are forced out of NBC must sign non disclosure agreements to get the money to which they are contractually entitled. It's absolutely outrageous, frankly. But, you know, when you're talking about big dollars, you'll do it to protect your family. So many people are not at liberty to get fully into how NBC treated them like absolute shit. But you seem to be able to do it. So how is that?

[Billy Bush]

I'd rather be you, Megan, than me because, yes, I didn't get the full control. I'm ground zero, okay? People studied me, learned from me, and then they Brian Friedman and honed their skills. So I think I would have rather been paid out and sit here silently. But instead, it is what it is. Who cares? Get a wonderful opportunity in front of me, all is good. I've forgiven everybody but one person. And you know, look, it is me. It's part of my story. And what's interesting is it's never been told. You know, when a proprietary piece of property leaks out of a major news organization and something so powerful to affect a presidential election, some of their own IP is weaponized to take out a presidential candidate. That requires or calls for at least an internal investigation. Forget the external. Should we take a look at how this might have happened? Well, it would have ended in five seconds, so of course it was never launched.

[Megyn Kelly]

They knew they did it. They knew because just as a refresher, this is the tape with Trump and Billy on the Access Hollywood bus where Trump is saying, you can grab him. He's talking about Nancy O'Dell, a host, long time at NBC, saying how he wanted to wine and diner and he once took her out furniture shopping and he really wanted to sleep with her, but it didn't work out that way. But there is also a reference on there too. When you're a celebrity, you can grab women by the P word and when you're a celebrity, they let you do it. Which Trump would later be asked about in his deposition in the case against E. Jean Carroll in really, what is. It might be my favorite clip of all time. Which is really saying something. Any excuse to play this clip I will take. And here we are with the excuse right in front of us. So I will show again e. Jean Carroll's lawyer, Roberta, asking Trump about that Access Hollywood tape. I just started kissing them.

[Billy Bush]

It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You could do anything.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's what you said, correct?

[Billy Bush]

Well, historically, that's true with stars. It's true with stars that they can grab women by the pussy. Well, that's what, that's. If you look over the last million years, I guess that's been largely true. Not always, but largely true.

[Megyn Kelly]

Unfortunately. Or fortunately. Well, look, unfortunately, it depends.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah, I, I, when I heard here, the crazy thing is, is I obviously heard it then, and the tape was 2005, 11 years before the election, and he was the biggest star on NBC, and I was with him all the time, but I have no recollection of him saying that. It's always been him talking about Nancy O'Del, because she was my friend and my co host, and that was like, super uncomfortable. And I'm like, oh, God, it's Nancy. Yikes, yikes, yikes. And I had to find my way out of that. I don't recall the grab thing at all. And the first time I ever like it resonated with me. Oh, wow. He said that was sitting in the president and general manager, his office at the Today show about four weeks, four days before I got fired that Monday.

[Megyn Kelly]

Noah Oppenheim.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah, I was in Noah Oppenheim's office. It may have been Tuesday. And I got, I got canned at the end of the week, but he played it for me. I said, listen, I've never actually watched or heard this tape. I, I just knew it was there because I reported it on the day it happened 11 years ago. But let me hear it. And when the most amazing thing is when that line came out, I was like, ooh. And Noah Oppenheim laughed. The general manager of the president laughed. I would later be fired, I guess, for laughing or not intervening or I don't know what. But he did, because it's one of those things where you don't know what to do in a moment like that.

[Megyn Kelly]

But laugh well, the reason he laughed is because he's a sniveling little wiener who really has no fortitude.

[Billy Bush]

I've forgiven him.

[Megyn Kelly]

Strong character.

[Billy Bush]

I have given him up.

[Megyn Kelly]

And Hunt, I haven't forgiven him.

[Billy Bush]

Well, in my circumstance, I have.

[Megyn Kelly]

Even as Abigail Finan, she's offside. Yeah, go ahead.

[Billy Bush]

I'm going to tell you why. This is why I forgive him. Because I was his only hire. He was new on the job as the GM and president, and he brought me in to sort of change the 9 o'clock hour. Later, you were brought in to change the 9 o'clock hour. But first was me. And he sold it to Lack, Andy Lack, the chairman of NBC News at the time and Noah's boss. And he sold this idea to him. They hired me. Noah didn't want his only hire to get whacked, but he was new, and Andy was telling him, we whack him. We leak it, we do it. And he's looking at me going. He gave me, in retrospect, a couple of clues where he was like, hey, you know, these things. I remember Noah saying, these things have a way of, like, maybe coming to light when they're. That, do you want to do something maybe about it? And I was just naive. I'm like, no, there's nothing you can do about that. It's a tape he didn't know he was on. No one will interview with me. No one will want to sit down with Billy Bush because he takes the preamble before the interview and weaponizes it. You can't do that to Donald Trump, to anyone, or else I am a ruined guy as a journalist. So they told him to do it. He did it. Most people would have done, sadly, to save their own hide what Noah did.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, he has no such excuses in my case. And look, I know you're supposed to forgive just for the sake of forgiving, but I have seen zero evidence that they seek forgiveness. And, you know, like with Steve Bannon and Trump, for that matter, over time, I was able to really contextualize their behavior and see it very differently. Those two. I mean, especially Lack. Especially, like. But I just. These little, tiny, little men.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah, no, I don't forgive Andy. Like I said, here's another great. Noah's. Noah's. Noah's. Big of me. But what's huge of me is the original boss that I worked for for 15 years as my executive producer at Access Hollywood, who ultimately sent the tape to NBC News in order to get permission to use it, to get it legally reviewed and of course, they just took it out of his hands at that point. Cuz they felt they had a weapon. That producer, 15 years together I didn't speak to for two years. He is now the producer of Hot Mics with Billy Bush launching on Monday.

[Megyn Kelly]

I love that. So honestly, like we kicked it off with Brian Friedman, you know, who was opposing counsel to me. Like he took my deposition. We were in an adversarial position. I can definitely get past negative encounters with somebody. I can get past adversarial experiences with somebody. But I just felt like what they did at NBC was so disgusting and so ruthless that I don't forgive them. And by the way, I listen to your interview with Tucker F. Craig Melvin and F Al Roker. You're wrong. Craig Melvin's not a good guy. Screw him. You, you may have like, I can't he.

[Billy Bush]

Of course. And you have every reason.

[Megyn Kelly]

Begged me to come on my show. I put him on my show. Begged me to help him on his loser MSNBC show, which I did. And then the first chance he had to stick the knife in and turn it, he ran to it like, yes, a chance to dump on the new white woman who's at 9am on the issue of race because Craig Melvin is a black man. And piled on suggesting I had behaved racistly.

[Billy Bush]

You know what? I'm gonna review my forgiveness because I love you so much. And if I'm you, absolutely, I understand. I get it. I'm just in the same vein of Noah in network news. There's a lot of sheep, right? And it's like, you know, he do it or fall out of my graces and don't rise up in the ranks. This is all stuff that goes into scripts for the morning show on Apple tv. It's all true. It's so competitive and scary and backstabby and unsupportive and, you know, when I got to the Today show, all I wanted was Matt Lauer to put his arm around me and say, welcome, kid. I've known you so long. I'm so glad you're here. Let's go have lunch. Be the big guy. I've done that with every new reporter that came in to Access Hollywood. I wasn't afraid that they were gonna replace me or anything like that. I'm not saying he was afraid, but he definitely soon as I got there. But he was changed and he did not clear. He did not want me there.

[Megyn Kelly]

And neither did Al Roker, who is a slithering snake of a man.

[Billy Bush]

Well, they told Al the 9 o'clock hour is going to be led by Billy. He's going to welcome everybody in. He's going to do the thing and truth be told, Noah told me, just make it to March and then we're going to find you your partner. You have to survive till March with Al. And maybe Al got wind of it and I didn't survive another week.

[Brian Friedman]

Whack.

[Megyn Kelly]

What, What a shock. Yeah, no, they, they saw you exposed and they plunged the knife in ruthlessly. It was a pattern that they would repeat these, you know, so called morning show hosts who are out there so cheery and so sweet to start your day with. And behind the scenes, it is anything but. What they care about is their money and their fame. Go ahead, Billy.

[Billy Bush]

But it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Boy, they fork out a lot of money. Somehow they still have a lot of money. I don't know how long I, I made it two months. So I never got to sniff the money. But, you know, Lauer went, you know, he was a $25 million a year guy, you know, doing morning television.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's, I can see out the money that I got at NBC pursuant to a contract that I negotiated. But let me tell you something, I was offered more at Fox. Like, I wasn't so grateful to NBC. NBC did shit for me. They didn't raise me. I raised myself over at Fox. And I could have gone to any single one of the networks. I didn't have to go to NBC. So I wasn't beholden to them for some big deal. I had big deals being offered to me by all the networks. It was just, I made the colossal mistake of trusting the wrong group. And, you know, when my show, which was a misfit, admittedly, was struggling, they never got behind me. I mean, I will say Kathie Lee, who was the best thing at NBC as far as I'm concerned, she pulled me aside. She goes, you know how long it took for our show to hit Kathy Lee and Hoda? Five years. She goes, go back and look at the ratings in year one and two and three. Absolutely dreadful, terrible. And she said, it takes about five years for these shows to resonate. And sure enough, you know, I was like, I was one year into it and they, I think they're, well, we'll just let the audience speculate about what the real reasons were for them tanking me.

[Billy Bush]

The great Larry King said to me, leave it on. They'll find it. I'll never forget that with a good show, leave it on. And they'll find it. But, you know, the reason why you can leave on Hoda and Kathie Lee is because it doesn't cost anything. Everybody's there, the crew is hired. You know, they're slotted to be there for five hours. So they've got the hour. All the existing stuff is there. When you do something bold and, you know, your own studio, your own people, your own big budget, then they just get squeamish. But somehow they have a lot of money to buy out of things. I don't know. There's a ton of money.

[Megyn Kelly]

Not for long. Not for long. I mean, you know, the Today show has got. Has got half the ratings that it used to.

[Billy Bush]

Congratulations to you. And your YouTube is bigger than NBC News. I watched that. You, one woman alone, bigger than an entire news organization on YouTube. And for that, I applaud. That is amazing.

[Megyn Kelly]

Thank you. Thank you very much. On the subject of Andy Lack, why don't you forgive him?

[Billy Bush]

Well, he never apologized to me. I called him once and I was like, just apologize to me, you lethal little snake. Noah did six months after I got fired, Noah Oppenheim, we're talking on the phone, he said, if you never forgive me, I understand. I'm so sorry. It wasn't supposed to go down like that. Okay, I forgive you. We're imperfect people. We're, you know, good people are capable of doing bad things everywhere. I'm capable of doing bad things. You, too. We're all. I mean. But if you own up, you apologize. You know, you're good by me because I'm the most imperfect. Andy Lack, so dismissive. He talked to me for, like, seven minutes, seconds on the phone. Yeah, sorry, I can't help you. I don't care. And literally, you know, I was speaking to the former president of MSNBC back in June and told me during that time, he said, hey, what are you going to do about Billy Bush? We got to. You got to save Billy. He's a. He's a good guy. He's not. He's not. He didn't do anything here. This isn't him. And he said, fuck Billy Bush. And that was relayed to me by this. By the former president of msnbc. Like, I didn't matter. And, you know, this is a man who saved Brian Williams, brought him back, gave him the 11th hour or whatever you call it. Did his best to save Matt till he couldn't. But F, Billy Bush, like, okay, well, F, you too, buddy.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, exactly. Right? So he wound up getting fired from NBC, too. Is it true he's at PBS now?

[Billy Bush]

That's what I heard. Heard he's an executive producer at pbs. And good for them. They've got one of the true derelicts of our. Of our time, a really bad.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Billy Bush]

Bad guy.

[Megyn Kelly]

Totally agree. I think I like to say that.

[Billy Bush]

I'm a nice person. I'm a nice person. I like people. I accept faults and all that, but he's a bad guy. Like, a really bad guy.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, I agree. And it's like, where's the responsibility that these executives get from for taking top talent like you? And not just, like, firing them, but absolutely trying to ruin them. Absolutely trying to devastate them to the point where I heard you say to Tucker, you actually had suicidal ideations like you. It's serious what they do. It's serious.

[Billy Bush]

One moment. I mean, there was lots of emotional instability. I will say that. It led me to this place called the Hoffman Process, which I did nine days, you know, no electronics in a cabin with, you know, people and can. It's. It's like a trauma place. But it's the mental, emotional, psychological trauma of all of a sudden, because it happens thanks to the Internet, like this. I literally. Friday morning, October 7, 2016, I did a double. Because Hoda Kotb loved working with me so much. He was like, I don't want any more guest hosts on Friday when Kathy's not here. I only want Billy. Just let him do two hours in a row. And they put me in Man Spanx, and I'm dancing in Man Spanx, and we're having laughs, and it's wonderful.

[Brian Friedman]

Ha, ha, ha.

[Billy Bush]

Network, funny, whatever. And I kind of thought the whole thing was behind us. I had dealt with Andy. I told him, this is illegal. It's the wrong thing to do. I felt like, okay. And. And off we go. It was like this, you know, this beautiful moment, and then I'm on the plane flying home, and they're, Mr. Bush, please put your phone away. I'm like, I'm sorry. You know, we're all addicted. I'm like, I just want more text. And I hit one more time, and then Mr. Bush, okay. And as I put it down, I see Washington Post Access Hollywood bus tape. And I went, oh, my God, they did it. They did it. They didn't do it on their own air. They didn't do it in their own organization. They did it through the Washington Post. Because the debate with Hillary is two days later. And by hook or by crook, this is going to be the first topic on that stage. And we got to get it to someone because now forget about owning the property, forget about getting all the clicks and having the big story in our organization, winning the big story in the October surprise. It's more important that he loses the election. So let's get it to the Washington Post.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, so can you, because Doug and I have talked about this many times, but, and now obviously I'm great, you know, I have nothing to complain about. But I do remember very acutely many nights lying in bed right after this happened with NBC and feeling so incredibly sad that my whole career was gone. It was evaporated in a day by those fuckers who, you know, took this Internet, whatever would have been a one day Twitter story and, you know, rammed it up over and over and even after it had died down, made a point of bringing it back up again. And I just remember being like, I can't believe this thing that was so important to me that I worked for so long to build is absolutely gone. And it took years.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah, you're that expendable. You, you realize, I will say, oh my God. When I was just starting as a little bushy tailed, you know, you know, celebrity kiss ass on red carpets in New York, as the east coast correspondent, I was Matt Lauer. I reached out to Matt to get some advice, you know, and like kiss his ass too. And went down to his office and he said to me, let me tell you something about this business. This is so prophetic, I can't believe I'm remembering. He said, everybody is replaceable. You have to remember everybody is replaceable. He said, someday you could replace me easily. And I said, ah. He's like, so just know that. And I was like, okay, think that way. In other words, prepare for these kinds of things. And I realized the man, the reason the man hung on for 20 years, he knew it. He knew it well.

[Megyn Kelly]

But that, but don't you think it's one thing to say that and to know that and it's quite another to say, okay, so they may replace me, I may not work out here, whatever, may not be a good fit, but it's a different thing altogether to say, they will end your life, ruin me. They will do everything in their power, these people who I trusted to absolutely ruin me so that I can't make another dollar in this industry.

[Billy Bush]

And then after the fact, planting stories everywhere in every paper that reinforce the idea that you're a bad guy and so they look good for having gotten rid of a bad apple. That's the thing that Even heard afterwards, I'm like, what? They track. I'm seeing the New York Post track down, like a girl I allegedly bullied in 8th grade or said something into. I'm not kidding. And they're like, billy Bush is just bad to women. He's just a bad guy to women. And I'm like, what? I am. Every woman at the Today show had. I had a terrific relationship with. There's two separate worlds, as you know, 7 to 9 and 9 to 11. In the 9 to 11 world, everything was wonderful, peachy, lovely. 7 to 9. Get him out of here. He's not one of us. So that's the. You know, that. That was the. That was the target for me. I was the.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. I mean, I can relate fully to all of that too. I've never had more awkward moments where I felt less welcome than when they'd have me go over on the. On the Today show set and go outside. Without without exception, the only person who showed any kindness, as I said, was Kathie Lee. And without exception, everybody else was just. And Hoda could freeze ice on their ass.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah. By the way, anyone who's a female at the. I think it's really the men that were really brutal. You may have a different experience as a female, but I found the women to be wonderful.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, I'll say this. There is one female associated with the show who pretended to be a friend of mine. And when the shit hit the fan, Doug actually reached out to this person's spouse because we knew them socially a bit and said, gee, it would be really nice if the woman could send out a tweet or something in support of Meg. And he said, oh, gee, you know, I don't think she's gonna do that. She doesn't wanna go. Okay, fine. That was just Doug being protective. And we later were told. I can't say it's a matter of fact, but we were told by a very well connected PR person that this spouse to whom Doug had reached out was busy pushing the story everywhere.

[Billy Bush]

Oh, no.

[Megyn Kelly]

So to Doug. Oh, it's so sad. This is such bullshit. You know, she. She's not gonna tweet, but this is total bullshit. And meanwhile, this person was doing his level best to push the story everywhere that I was allegedly this horrible racist person. I mean, this. This industry is disgusting. And there are no more disgusting people than the hosts of those morning shows. They are exact. And the hypocrisy is. What's so gross about it? Billy?

[Billy Bush]

I can't say, like, not everyone.

[Megyn Kelly]

Riley O'Reilly is irascible behind the scenes. You're like, yeah, makes sense. Right?

[Billy Bush]

Okay, I can see that. Yeah, right.

[Megyn Kelly]

These people is like, they, they want you to think they're just so sweet and peachy keen.

[Billy Bush]

Well, it's a very competitive atmosphere, and I will. I maintain that in my experience, there are some. There are some very good people in it, but everyone knows, you know, and mostly women and, but they know that, you know, it's super. It's a super competitive environment. You know, sit down with Ashley Banfield sometime and ask her about her experiences. But in the end, if you can survive it long enough and, you know, see what things. I'm not wired to play this game. I'm not wired to, you know, have a team of people who are angling to help me get someone else out of the way and all. I don't think like that. I think like, hey, I'm so happy to be here. We're all a team. I just. And I guess in order to dominate and survive, you got to think like that, which I'm so glad I'm not there. I'm actually. Everything works out for the right reasons because I just, I can't work like that. I feel sick.

[Megyn Kelly]

So who. Who stuck by you, Billy? Like what?

[Billy Bush]

During all my friends, you find out who your friends are, and boy, did I have some wonderful friends. You know, publicly. You know, people you know on the show there, you. They do. One man, you know, didn't get a lot of public support, and that's just the fact. And I was so mad and hurt over that because it's just a terrifying environment. Especially that. Not. I think now it's changing a bit, but I understand now that the public support wasn't. So why. But your friends, oh, my God, your friends and so many people in the industry. Suzanne Summers wrote me a wonderful letter. Julie Bowen wrote me, you know, Kate Walsh, Julie Bowen, Cindy Crawford wrote me the loveliest letter. Dennis Quaid, he was so mad with his pen. I mean, he was like smudge all over the paper.

[Megyn Kelly]

It was great.

[Billy Bush]

But all, you know, in the business, we know who you are. You are, you know, we love you. You're. You're so fun. This, that, that, don't worry, you know, and. But in your personal life, oh, my God, my friends were just amazing. Kept me, kept me going and family.

[Megyn Kelly]

So did that retreat that you mentioned, the nine day thing without the social media, without the phone, did that help? Did that. Was that a game changer for you?

[Billy Bush]

Yeah, it just got me going. You Know, I. I was like, I was a danger to myself. I was just so. I was just. I will say this, I hope I'm not being irresponsible here, but the booze, you know, it served its purpose. I gotta thank booze for a second, you know, I'm glad we looked each other in the eye and said, we're spending a little too much time together. But in the beginning, thank you, booze.

[Megyn Kelly]

Thank you.

[Billy Bush]

My phone. Another terrible dopamine addiction. Thank you, phone for being like, I need something to distract me. Go, what is Megyn Kelly doing on Twitter? You know? And then the inside was hurting too much. So I went to this place and oddly enough, it was the day that I checked in, was. Was the first day Trump walked into the Oval Office. And I was like, oh, this is powerful irony. Here we go. So it just was a massive, unbelievable shit show. But I'm going to tell this to every one of your listeners and viewers. We are all going through something terrible. Nobody goes unscathed. You don't escape it. It wasn't a child of mine with a terrible illness. It wasn't something else. Mine has unique circumstances, but I'm certainly not extraordinary in the fact that life is a shit sandwich. Eat it or starve.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's what my stepfather used to say. Life is a shit sandwich. And every once in a while, life, they serve it up to you and you have to take a big old piece and eat it. So it's just not image, but not wrong.

[Billy Bush]

Not a great.

[Megyn Kelly]

You know, I know that you feel as I do, which is in the moment, as awful as it is. Like, would I. Would I change it? Would I go back and undo it if I could? I wouldn't. I would not.

[Billy Bush]

That's interesting. Yes. I mean, I appreciate the wake up call. I don't know if it's God, if it's the plan. I believe it maybe is God saying, okay, Billy, you probably. You haven't experienced much adversity in your life, right? I mean, I've become this little guy on TV interviewing celebrities and hopping to place to place and contract to contract. And they move you to LA and they pay for everything. And now you're on the Today show and it's like, before it's too late, before you become an old man and you don't have a chance to become better. Ba boom. I'm going to hand you a massive explosion and you're going to somehow recover from it and you're going to get going and you're going to. And it's going to be something that you will be grateful for because of who you've become. I believe in that. I think. I believe that that has happened. But I do not appreciate the messenger. Andy Lack. Do not appreciate him.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, you can be grateful for the net net of the experience and not actually think the experience was enjoyable or feel good about the people who put you through it. But I definitely think that, you know, for me, I don't know, I think I rose to whatever news fame, which isn't the real same thing as real fame quickly at Fox. And I think maybe I was drunk on my own wine and I think I was getting too big for my own bridges. I think, you know, when I got to NBC, I look back now, we did all this me too coverage, not all of which was bad, some of which were legit. I mean, Harvey Weinstein was a shit, but there were, you know, like, I just think there was overreach and I think I was too full of hubris and I think I needed to be checked. I definitely think I'm much more humble and cognizant of my own failings and biases now than I was prior to all this. And so better as a person and better as a journalist. Post that nonsense.

[Billy Bush]

Well, you had to figure out what tools do you have to get to a better place to get out of this? You were handed a terrible situation. I mean, Andy Lack made a move on you and tried to brand you a racist for asking the most simple question. And that is, when did this become punishable by death? Because all the late night comics that we watch today, they used to perform in blackface on Regis. I mean, I remember one of them used to go over to Regis Philbin and do it on his show. The lovely Regis, the sweet Regis, of all people, you know, and Kimmel and you know, the man show and all these things. And so the question you were asking was, when was the date that this, you know, you weren't complimenting Diana Ross, you were denigrating her. When did that happen? And that was enough for an evil man with a lot of power to try and kill you. And I remember saying this is just an outrage. Brought up a little PTSD for me because I know all the players.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Billy Bush]

But knowing you, I said, oh, man, this is terrible, terrible, terrible.

[Brian Friedman]

But so you survived.

[Megyn Kelly]

So now, well, you made it back on tv. You did make it back into the cabal. Right. Which is what you said you wanted on Extra Stubborn.

[Billy Bush]

I'm stubborn. I gotta get back in there. Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, so why Isn't that, that's, that that's what you do and that's the end of that. Why do you feel the need to launch this podcast and, or this YouTube show and, you know, talk about these issues now in a more full throated way?

[Billy Bush]

Extras. It's part of the American fabric. It's fun. It's, it's, it's a, it's a great, you know, show that people still watch in droves in their living room. And it's wonderful. I just have a lot to say and I have a lot of deeper things I want to talk about eventually. I'm an international studies and government, you know, major from, in college and spent, you know, a year studying abroad and, you know, my interest. Every morning I read Puck in the Wall Street Journal and the Free Press. Bari Weiss, shout out to Barry and especially Nellie Bowles, who is hysterical on Friday mornings. But I'm fascinated in our politics and in our world and our culture. Sports. The giants are a disaster all the way up to the owner.

[Megyn Kelly]

I know it's so bad.

[Billy Bush]

Everything is bubbling in me and I want to be able to talk about it without, like, hitting my mark after 22 minutes. That's where you do that. But still have fun for 22 minutes doing, hello, Julia. You look unbelievable and gorgeous and da, da, da, da, da.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, that's a lane in which you are really exceptional. It is. I mean, look, it was only a year at NBC, but I can definitely attest to the fact that those celebrity interviews are so much harder than people think. And your ability to make it look easy is in itself, like, truly extraordinary. That's a genuine gift you have. But you have all these other gifts that you aren't really allowed to show on a show like that because it's so tight and so controlled and scripted. So I think this is a great idea.

[Billy Bush]

Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely. And I thought, boy, I should have done this earlier. But no, I think everything sort of worked. I'm like eight years later, we're launching hot mics after the hot mic thing that. Oh my, are we crazy? Yeah, we're a little crazy. We're a little crazy. I haven't thought the whole thing out yet, but here's the thing. I don't know how you feel, but one thing that Mark Zuckerberg said is don't wait for your eureka moment. Like this moment. Like, I've got my brilliant idea now. I'm going to go be this giant success. No, just like, if you have some weird ideas, like, just get Started, get going, figure it out. You had no idea where this thing would lead to, how big it would become, how successful it would become. You just knew that you needed to get going and being, get back to being you. And you did. And the rest figured itself out. That's what I'm attempting. So, you know, help me.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, I think it'll be interesting to watch, to see the difference between the you that launches next Monday and then the you that we see four years after. Because I would say in my own case, it took some getting used to to offer my opinion on so many things, to be so outspoken on so many things, because we're not trained to be like that. We're not trained to do that in straight news journalism, which is what you're coming from. It's entertainment journalism, but it's journalism. But then the more you do it, the more comfortable you feel. So is there any risk to you because you still have the foot in the other camp of these left wing celebrities saying, I don't want anything to do with him. He's not woke. He's a Bush. He doesn't hate Trump. It's a no.

[Billy Bush]

Bush has never been more popular to these people now because the alternative to them, so true. It's actually come full circle. Like we all miss George W. Where's he? Oh, God. But no, no, I think I've been at this long enough and I think you're not going to see. You know, if we were double boxed, like you and I are on YouTube right now, the two people would know each other. You know what I mean? It's not like we're. And people who know me and have been interviewed by me about their movies and about their lives and whatever, they'll see that guy, you know, you're not going to see a totally unrecognizable person just like, oh, I didn't know he knew anything about the terrible things that are happening in the UK right now. And you know who our players are in government and you know, all the things that I can bring.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, look, I want to say that we've got to know each other pretty well since our dual traumas. And I have found you to be absolutely delightful, just such a good, nice guy, but also, as I said, very insightful, very smart, very well read, very thought out on so many issues that just don't get to shine through, given the nature of the way the 22 minutes are structured. So I will be a listener, I will be a participant on episode one, and I will be a listener Regularly. Bellian, I'm thrilled you've chosen to do it.

[Billy Bush]

Thank you so much. Megan, I have to tell you, I'm very just, you know this. I love you and I love your husband, Doug. What great hair, very tall, very handsome man. And I love you both. And you, I'm just so impressed by what you have done and you're just resilient and tough and I look up to you for it because you went and did it. And now I'm going to do it just like you, Big sis. Way to go.

[Megyn Kelly]

I'll be cheering you on and helping you in any way I can. Billy, all the best to you. Don't forget it's called Hot Mics with Billy Bush and it's going to be on TuneIn and YouTube starting Monday. The human body is incredible. Capable of repair and growth. That amazes scientists even in 2025. But as the years passed, natural healing and building processes slow down. While this is normal, there is a way to support your body. A collagen supplement from Ancient Nutrition can help you look and feel your best. For centuries, people have searched for a mythical fountain of youth. Spoiler alert. It does not exist. However, collagen is a proven way to promote youthful health and appearance. And this is why I want to tell you about Ancient Nutrition's multi collagen Advanced lean. Ancient Nutrition combines ancient wisdom with modern science to create high quality supplements. It's delicious and easy to incorporate into daily routines. You can just mix it into coffee, matcha or smoothies. Right now, enjoy. 25% off your first [e-mail] Megan that's ancientnutrition.com Megan For 25% off, support your body and feel your best with Ancient Nutrition. Wasn't that delicious?

[Billy Bush]

So good.

[Brian Friedman]

Your bill, ladies.

[Megyn Kelly]

I got it.

[Brian Friedman]

You got it.

[Megyn Kelly]

No, I got it. Seriously, I insisted. I insisted first. Don't be silly. You don't be silly.

[Billy Bush]

People with The Wells Fargo ActiveCash credit.

[Brian Friedman]

Card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash back on purchases.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay. Rock, paper, scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors.

[Billy Bush]

Shoot. No.

[Brian Friedman]

The Wells Fargo Active cash credit card.

[Billy Bush]

Visit Wells Fargo.com ActiveCash terms apply.

[Megyn Kelly]

Next, we turn to the Hollywood legal drama that has the world talking. Stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have filed dueling lawsuits against one another now. Well, sort of. Following their box office hit movie this past summer, the pair starred in the bestselling book turned film It Ends with Us, which is in essence about domestic violence. It premiered in August. Here's just a bit from the Trailer. If one day you had a daughter, what would you say to her? She came to you and sent the person she loved is hurting her. What would you say to her? And I can go anywhere. None of this is your fault. As hard as this choice is.

[Billy Bush]

We.

[Megyn Kelly]

Break the pattern or the pattern breaks us. Following the success of this film, legal filings now pulling back the curtain on what's reported to be, let's just say a less than friendly atmosphere on set. Blake Lively has filed a lawsuit against her co star and the director and producer of the film, Justin Baldoni, and the production company, excuse me, behind the film, alleging sexual harassment. And then she claims an alleged smear campaign to destroy her reputation. She claims that alleged smear campaign was retaliation against her for raising complaints of sexual harassment in the first place. Well, now Justin Baldoni has filed his own lawsuit. Not against Blake Lively, not yet, but against the New York Times, which broke this story in late December, for what he and his legal team says is the Times totally irresponsible, defamatory reporting on Lively's claims, which the Times is accused of just taking and running with, notwithstanding substantial evidence, says Baldoni's lawyer, that they're full of hot air. Justin Baldoni's attorney is Brian Friedman. He's my own attorney, too, and my friend, and he joins me now to discuss the legal drama and to get to the bottom of what's going on with this real life Hollywood drama. Brian, great to have you. How are you?

[Brian Friedman]

I'm great, and it's great to see you. And I'm so happy for all your success.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, you're the best. I told the audience the story in the first hour when I had Billy Bush on about how you and I met when you were taking my deposition and how a beautiful friendship was born, which just never happens.

[Brian Friedman]

Yeah, that was a one of a kind moment, wasn't it?

[Megyn Kelly]

Totally. And it's funny because Brian and I grew very close. We have a beautiful friendship. But the only person in my house that Brian Friedman loves more than me is my husband, Doug, because these two were, like, thick as thieves to that whole NBC nightmare.

[Brian Friedman]

True. And also the kind of husband Doug is, I strive to be. And he's such a great man. He's such a great writer, such a great person. And I'm so happy that he's yours, because, you know, you deserve that kind of love. Truly.

[Megyn Kelly]

You're the best. You are the best. Okay, so that's the sweet side of Brian. It's there. You have to get to know him better. But he also knows how to fight, and he uses his powers for good against major media companies that crap all over their talent and think they can get away with it because they're major media companies. And the talent doesn't usually have the resources to fight back. So he's helped a bunch of people who have gotten completely screwed over. And Brian doesn't care about Party. He doesn't care about, you know, which company it is. He fights for the ostracized loner who's getting dumped on by these companies. Which leads us to the Blake Lively situation. Now, she would say in this situation, she's the victim, Baldoni's the bad guy. And just to lay it out for the audience in a little bit more detail, what she's claiming is that even though she was a much bigger star than Justin Baldoni, who I never heard of before this lawsuit, she's the much bigger star and she's married to an even bigger star than she is, Ryan Reynolds, that she came in and onto this project and started to get harassed and mistreated by Justin and some others. And that when she then demanded that all of her concerns be rectified, that he did it, but that he was basically lying in wait for when the film would get released in case she went public with what happened, that he and his PR team determined to bury her, to ruin her. And that this wave of bad press we did see about Blake Lively when the film came out this past summer was not organic. It was totally orchestrated by Justin and his team. And they've gotten their hands on a bunch of texts, especially amongst the PR team. But a couple involving Justin that seemed to suggest they were ready to, quote, destroy her and to ruin her reputation. But I'll say one thing. The evidence that then they actually did it is far less fruitful. Right. The text about, like we could. Here's what we might do if we need to. Those are everywhere. The text proving they did, far less ubiquitous in this complaint. And what you've said now in your lawsuit against the Times is don't even believe the texts that you see in the Lively lawsuit because they're seriously misrepresented, omitting major facts that would give them an entirely different meaning, nevermind, greater context. And that's where I want to bring you in. So tell us what we don't know about this fight between these two.

[Brian Friedman]

Well, what you don't know is a lot. Right? Because Blake Lively's dominated the media. What they did was they worked with the New York Times, Republicists, worked directly with the New York Times. They shared illegally obtained text messages. They shared those together. They concocted a complaint that they filed with the Civil Rights Division. They omitted texts that would have provided context, texts that were in the exact same string that would have provided context of what was really going on. And in fact, they actually removed emojis from text that show that there was satire and there was joking around by the PR crisis agents. I mean, the PR crisis agent was brought in because actually Blake Lively's publicist, Leslie Sloan, was planting stories negative to Justin and all Justin wanted to do. And it's all through the text messages. If the New York Times apparently reviewed a thousand or more pages of text messages, they would have seen it. Justin never wanted to hurt her, never wanted to be negative to her. He wanted to protect the film, he wanted to protect himself and he wanted to protect her from making negative allegations about him that were made up and that they're proven in this case that you can see in late July, before Melissa Nathan, the crisis PR person was hired, you can see Leslie Sloan planting stories. We have evidence of it. The young kids would call it receipts, we call it evidence. And, and it's all over the place. There are text messages that refute every single thing in that camp in that complaint. And it's just disgusting when you go after someone, you try to destroy their life. And actually the evidence shows something different. Blake Lively was no victim here. She was in control, she was in power and she took over this film.

[Megyn Kelly]

So for those who are not in the Hollywood world, what is wrong with her taking over the film? She's a big star. Her name is what made it, it's what got eyeballs on it. How unusual is it, as you allege in your lawsuit, to have an actress come in and start editing scenes, taking over the final cut, excluding the director from it, the director and two editors on the film, in exchanges that we have now that we'll be posting on MeganKelly.com are talking openly about how it's about to air, it's about to hit screens, and they haven't seen it because she appears to have wrested control from them. So how unusual is that?

[Brian Friedman]

I've never seen it before in my 30 plus year career in Hollywood. And an executive producer is below a producer in the film world. An executive producer signed up to be an executive producer and that's it. And an actress, and that's what she was supposed to be as, as the time progressed in this film, she decided that she wanted to be a producer. She Applied to be a producer. She went and got the dailies. She started to make edits. She wanted to be part of the editing team. There were people hired, like human beings actually hired to do the editing job, who had done work as editors. She wanted to be part of that team. The next thing you know, she took over the editing. She started making threats that she wouldn't promote the movie, that she wanted to be in control of marketing of the movie, that she. She would do nothing in terms of promotion unless she was the actual editor. She came up with her own cut of the film, which is, you know, you have a director who has a cut, and she had a competing cut of the film. And, and, and for an executive producer to have a competing cut of a film is. Is incredibly bizarre. But when she starts threatening people and saying, I'm not going to promote the film, I'm not going to do anything unless you use my cut, that's when it starts to be awfully incendiary. And the concern really is that she used these allegations of sexual harassment and she used these allegations of bullying to try and leverage her position so she could be the de facto director in the case. And as you'll hear in the voice note, as you'll see in the evidence, she had Justin sitting in a basement in his own movie with his friends and family during the premiere of the movie, what should have been the biggest night of his career. He was sitting in the basement while she was not allowing him to be part of the premiere.

[Megyn Kelly]

Here is some of that which we have here exclusively. Justin Baldoni speaking to what he called his dream team, those who had been helping him edit the films and get it to finality. Lamenting the fact that he was put in the basement on the premiere of his own movie, he says, per Blake's demands, take a listen to that voice text in part.

[D]

Think about this. On what you know, could have been one of the most beautiful nights of my life, career wise. I literally was sent to the basement with my whole. All my friends and family for over an hour because I. I wasn't allowed to be seen. She didn't want me anywhere near her or the rest of the cast. So they ushered me off the carpet and they sent us down to the basement. We were down there together, my friends and family, the people that love me the most. And we start laughing because of the ridiculousness of this whole thing. And I realized, like, on a night that was supposed to be so materialistically joyful, I was in the basement with the people that I loved the most. And we were all joyful and laughing because none of that shit matters. None of it. That's not why we're in the business. That's not why the three of us are in this business, is to attend a premiere like that and be celebrated. We're in this business because we are artists and we believe in what we do and because we want to create art that touches people's hearts and souls and can move people. And that's what we did. That's what you both did. And I believe that will follow each of us, and that truth will prevail, and that light and love will win.

[Megyn Kelly]

So, Brian. And by the way, that'll be posted on Megan Kelly.com, but to those who say the reason she wanted him nowhere near her at the premiere is because he'd been sexually harassing her and then retaliating against her with a smear campaign in the press after, you know, after the harassment, you know, they say, so good, who could blame her for wanting him in the basement? What say you?

[Brian Friedman]

Let's break down what the sexual harassment is. I mean, we. We've just, you know, been through the MeToo movement. We've heard all sorts of serious allegations of sexual harassment that are really meaningful to. To victims and, and, and. And really important and whatnot. Blake Lively, if she was sexually harassed to. To such a degree in this. In this, in this film and in this situation, you know, she. She wouldn't have returned to the film. And they had sat down and they had talked about what her complaints were. The unfortunate thing is she actually didn't read the book and didn't understand what the book was about. And as a result of that. Yes, and as a result of that, the complaints are things like he had gone into her trailer when she was breastfeeding, to which there are text messages that address that there were complaints that Jamie Heath, Justin's partner, had shown pornography. If you look at the actual complaint that they filed, it says that that's pornography. What Jamie Heath showed her was a still video of a home birth because they were discussing a scene about birthing. And that's not pornography. And if you get down to the specific allegations, I mean, what this film was about was about domestic violence. This film was about sex scenes that involve rough behavior and domestic violence and serious issues like that. And at every turn, to the extent that Justin, you know, anybody felt uncomfortable in any way on the film, Justin took responsibility for it. They. They. In fact, they met at Ryan Reynolds house in New York. They went over a 17 point list of things. They had come to an agreement, although Justin and Jamie did not agree that these things, you know, that were, you know, spoken about or warranted at all. They said, well, of course we won't come into your trailer when, you know, if you don't want us to. Of course we won't do these things. And they're really simple concepts and simple things. And even in their own complaint, they admit that ever since they met in January, that everything ran smoothly for the rest of the set. And then all of a sudden, when Blake Lively decides that she's not going to do any type of press with Justin, she's not going to let him at the premiere, she's not going to be seen in a photo with him in any kind of the press. She decides that. And all of a sudden, the fans, people aren't stupid out there. They're looking and seeing that, oh, hold it. The entire cast has unfollowed Justin and there's no explanation for it. There's not even an email and hold it. They're not together in any of the marketing. Why is that? Is there something going on with the two of them? And then you start to see the stories planted by Leslie Sloan. You start to see them on August 8th, and it's very clear what's being planted. There are evidence for all these points. There are text messages for all these points. And unlike any case that I've handled in my entire career, it's the one case we're going to put every single text message, every single document, everything on a website for everyone in the public to read, come to their own conclusions, and they can determine whether or not there was sexual harassment here, there was a smear campaign or there was retaliation, because we have proof and receipts that absolutely and unequivocally show this is not true.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, let's go through some of them. Because what she alleges in her complaint is that there was a twofold plan. This is Blake Lively's allegation that aimed to both A, conceal the pattern of harassment and other misconduct by Mr. Baldoni, his partner, Mr. Heath, and their company, Wayfarer, and B, retaliate against Ms. Lively by battering her image, harming her businesses, and causing her and her family severe emotional harm. To me, as an attorney, I want I separate those out because to conceal the alleged pattern of harassment to which he's referring and other misconduct by Baldoni, Heath and Wayfarer. To me, Brian, you tell me, but I feel like that's. That's Fine, let's assume he did do the harassment. I know you deny all that, but even if he did do the harassment, what's best for the film is definitely not to have that hitting just as the film hits the big screen. I don't think there's a cause of action for concealing bad news about the star of the film. It's point B that could potentially spell legal trouble, which is that they then allegedly retaliated against Blake Lively by orchestrating a smear campaign against her. And the reason they did it was because she raised sexual harassment complaints. Let's just focus on number two for. For now. Is it a problem in your mind? Like if. If you've got somebody on the show, on the movie who's alleged sexual harassment, and then when the movie hits, she directly or through her PR person leaks, that starts generating PR to make the movie look bad, to make the co star look bad. I was a poor victim, he was a cad. And leaks all this. Is it necessarily retaliatory for the person being accused to say, a, no, I didn't, and B, this person should not be trusted. This person is not a good person. Right. I just don't understand legally the difference because you're not allowed to retaliate, you know, to punish somebody in essence for report, for accusing in this way. But also if it's false, does a man have the right to come out and say, don't believe her. This is a bad person, either directly or through PR people.

[Brian Friedman]

Well, remember that, that there was actually no allegation of sexual harassment until the lawsuit was filed. I mean, that. That's when the allegations of sexual harassment came up. They didn't come up before them.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, that was in the 17 point memo that you referenced. She was raising some of these issues.

[Brian Friedman]

Well, that's right. But I mean, in terms of the public, she raised them in the 17 point memo, they had agreed to 17 points that they would agree that they were simple points that everybody would go back and she would return to work. There's a signed document saying they worked things out. In the actual lawsuit itself, it says everything went fine from then on. So, you know, and the question really is, why was crisis PR brought in? Crisis PR was brought in because there were negative stories about Justin that were being leaked to the media, not about sexual harassment. There were negative stories about Justin being brought in saying no one likes him, he's been a problem on set, stories like that. And crisis PR was brought in to say, this won't be good for the film. Crisis PR was also brought in because there were negative stories about Blake Lively. Not that Justin created, but that existed out there. I mean, fans and media can be brutal. They go back through your history. They go back and look and say, what interviews have you given before? How have you treated people? How, you know, are you promoting the film in a way where you're promoting your hair care products? And in a way that's not true and genuine as far as domestic violence is concerned. They go back and they see those videos, they bring them out organically. That's not just in doing that, that's not Justin's crisis PR doing it. In fact, what he wants is a successful movie. He wants to protect the movie. And all through the text messages, you'll see over and over and over again him saying, I don't want to hurt her, I want to protect her. Let's give her what she wants, let's help her. That's what he's doing.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well. And I see a lot of Justin saying, we're not planting these stories right? Like, he's going to the PR team, seeing some of the bad PR against her, saying, this isn't us. And they're saying, no, this isn't us. There is an organic campaign unfolding against her. But there are very troubling texts between this crisis PR person, Melissa Nathan, and the regular PR person about what they'd like to do to Blake. And that's what's taken up most of the headlines. I have absolutely no use for PR people. I really can't stand them. I know they have a job to do, but just my own experience has been so negative that it's hard to think this is all defensible. But now that it's gone legal, you have to look at whether this is legal or actionable. Here's one of the. Here's the thing I want to start with. All right, I'm going to give you your due and then we're going to get into what disturbed me about it. They definitely misrepresented some of the texts amongst these two gals. There is one in the Blake Lively lawsuit, and it quotes a Daily Mail headline from August of 24. And this is Blake's lawsuit in paragraph 23. On August 16th, Ms. Nathan circulated a Daily Mail article entitled, Is Blake Lively Set to be Canceled? String of hard to watch, hard to watch videos that have surfaced following Tone Deaf Q and A to promote It Ends With Us could tarnish her golden Hollywood image for good. To which, Ms. Abel, she was the other PR person, responded, speaking to Ms. Nathan, wow, you really outdid yourself with this piece. And Ms. Nathan replied, that's why you hired me, right? I'm the best. Now, this was in the New York Times. And when I read it, I was like, they've got them dead to rights. There's these two PR hacks sitting there saying, like, we planted this Daily Mail piece saying, she's going to be canceled. She's a bad person. And they're celebrating it. And in your lawsuit against the New York Times, you offer up the rest of that text exchange. And I don't just mean what follows, like, in a line or two right after, on the same line as the lines that are quoted in the lawsuit, in the complaint and in the Times. There is, for example, the sarcasm emoji and more importantly, an explicit denial by Melissa Nathan as she writes this that it wasn't her. So what? The full text exchange that you've offered now shows is Jen Abel saying to Melissa, wow, you really outdid yourself with this piece with the sarcasm emoji, which is an upside down smiley face. They took out the sarcasm emoji in the New York Times. Then Melissa responds, that's why you hired me, right? I'm the best. They remove the next part where she says, heading to the airport, and there's a drive through the jungle, that there's going to be no reception around for 24 hours. Joke 45 minutes. And there's a response about that joke. And then Nathan says, same date, August 16th. Damn, this is unfair. Because it's also not me. Everything now looks like it's me. Maybe not to you. And Jen Abel responds, no, it totally does look like his side. But they are saying to one another, but it's not us. So, I mean, the full context and text, Brian, of the full exchange shows these two PR agents saying she's getting hit. You know, I know you think it's me. It's not me.

[Brian Friedman]

It's actually worse than that because the first text in that whole chain is a reporter who is saying to Melissa Nathan is showing her the article for the first time. You can tell that this is the first time that Melissa Nathan sees the article.

[Billy Bush]

She says, what?

[Brian Friedman]

Could Blake Lively be canceled? She's seeing it for the first time and saying, wow, I mean, this looks like it's me, but this is not me. And you can tell that this is the first time Melissa Nathan has learned about this. She forwards that piece with the reporter to Jen Abel. So Jen Abel knows that Melissa Nathan is learning about it for the first time, she knows she's saying, this isn't me. She knows that she doesn't want this to be her, and that's not what they're trying to do. And she sends it to Jen Abel, and Jen Abel looks at it and makes a joke. And, you know, with. With an upside down emoji. That's sarcasm. They remove the emoji. They remove the piece about the reporter showing that Melissa saw it for the first time then and obviously couldn't be a part of it. And they removed the rest of the text messages showing that they're joking around. I mean, it's absolutely appalling what they did. And if the New York Times is correct, by their own response, we've done, you know, incredible reporting. We've done complete and accurate reporting. We've reviewed thousands of pages of text messages and documents and other things. And, you know, and we stand by our story really well. If you really reviewed these, then you would have reviewed those text messages, and you would have known or should have known that this was actually all satire and that Melissa Nathan could have never planted that story because she didn't know about the story, and she learned about it for the first time from the reporter and denied it right away. And there's a plethora of text messages throughout saying, this is not what they want to do. And Justin instructing them. We're not planting stories. We're not using bots. None of that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay? But I grant you all of that. And it seems very clear that Blake Lively's legal team made some very critical material omissions in their complaint, and so did the Times, which is not okay. But if you look at the complaint, and again, this is just. These are just allegations, and now you get the chance to deny them or respond to them. It doesn't sound good. The PR people talking about, you know, Blake and Justin, you know, Justin looking for assurances. He wants to be calmed down, that they have a plan to. To fight back if, you know, she does come out against him, that he didn't. He didn't feel good about the document they sent over, and he wants to feel better. And then I'm just trying to pull up some of them. There's some, like, here's Jen Abel saying to Melissa Nathan, 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. Melissa Nathan, same. Am I already off the record? Spoke to the editor of the Daily Mail because she's my friend. She's ready when we are, says Melissa Nathan. Jennifer Abel. I think we really need to put the social combat plan then into motion. Melissa Nathan. So do I see. That's one representative. I'll get to some others, but they seem pretty explicit in their discussion about how it's time. Let's get her.

[Brian Friedman]

Sure. And I think we all need to understand what crisis PR is about. Right? So they give options and they provide options of how they can clarify things, how they can correct things, how they can change things, how they can put things out there that are true and positive about someone. The difference here is that Justin never authorized anything. And actually, there's nothing that was done that was nefarious or in any way was any type of smear campaign. And in fact, it's just the opposite. I mean, you would expect someone who's actually worried about himself, worried about the film, frankly, worried about Blake Lively's own reputation and the effect on the film, to be prepared to have someone just in case something comes out that is negative about them, it is negative about the film or anything else. It's not like. Like it's all a part of Hollywood. Everyone has crisis, a PR team that they can bring in that might help that. The question isn't whether someone came in and said, we have options. The question is, was anything done that was untoward or were articles placed or anything else? And what you see in the complaint, if you carefully look at it, the only article that they even claim that was placed was this one article, is Blake Lively about to be canceled. And there's unequivocal proof in there. There is a. There are text messages that were left out of the complaint purposely that were left out of the New York Times article purposely that completely refute that either Melissa, Jen, or anyone else, Justin had anything to do with planting that story or even knowing about that story before they learned about it.

[Megyn Kelly]

So this is my problem. One thing for the PR hacks to sit around saying, this is how we'll get her. You know, you've hired us to advise you. If we need to get her, if she unleashes the hounds against you, this is what we'll do. That is one thing, and it is quite another to prove then they actually did it. And I have to say that I say this not just because I'm your friend. I have no, absolutely no feelings about this guy Justin Baldoni. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I reviewed some of his social media, and he seems kind of ridiculous with his toxic masculinity. Lamentations and so on. But that's fine. That's me. So I'm not on his side. But my point is simply, I just don't see it in their incendiary complaint where they're trying to do their best to bash him and the PR team. I don't see that. The second link loop closed of. And then here's where they did it. It's just all supposition. They don't have these great texts saying, look what I got placed in the New York Post.

[Brian Friedman]

Right. It's actually even worse than that. It's not just that they can't prove or don't have any evidence to show that it was done. There's actual evidence. There are text messages, There are receipts. Right. That absolutely show Blake Lively's publicist, Leslie Sloan, placing actual stories and hit pieces about Justin in the Daily Mail and in tmz. And we have text with the actual reporters that show that this is exactly what's going on.

[Megyn Kelly]

And the reporters at the Daily Mail. I saw the text between the Daily Mail and you and some others in there. And the Daily Mail reporter is saying that this Melissa Nathan, who was at the heart of it for Justin, she was the crisis PR person they brought in, did not. Did not bash Blake Lively to him and was not doing that. And you've got Blake's person saying, I know it was Melissa. And you've got the Daily Mail saying, actually, no, Melissa's not doing it.

[Brian Friedman]

That's exactly right. And then you have Blake's person actually, in an exchange with the Daily Mail reporter, changing a story completely to go from, was Blake Lively difficult on the set to change that into, does the cast and crew all hate Justin? I mean, that's when you start to talk about a smear campaign. You start to look at it from that standpoint. And for the New York Times not to have looked at those text messages, not to have caught them, not to have bothered to ask questions about them, is just the reckless disregard for the truth.

[Megyn Kelly]

She does deny that. I should point out to the audience that in Blake's complaint, they deny that they have unleashed any sort of campaign hurting or hitting Justin. They say that explicit that they haven't. I realize you contest that, but that's a point of dispute. I did find the Justin Baldoni text to which I was referring earlier. Let me just read it. It's him. Let's see. Expressing concerns that the PR people's written plan was insufficiently aggressive to, quote, protect him. That's what Blake Lively's Alleging. And they include a screen grab of a text in which he says to said team, morning, not in love with the document they sent. Not sure I'm feeling the protection I felt on the call. And then it's this next text exchange that's made all the papers. In response, the two PR ladies start discussing that message from Justin, which was to one of them. So Jennifer Abel says to Melissa Nathan, the crisis gal, okay, blah, blah, blah, I'm going to confidentially send you something. 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 strengths of strength of what you guys can do in these scenarios. He wants to feel like she can be buried. Then Melissa responds to Jennifer, of course. But, you know, when we send over documents, we can't send over the work we would or could do because that could get us in a lot of trouble. 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 that. We will do this. It has to look. He has to look at it as an information document for us to be armed with. That's all. Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands. You know, we can bury anyone. But I can't write that to him. I will. I'll be very tough. And then Brian, on top of that, they submit in the next paragraph 15, a text from Justin to the PR team. Ms. Abel, Jennifer Abel with a screen grab of Blake Lively. I'm sorry, forgetting Bieber. Hailey Bieber. And it's a. It's an article about Hailey Bieber allegedly bullying women. And he writes to the team, this is what we would need. So their allegation is, everybody's talking about how he needs to feel better. We will bury. We are totally capable of burying her. We're prepared to do that. And then you got him saying, here's an example of what I would need, dismissing her as a bully. So you and I, in another context, might say all this is circumstantial evidence that supports the plan. Though the execution of the plan, the actual articles, we may not have in hand, but there's a supposition that they closed the deal.

[Brian Friedman]

But let's actually break it down, because what you and I would do, because you're a great lawyer, and if you weren't amazing at what you do, you would be the best lawyer in town. That's for sure. So let's break it down. So the first thing they say and you went over it was the plan wasn't sufficiently aggressive for him. You'll find the word aggressive in the complaint. What you won't find is, is the word aggressive in the text message. Because he never wants something that's aggressive. He wants something that's protective. And there's a big difference. Aggressive means you're going to go out and attack. Protective means if something comes out, I want to make sure I'm protected. So he says, the plan doesn't look sufficiently protective to me. Meaning that you got all these attack things in the plan. I don't want to attack anyone. Right. I just want to make sure there's not attacks on us. Everything in his words is protection. Not planting stories, not doing anything offensive, not doing anything with bots or anything like that. And then, you know, as you, as you walk through that text message string, it's so taken out of context. Because what they're saying is, we can't put this in writing to him, right? If they can't put it writing to him because he's expressed over and over and over again, he doesn't want to go on the offensive. He doesn't want to start, you know, attacking anyone. He wants to actually protect her. She actually. He actually wants to protect the film and he wants to protect himself from negative press. That's exactly what he wants to do. He wants to be protective. That's all through there. They realize that if they give him a plan that's an attacking plan, or saying we're going to bury her or anything like that, he's going to say, we're not hiring you. We don't want anything to do with this. That's what they're talking about. This is all taken out of context. And if they would have included other text messages, you would have seen that to be the clear intention. It's easy to pluck and hand and cherry pick certain text messages that say certain things, but this is nothing of the sort. And let's talk about the Hailey Bieber text, right? What he's talking about is this is what we need. We don't need to do this. We need actually people to come out and say she's a bully, if that's what happens, right? Like, people will come out naturally, organically, and say that nobody planted the Haley Bieber story. That was from a fan who put that out there. What he's saying is, what we need is as a, as a protective plan is that people come out and tell the Truth. And if Blake Lively is a bully, that they're going to come out and say that that's what he wants as a plan, not to plant stories or anything else. As a matter of fact, that's belied by all of the texts that he sent. Right. He doesn't.

[Megyn Kelly]

This goes back back to my early on question, which is, is it retaliation if somebody who's accused you of sexual harassment or, you know, acts that she finds unacceptable on a set, if you deny them but say, okay, I'll. I'll implement your reforms, and then she, through a PR person, later comes out and starts hitting you publicly in the press? Is it. Is it retaliation as a legal matter for you directly or through your PR agents to say she's a bully? This is a bad person. Like, I just. I'm not sure it is. I. If you are doing it to punish somebody for the. For the sexual harassment allegations, that's one thing. But if you are in the position of denying it's been settled, the person's admitted that everything's been okay since then, and then you have creative differences, she's trying to wrest control of the film and all that, and she's trying to undermine you publicly, and then you kind of say you're kind of an asshole. I don't know that that's even legally retaliatory.

[Brian Friedman]

It's actually not retaliatory. It's actually. It's called providing a defense. It's called, like, the United States of America. Apparently, some people think they can just make any allegation they want, and you can't say, no, that's not true. And you can say, no, that's not what happened. But there's no public allegation at that time that he's engaged in any type of sexual harassment or anything like that. So this whole idea of the smear campaign has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the protection from whatever she is going to say about him. And in fact, she used all of this to take over the film. And what he's complaining about, frankly, is sitting there having, as a director, having a film taken away from him, having editors who are real human beings, right, who, like, have lives, you know, not being able to see the actual film, you know, at the premiere, even at the premiere, they're going to see the film they edited for the first time time because she took over the editing. Right. You know, these are the things that are being complained about. Right. And is he allowed to deny that he sexually harassed her? Absolutely. It's the United States of America. You can deny it. There's not, there's not a smear campaign going on because she made those allegations. There's a protective campaign that's in existence if needed in case she starts to say things like, oh, well, he was a terrible director or everybody hated him on set, or, you know, he shouldn't have never been in the position he was in, or he did a terrible job. Anything that was negative like that, or the film wasn't proper or appropriate, or even bring your florals, you know, bring your friends. Like, like we're going to do domestic violence, right? We're going to a domestic violence movie. And she wants to turn it into a Barbie set. So like, those are the things that he wants to protect. He wants to protect her, frankly, even from her own, you know, kind of lack of social, proper graces in, in, in knowing what this film is about and not turning it into a sideshow, that it's some party. There's a message here. He always cared about the message. He wanted to protect the domestic violence victims and that community. And that's who he is as a person and that's who he is as a filmmaker. And at the end of the day, he was willing to give up all of these rights to her because of her threats and because he thought the message was more important than, than his own, you know, than his own, frankly, his own career.

[Megyn Kelly]

The timeline of discussions between Justin and the editors does show a guy who had ceded a lot to Blake Lively. He writes in February or March, timeframe 2024. I let her in. What's best for the movie is that I suck it up and I let her in. They point out in this text exchange, one of the editors that she's been getting what she wants for this entire movie. That's. Well, that's what Justin responds. The editor says, I want Blake to feel like she's getting what she wants so we can move on from this need of hers. He responds, she's been getting what she wants the entire movie. There's him acknowledging that Blake has approval over specific scenes. She redid the so called nudity rider to get approval of what happens to the young version of her character, which isn't even played by Blake. They lament in this text exchange, again [e-mail] that the editors and the director are not allowed to look at the actress's cut. Okay, we'll continue taking the high road and the editors talking about how they have not seen the movie before. It's about to be shown at Book Bonanza. Her cut, Justin saying they were supposed to show ours, and then I was uninvited. The whole thing's pretty cruel and intense. Now, this is, you know, this is the other side of the story. I want the audience to understand this is not. We're not taking a position here on who's right and who's wrong and what's out there. But all you've been hearing is what a cad this guy is. He's been canceled, dumped by his agent. Agents are disgusting. At William Morris Endeavor, he had some award taken away from him, you know, that acknowledged his fight in the past for women. And he's doing a domestic violence movie. And every single newspaper has got him out there as like a Harvey Weinstein type, for God's sake. This is the other side of the story, and there's more to it. Up next, we're gonna talk about what did happen in the press with respect to Blake Lively over the summer, and was his team behind any of it? Okay, we're gonna go through some of the examples. When it comes to grocery shopping and meal planning, it's often stressful and time consuming. Between busy schedules and personal demands, finding the time to shop, planning meals, cooking healthy dishes from scratch, blah, blah, it's hard. It's very hard. I felt a little like Kamala Harris, like drunk. Kamala Harris says hard. It's very challenging. Like winning a presidency when you're dumb. Okay. Anyway, on top of all that, maintaining special dietary needs and health goals can feel overwhelming. But now there's Hungry Root, the easiest way to eat healthy. Hungry Root acts as a personal shopper and nutritionist. Combined, it handles everything from weekly grocery shopping to meal planning, offering personalized recommendations based on individual tastes, preferences, and health goals. From smoothies and snacks to full meals, all offerings are healthy, with no artificial sweeteners or preservatives. Only top quality ingredients are used, making healthy eating easy and delicious. Take advantage of this exclusive offer for a limited time. Get 40% off your first box, plus get a free item in every box for Life. Go to hungryroot.com mk and use the code mk. That's hungryroot.com mk code mk to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your Choice for Life. Hungryroot.com MK Code MK I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius xm. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures. Today, you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Ben Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy talk podcast and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.

[Billy Bush]

Go to SiriusXM.com MK show to subscribe.

[Brian Friedman]

And get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months.

[Billy Bush]

Free offer details apply.

[Megyn Kelly]

Are you going to sue Blake Lively, too?

[Brian Friedman]

Into oblivion? Megan, wait till you see this lawsuit.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, boy. For what?

[Brian Friedman]

I'm just going to tell you, you're going to have to wait and see. It's coming up soon. But it's all going to be based on evidence. It's not going to be just a lawsuit. It's going to be the kind of lawsuit that is full of evidence, admissions documents which prove exactly what she did and how she bullied her way through the process to take over the movie and used her PR people to try and destroy Justin. And that's what it's going to be, you know, essentially about. But there will be a number of causes of action. There's a number of different defendants here. Stephanie Jones will be all over this complaint that that is the PR agent who was supposed to be working for Justin Baldoni. There's, there's, you know, Leslie Sloan, who's another PR agent, will be part of this lawsuit that was Blake Lively's. Blake Lively will be sued. And, you know, and we're carefully considering other people that will be sued also. And some of it was a surprise. Ryan Reynolds, for sure.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, wow. He was involved in this to some extent. There was a meeting at their apartment at which you allege that there were some senior production people who witnessed him allegedly berate Justin Baldoni to the point where these third parties felt upset that they didn't do more to stand up for Justin, that they thought Ryan Reynolds was so abusive. I think he would say, I was standing up for my wife who'd been sexually harassed by this guy and so on. But what role did he have in all of this?

[Brian Friedman]

Well, you know, arguably, you know, for the first time at the premiere, you find out that Blake Lively tells people that all of a sudden he wrote a scene in the movie shocking everybody, Shocking Sony, shocking the production staff. It's the first time they're hearing it. And Justin handles that really, really well and doesn't want to say she's a liar or doesn't want to say that's inappropriate or doesn't want to say that's part of someone else's job. And he treats her very well about that. But what Ryan Reynolds has seemingly done is used his power and influence to not only help Blake Lively take over this movie, but, you know, he's used it, you know, on Deadpool and to make fun of Justin Baldoni.

[Megyn Kelly]

I mean, do you think that's what he did? We have a clip where his character Deadpool, which is very popular in this movie, acts more like. More like the Justin Baldoni that I said, turn me off with the. Like, I'm against toxic masculinity. And there's a question about whether he was taking a shot at Justin. Here's the clip. Sorry about that.

[Brian Friedman]

Come here, girl. Who are you? I'm Deadpool. And I guess you're Deadpool, too. But in here, everybody calls me Nice Pool. Oh, my goodness.

[D]

Wait till you see Lady Pool.

[Brian Friedman]

She is gorgeous. She just had a baby, too, and can't even tell. I don't think you're supposed to say that.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's okay.

[Brian Friedman]

I identify as a feminist, Right?

[Megyn Kelly]

What do you make of that?

[Brian Friedman]

What I make of that is that if your wife is sexually harassed, you don't make fun of Justin Baldoni. You don't make fun of the situation. You take it very seriously. You file HR complaints, you raise the issue, and you follow a legal process. What you don't do is mock the person and turn it into a joke. There's no question it relates to Justin. I mean, anybody that can watch that, watch that. The hair bun, you know, the comment about the pregnancy. I mean, it's pretty obvious what's being done. But again, if somebody is seriously sexually harassed, you don't make fun of it. It's a serious issue.

[Megyn Kelly]

The press for Blake did get bad in the summer of 2024 this past summer. And the one clip that went everywhere involved a young reporter who was interviewing what my understanding is Blake, but you can't totally see it in this clip, was about eight months pregnant, and the reporter remarked on Blake's baby bump. And then Blake. I'm gonna play it. But she snaps back about the reporter's alleged baby bump. The reporter did not have a baby bump. She wasn't pregnant. And apparently it had a history of difficulty in getting pregnant, which is why, generally, you just stay far away for Something like that in an exchange. But it went very, very viral. And people were saying Blake Lively was inappropriate and a bully, and it wasn't the first time. And then we saw a bunch of videos. Here it is with reporter. That clip with reporter Kirsty Flah. First of all, congrats on your little bump. Congrats on your little bump. Did you guys love wearing those kind.

[Billy Bush]

Of clothes that you.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, working in digital, no one wants to talk about the clothes, but I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes. Clothes.

[Billy Bush]

I would.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. It's not just the women that. That have the clothes, but I feel like the women get the conversation. So there she was, upset about being asked about the clothing. But here's Blake Lively in a different interview with People magazine talking about her clothing in this particular movie. That. That exchange with Kirsty was not about this particular movie, but here she is totally fine with talking about wardrobe in SOT15.

[Billy Bush]

I just really loved those patchwork, like.

[Megyn Kelly]

Jeans that you have. Magnolia pearl. Oh, yeah, those are my real life jeans. Yeah.

[Brian Friedman]

A lot of that is like your stuff.

[Megyn Kelly]

The boots were mine. There's these great Louboutins that are also a close up on them when we're dancing in the bar. Those are mine. I have a few of my husband's shirts and socks randomly in the movie. I have some of Gigi Hadid sweaters in the movie. Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of my stuff. So the reason I'm showing this to the audience is that people started noticing that Blake seemed sort of bullyish to this person who has far less power and stature in the industry than Blake does. And why did she do that? When a woman's eight months pregnant, it is not abnormal to acknowledge it in an interview in a fun way. But she didn't seem to take well to it. And FLA responded afterwards saying that this whole thing got, you know, publicized your. Your lawsuit saying she is in no way connected to any attempt to smear Blake Lively. She doesn't know the PR people involved in this. And she said as follows. I'm a journalist. This is what I do for a living. I would never accept money to jeopardize my integrity. I posted the video after I saw the movie, which I didn't like. I had a bad experience with Blake Lively at the time. I kind of had enough of Hollywood. I wasn't afraid of being canceled anymore, so I posted the video. So that one, which I think is the most famous example, Brian, the Journalist herself is saying she had absolutely no connection to Justin Baldoni or these PR agents that we've been discussing. And is that basically your point? That would you say the vast majority, most all of the negative press generated about Blake in the summer did not actually originate with his PR team?

[Brian Friedman]

I would say all of it did not generate with this PR team. I mean, you know, since I've been involved in this case, I've gotten 50 either texts or emails or, you know, things to my firm's website. You know, more than 50, actually. About this was my experience with Blake Lively. We weren't allowed to talk to her on the set. We weren't allowed to ask for an autograph. We were instructed this way or that. We were treated like this. And these things aren't coming because we're doing an investigation. These are completely organic. These are based on people's real life experiences. In fact, we've come across evidence that shows that. That even her own representatives knew that she was threatening and mean and tough and wanted to get her way. This is not something that we wanted out there. It's not something that Justin wanted out there. In fact, it hurts the movie. It doesn't help the movie. And Justin knew that. And Justin's, you know, this was about, you know, domestic violence and getting the message across. I mean, I'll just give you a couple of examples. In April and May of 2024, when Blake Lively got her own cut of the movie, Justin said in a text message to his editors, the editors and director isn't allowed to look at an actress cut. Got it. Well, here we go. We will keep taking the high road. Even when Justin Baldoni's is his version. His cut of the film, the Baldoni cut, I'll call it, scored significantly higher than Blake Lively's cut. And still Blake Lively's cut was the one that was chosen. He still didn't do anything publicly about that. And that was the one chosen because of the threats made by Blake Lively. In fact, we have a source that tells us that some of the cut that she had has some of Baldoni's version in it. In June of 2024, Blake Lively took over the marketing for the film. Again, there's nothing negative in the press or anything else like that, and Justin just wants to take the high road. Blake. In June of 2024, Blake's cut is chosen to be shown at Book Bonanza. And Justin and his editing team haven't even seen it. I mean, they haven't even seen it. And that's in A text message that they're not allowed to. Justin is shut out. He's giving notes as a direct, as a studio, not as a director. He has not seen the locked cut of the film in July of 2024. And in August 5th of 2024, Justin invites the editors to the premiere. But they can't be in the same room with Blake. Justin replies, we won't be in the same room. I was asked not to even come to the premiere. And the editors say it would be very hard for me to sit and watch the final film for the first time at the premiere. And Justin replies, okay, yeah, I haven't seen it either. And that's when you get to the voice note. And even in September of 2024, without criticizing Blake at all, he says to the editors, one day we'll finish our cut together. I would of course love to show the world the beautiful version we did. And he says In September of 2024, the purpose of the movie, the amount of women who feel seen. That's why we did this. And it worked. And there are statistical scores of the movie showing that Justin's version, the Baldoni cut, scored higher than Blake Lively's cut.

[Megyn Kelly]

With the under 35 year old female demo.

[Brian Friedman]

Yes. And notwithstanding, you know, because of her threats that she wouldn't market the film, that she wouldn't do publicity, that's why her cut was released.

[Megyn Kelly]

She had some problems in promoting the film. She now says that they were told they agreed with a marketing plan that would not lean into the sadness of domestic violence, that they would lean more into the female empowerment nature of overcoming it, and that therefore she didn't promote it in any way that was not on brand for what they had settled on when she promoted it. She also generated a new round of bad publicity for herself. And it's discussed amongst the PR agents saying this wasn't us, this was her. Here's an example of Blake Lively being a bit too perhaps lighthearted in promoting a film about a very serious subject matter in SOT 13. And it ends with us is in theaters now. So grab your friends, wear your florals and head out to see it. So if someone understands the themes of this movie, comes across you in public and they want to really talk to.

[Brian Friedman]

You, what's the best way for them to, to be able to talk to you about this? How would you recommend they go about it?

[Megyn Kelly]

Like asking for like my address or my phone number or like my location share? I could just location cheer you. And then we could. So we're making the hot chocolate cookies that that atlas makes for young Lily in our movie, it ends with us, you guys, we talked about our movie. Not at all. Thanks for joining us. In theaters August 9th. Yeah, that's a wrap, guys. We got it. So this is what, this is your point, Brian, that when, when she was out there talking about it, she seemed a bit too glib. She was flippant.

[Brian Friedman]

I mean, the public's not stupid. Not stupid, right. They see this and, you know, everybody is their own investigative journalist and everybody has their own point of view. And the domestic violence community, I feel like, was outraged over it. And again, this wasn't something that Justin pointed to. It was something Justin wanted to help with, but he couldn't help with it because she had already taken over the marketing campaign. It was her marketing campaign at that point.

[Megyn Kelly]

Going back to sort of the underlying dispute between the two of them. Because I think a lot of people may be wondering, why would Blake Lively work so hard to rest control of this film away from him? Like, she's a rich person. She's going to get other movies. Like, why would she have done this? Isn't it more plausible that she just didn't like him because of the 17 points she raised where, you know, and that there's quite a bit in there. I'll read just a couple, so people know what we're talking about. It turned into a 30 point document that they got promises from Justin he would rectify. I'll just give a couple of examples. But this is what she was saying she was subjected to when, in order to come back to work in January. She said there can be no more showing nude videos or images of women, including producer's wife, to Blake Lively or her employers. No more mention of Mr. Baldoni's or Heath's previous pornography addiction or Blake Lively's lack of porn consumption. No more discussions to Blake Lively and her employees about personal experiences with sexual, including as it relates to spouses. No more mentions to Blake Lively or her employees of personal times that physical consent was not given in sexual acts. No more descriptions of their own genitalia to Blake Lively. Right. So, like, all these are so ugly that it, it definitely leaves the reader thinking, these guys are a bunch of jerks. No wonder she hated them.

[Brian Friedman]

So, so let. Let's be really clear about what this 30 point list was. This 30 point list was never provided to Justin or Jamie or anyone else. Never. And I challenge anyone to find an email or a text message where it was provided to them at all. As a matter of Fact, they category it's written in such a way it says no more. No more like presuming that it happened already. The only thing that was provided to them in writing was the 17 point list, which included things that they wouldn't do anyway. If this 30 point list was so important and that they had never seen or heard before, frankly, that showed up for the first time in writing in the complaint of all things. If that was so important, why didn't they say no? Unless you sign the 30 point list, we're not coming back. The 17 point list were natural, normal things that they wouldn't do anyway. The 17 point list is a ruse. Putting things in there like no more presupposes it happened before. This is part of just the absolute misrepresentation of what the truth is. It's just not true. That 30 point list never shown to them.

[Megyn Kelly]

Let me ask about some specifics in here because. And I'm just going to go to the place that hurts. I'll read you the ones that jumped out at me as not good, not good. Page 48 of her complaint. On another occasion, Mr. Baldoni and Ms. Lively were filming a slow dance scene for a montage in which no sound was recorded. Mr. Baldoni chose to let the camera roll and have them perform the scene, but did not act in character as Ryle, which was the name of his character. Instead, he spoke to Ms. Lively out of character as himself. At one point, he leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, it's smell 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, Mr. Baldoni's response was, I'm not even attracted to you. You want to take that one on.

[Brian Friedman]

Love to take that one on. That. That's, that's. You know what? Documents don't lie. People do. So let's go to the footage, let's take a look at the footage and let's see exactly what it shows. And you know, let's talk about the film. Like, we're not making, you know, you know, Bugs Bunny here, right? Like, this is a film about domestic violence. This is a film about sexual scenes. This is a film, you know, and if Blake Lively, you know, had objected to that, know, why didn't she stop in that moment and say, enough. That's it. I'm not doing this. She doesn't need the money, she doesn't need any of that. I mean, this is so taken out of context. And there's footage on all of this. So, you know, you'll be able to see how Blake Lively reacted to it, what she said as a result of it, how she reacted after that scene, you know, as she was walking away from that scene. There is footage of all of that. So all of this will come out. This is lawyers writing things in such a way that is as salacious as possible to try to have someone make up for their own problem with their own reputation. And she wants an excuse. She wants to blame him for that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Let's go to paragraph 52. There's a birth scene in the movie when the birth scene. She's the mother. When the birth scene was filmed, the set was chaotic, crowded and utterly lacking in standard industry protections for filming nude scenes, such as choreographing the scene with an intimacy coordinator, having assigned nudity rider, or simply turning off the monitors so the scene was not broadcast to all crew on set and on their personal phones and iPads. Mr. Heath and Mr. 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 and stirrups and only a small piece of fabric covering her genitalia. Among the non essential persons present that day was wayfarer Co chairman Mr. Sarawitz, who flew in for one of his few set visits. Ms. Lively was not provided with anything to cover herself between takes until after she had multiple had made multiple requests. She became even more alarmed when Mr. Baldoni introduced his quote, 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. She felt the selection of Mr. Baldoni's friend for this intimate role in which the actor's face and hands were in close proxi proximity to her nearly new genitalia for a birth scene was invasive and humiliating. Here's my note, Brian. I circled it and this is what my note reads. Bad. Bad. That sounds bad.

[Brian Friedman]

So Megan, when was this? Was this after the 17 point list was agreed to?

[Megyn Kelly]

I don't know, I don't remember.

[Brian Friedman]

Well, let's put it this way. If it was, and her complaint says everything was fine, moving forward, you have a little bit of a discrepancy in the document itself. But again, the greatest part of these complaints about onset behavior is this is all filmed. This is, you know, there's no surprises here. This is all going to be on tape, and the truth is all going to come out of exactly what happened. And Ms. Lively does not strike me as someone, you know, who's not in a position of power. Right. She is controlling her own destiny. And trust me, she's not someone who was taken advantage of any step of this. Of the. Of this project. And.

[Megyn Kelly]

And, well, that's one of the weirdnesses of this.

[Billy Bush]

She.

[Megyn Kelly]

She had more power than he did, for sure. There's no question. She had more power than he did. So the thought of her just sitting there like, oh, poor me. My genitals are exposed. I mean, I. It just doesn't seem characteristic. Even those interviews, you can she see she's a very strong personality. Now she wants us to believe she was this shrinking violet on the set, being exploited by all these mean guys like Justin Baldoni. I don't know, Brian. I'm not sure whether this'll be bought. The other thing is that I do think we should spend a minute on is, you know, you referenced it in passing, but there. There are allegations in here that are already falling apart. Like the thing about the breastfeeding on the set and how allegedly Justin and his partner Heath were barging into her trailer and, like, watching her breastfeed and looking at her naked breasts without her consent, which would be outrageous if true. But you include in your complaint the following text exchange between Blake Lively and Justin, where he's acknowledging that she and her baby are sick in some way. I'm sorry. That's the last thing you needed right now. I pray it comes and goes with mild symptoms. I'm here for you anytime. Would love to check in. I know this week was a lot. I'm committed to making things run smoother. She responds, our mistake. Molly did get the new pages at 11 last night. She didn't realize they were new, but you can always send them to me as well, please. And then she adds, I'm just pumping in my trailer if you want to work out our lines. And he responds, copy eating with crew, and we'll head that way. She says, take your time. Then he says, I'm here. I'll meet you in hair makeup. She says, okay, I'm sorry. Just seeing this. So she says that she seems to be the one saying, I'm pumping. If you want to come over. I'm. I'm. We can work out our lines then. The other thing is that nude birth scene, which I do think we should talk about, because I was creeped out by this allegation, too. She alleges in her lawsuit that. That the partner Heath wanted to talk porn with her and she felt very uncomfortable, and she was doing this birth scene, and he, like, whipped out a picture or a video of a birth scene with his wife nude. And she felt like, this is really inappropriate and uncomfortable. And you write in your complaint against the Times that this article, based on Lively's internal complaint, sensationally alleges that Mr. Heath had shown Lively a video of his naked wife, even labeling the footage she did as pornography. This is patently absurd. The video in question was a non pornographic recording of Heath's wife and baby during a home birth, a deeply personal one with no sexual overtone. To distort the benign event into an act of sexual misconduct is outrageous and emblematic of the lengths to which Lively and her collaborators are willing to go to defame plaintiffs. And you include a screen grab from the video, which I have to say, not only looks absolutely wholesome, but made me wish I had had a home birth of my own kids in a bathtub in my husband's arms. The way that, like. My point is simply, I'm starting to glean that this is not a truth teller.

[Brian Friedman]

On the other side, you know, there is a complaint filed with the Civil Rights Division that is signed under penalty of perjury as a representative of Blake Lively, that this is true and correct. And that complaint says this was Jamie Heath showing her pornography. That take. I mean, I wish we could show the picture, but. But, you know, we're going to. That's not. That's not pornography. And it's part of the artistic creativity of a birth scene that they're talking about. And it's not like he even played the video for her. It's the screenshot of the first screen. It's anything but pornography. So to swear under penalty of perjury that everything's true and correct and to call that pornography is going to really be an interesting deposition, isn't it?

[Megyn Kelly]

Mm. Well, I think it's not gonna go as well as the one between you and yours truly, Web. Then there's the notion of her saying that Justin Baldoni called her sexy, called somebody else on the set sexy. And you've got in your complaint against the Times, a text exchange between Blake and Justin in which Blake Lively raises the issue of how they can make her character look sexier. And she writes, we'll show you both ways. It's something about a hat, but Beanie is much sexier. It's the look feels TV without. And then goes on, especially with a crop top in the snow. It justifies the rest of the skin and ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. And so your point is simply, it's one thing for her and her lawsuit is suit to say, oh, my God, he's like, calling her sexy. And. And then you see, they were discussing what would make the character look sexy. So it's like there really are some contexts to the discussions that have been blasted all over the New York Times in this lawsuit. And I mean, my own feeling in seeing all this, Brian, is just like, withhold judgment. You know, we've been doing trial by media for years now. For years. And it doesn't work. Well, it really doesn't. No one takes the time to go through a responsive document like the one you filed. Most lawyers don't file a responsive document like you filed. They don't fight the PR war and then they lose it. So what's your prediction of where things go from here?

[Brian Friedman]

I mean, you know, my prediction is. Is. Is. Is that this is going to get worse and worse for Blake Lively. And the reason it's going to get worse and worse is people are going to be more comfortable telling the truth. And what this is about is really the truth. And she's put Jamie Heath and Justin Baldoni in this position of being called sexual predators, sexual harassers. They have no choice but to go all the way. No choice. So we're going to go all the way. And the unique thing, again in this case is going to be we're going to put every single text message out there, we're going to put every email out there, we're going to put every document out there that's relevant to the case, not something that's disrespectful or otherwise would embarrass Ms. Lively. Because that's not what we want to do. But we want to make sure that people have the facts and people can make their own determinations as to what happened. Sure. Could people have felt comfortable during filming? Absolutely. It's an uncomfortable situation at times when you have sex scenes and when you have domestic violence issues and that's what you're talking about. But Justin is the kind of person that takes responsibility for it, that if he knows about something that someone feels uncomfortable with, he's willing to change, he's willing to take responsibility for it. That's what. That's who he's about. Right. He's not a sexual predator. Not even close. And for her to weaponize that and use that to take over this film makes me question what's really going on. And this power couple and this power dynamic are using that power to be able to try and really destroy someone's life. You know, both Jamie and Justin are married. They have lives. You know, Justin has children. You know, they have to listen and read about this. It's. It's terrible. It's terrible for their careers. Their careers are over unless we fight back. And we will fight back like no one has ever fought back.

[Megyn Kelly]

Do you think Ryan Reynolds was responsible for wme, which I think is his agency that he's represented by dumping Justin?

[Brian Friedman]

I don't know because I don't know the facts of whether he's responsible or not. But certainly coincidence is an indicator of truth.

[Megyn Kelly]

Finally, her lawsuit claims that she suffered too. Claims that her hair company got attacked online unfairly by bots with no followers disparaging it. She's got a line of hair care products that her booze company. She doesn't drink apparently, but she's got a booze company same. That she has been in bed unable to function for periods of time. That her children. Her children. That Ryan Reynolds too has suffered. That they have suffered mightily as a result of this alleged smear campaign against them. In response to what you say, I.

[Brian Friedman]

Think they're suffering because they filed a lawsuit that is slowly being shown to be a fabrication. I think that's where they're suffering. And I think that had they not filed the lawsuit, they wouldn't be suffering. And it's only going to get worse because as we unearth every single document and we put it out there for the public to see the truth, that's where the real suffering is. And they had no business trying to destroy people's lives. But when you back someone in a corner, give them no option and call someone a sexual predator and make up that there's a smear campaign, what do you expect? People aren't just going to kowtow to them because they're a power couple.

[Megyn Kelly]

We will continue to watch it. Brian Friedman, so great to have you. Thank you so much for sharing so much with us.

[Brian Friedman]

Thank you. And so good to see you. I really appreciate you as a person and just love you so much, truly.

[Megyn Kelly]

Likewise. We've been through quite a battle together and I think we both emerged the better for it. In your debt. As you know, the one and only Brian Friedman. He did not disappoint. Right. He's a brilliant lawyer. You can see why I have him on retainer just in case Anyone messes with me. And I'd love to know your thoughts on this. Right? I don't really know these characters. This is not my world, Hollywood. But I remember seeing the videos of her last summer thinking, yeah, she sounds annoying. And when I read the Times article outing his alleged baby, I'd never heard his name before. I have not seen the film. The. The thing that stood out to me was, I don't understand this because she's the one in the power position here. It's Blake Lively and some guy who pretty much nobody knows, and she's on the set. She's the star. How is it that she got so, you know, bullied and taken advantage of? And then they're talking about how they had meetings with Ryan Reynolds. Like, and again, he's way more powerful than any of these. What is just in Baldoni's interest in alienating, picking on, harassing Blake Lively and alienating her husband, Ryan Reynolds? Like, why would he do that now? Maybe he did. You know, maybe he did. Maybe there's something wrong with him. There's a. There's a text in his messages where he talks about how we should. We should talk about the fact that I'm neurodivergent. So maybe he is making excuses for bad behavior there. Or maybe she is especially sensitive and prone to playing the victim and wanted things just exactly the way she wanted them and decided that she wasn't treated in the way she wanted to be and she was going to make this guy pay because you see him almost in the fetal position in these texts over and over, like, let's give her what she wants. Let's not upset her. Just let it happen. Like, he's afraid of her. You can see in these texts, even with his texts with the PR people, he is scared of her. He knows what she can do to him. And the question here is, what did he do to protect himself? He definitely talked with PR agents about protecting him. And the question is, what exactly did those PR agents do? They talked a big game. They did talk like big, swaggering cowboys who could destroy her. Did they actually do it? That I don't see in her allegations. I see swagger, but I don't see the substance of it other than some minor things, which you would expect, where they, you know, tried to get good PR going for Justin or do nice, you know, sort of messaging around the film. All that's fair game. Anyway, look, this is what I did. This is. I'm. As you know, I'm not feeling well. I was up till 2am this is her complaint. Look at all my notes. Okay then this is Justin's complaint. And these are all my notes that I just went through many of them with Brian. This is the timeline of all the text messaging between Justin and those two editors, his so called dream team, which we're posting on MeganKelly.com and you can look through them all yourself. Articles packets. I'm neck deep in this weird industry that I really want nothing to do with, but it's the case everyone's been talking about. And as you know, I love Brian Friedman. So let me know what you think. Meganegankelly.com m e g y [e-mail] we are back tomorrow with the fifth column. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda, and no fear.