Loading summary
A
Good afternoon, Millennials. Because it's morning right now, we're dropping this right after we record it. And weirdly, even though we're having, like, a day of leisure, we're recording at the exact time that we record the regular show.
B
Well, when I woke up this morning, I said, there's one thing I have to do and it's to come on the Internet and clear my name. You know, we. I. It's. You know, we make everything about ourselves. Of course, it's just kind of like our natural inclination, but it's.
A
It's human.
B
It's seemingly impossible not to make the Justin Baldoni big lively drama about us one, because I have, like, I know there was a grassroots movement and also an astroturf movement, but I was a part of, like, the Blake Lively team Blake Lively grassroots movement. And I. I definitely, like, feel like we were huge advocates and voices in that during that time.
A
We were. So much so that when I was reading everything that Sins Come to Light, which we will get into late in a bit, we have to catch up with, like, ourselves, yourselves. So much so that I was reading it, I was like, damn, were these publicists frustrated by the toast that we would not budge. We could not be tur. And we could not be manipulated.
B
Must be sick of US 1000%. And there is a personal connection that I will get into later in the show.
A
There's so many things to say, and we're going to get into it later in the show.
B
The one thing I want to say. And we are going to get into it later, I promise. But the one thing I want to say, because if you take away one thing from this episode, it's like Jackie and I actually, like, all the time get so much for, like, having no quote, worse takes. Like, we're always, like, I guess, delivering hot takes, just giving our opinions and people like, classic Jackson Claude always being on the wrong side of history.
A
No, we're classic Jackson Claude going against the grain.
B
No, no. Classic Jack and Claude thinking independently and not being able to be brainwashed by literal campaigns paid for by agencies. So the fact that, like, we're always getting for, like, you know, whenever everyone. Whenever everyone's Team X, like, we are team Y. And I think feel so justified right now in this moment, obviously, because we were right about this. But also, like, I think it's a.
A
Greater think about all the other things we're probably right about then and think.
B
About all the other campaigns, like, we don't know about. Right.
A
That are campaigns.
B
Right? Like, who were we all, you know, sort of encouraged to dislike. And Jackie and I never did. I mean, we ended up being right about Ballerina Farm. All these things that happen over the summer. It was kind of like the summer of truth. Like, you and I were right about Ballerini. We were right about Blake Live. Like, it just feels good now. I will. I will not the whole episode go wax on about how we were right. But, like, two.
A
I wasn't even, like, waiting for this. I was like, you know, we said our piece. It's they said, we said. And Blake's reputation was definitely tarnished in the public eye now for me, if anything, it made me, like, like her. I didn't have an opinion about her before, but I was like, damn, this girl's really going through it. She's a mom of four. She just had a baby. She's, like, working hard. And now I have, like, even more respect for her because she, like, had to deal with all this.
B
Yeah. I never even particularly, like, stand, like, I. Yeah.
A
So sometimes, like, cancellation maketh men.
B
It's so true. We're about to see a whole new version of Blake Lively. When she comes out of.
A
This really hones you as a human being.
B
It does.
A
For better or for worse. Because when someone's so beloved all the time, like, that's. That's nice for them. It's not super interesting.
B
Agreed.
A
But that's nice.
B
But now you have a chip on your shoulder. Welcome to the club.
A
Yeah. Now you got something to say, I want to hear. I'm a listening.
B
So we will get into it at some point in the show, but Jax and I are just excited to be back on the Ones and the Twos. We've been been off podcasting now for.
A
Like, a week and a half.
B
We have a lot to catch up on.
A
So how was Turdy's staycation?
B
It was. Yes. So I'm down in Florida with Jackie. We're spending the holidays together. But before I got down here, Ben and I spent a week together in Miami. It was so nice. Just, like, very relaxing. Pool, beach. I got a sunglass tan. You know, all the things. Not much to report because it was just, like, genuinely relaxing.
A
Yeah, that's really nice.
B
And you spent that week, like, kind of having the opposite sort of effect. Right. Doing the most.
A
I did not have a relaxing week, but I had an extremely productive and fulfilling week because I spent the week getting ready for Turdy's arrival. And as you saw, if you didn't watch the Patreon yet, like, go watch it even Though it seems like a lot of you have watched it and you're really loving it. I'm so glad because I put my heart. I put my heart and soul not only into the project, which I think everyone could feel, but I put my heart and soul into that vlog. An hour and 15 minutes. And you also, like, get nervous. Like, that's a lot of.
B
Oh, hold on, hold on. Michael. Vic, hold on.
A
We get Michael in here. Rudy, come to your mother. We've separated them.
B
Okay. Separation of church and state.
A
I also put my heart and soul into the vlog. An hour and 15 is a lot of jacks, and I was really, like, worried how it would be received. And I'm so glad that people are really loving the entirety of it. So thank you guys so much.
B
It was such a pleasure to be the recipient of your gift. I. I love my room so much. It's kind of been a beacon of peace and restoration for me during these trying times with, like, Lively and Justin Baldoni. It was seriously, like, so above and beyond. The vlog was amazing, obviously. But, like, the gift that I received.
A
Let's get real. Talking about.
B
I watched parts of the vlog. It was really long. I did. I skipped through it, obviously.
A
Claudia. Like, we don't watch each other's work. We live it.
B
We live it. Sometimes, like, if a patron's going up that only one of us had a hand in, like the one that Jackie did. I will say, like, I need you to watch this before I post it. I want to make sure I didn't.
A
Say anything bad or there's not a piece of shy.
B
Yeah, like, requires approval. But Jackie knew she had a king piece of content. She didn't need my approval. And then when the time came, yes, I did skip to the end to see my reaction. I did, like, skirt through a lot of the talking parts. Like, I just wanted to see more. Like, I'm very hgtv. Like that.
A
I understood you don't like the confessionals of the behind the scenes drama.
B
Exactly.
A
And also because you saw what the room looked like. A lot of the stuff in the beginning, like, you don't have the suspense of, like, it seemed like I wasn't doing much. I was getting a wardrobe from Ikea and maybe a fire pit for my backyard and a mirror for my room. And I'll take you guys along. What it turned into so much more than that was so much more than that is really like, a story being told.
B
You're a storyteller.
A
I am a storyteller. When Will you guys get that? Like, I live for.
B
We get it. We get it.
A
For content creation. Someone said my vlog was giving Molly Mae, and let me just tell you, like, I dined off that for days.
B
It's giving Comfort creator. That's what they call Molly Mae.
A
Comfort creator.
B
Like, YouTubers who, like, document their life very uneventfully, like, they're not doing crazy stunts. They're just, like, makeup and chill and girlfriends and cooking, and people just sort of watch it in the background. They become their comfort creators. And I know a lot of people are looking for new comfort creators ever since Emma Chamberlain, like, took an oath of whatever from YouTube. So maybe it's you.
A
Oh, my. A comfort creator. I love that. Yeah. I'm not, like, you know, popping on the dance.
B
No, she's not jumping out of planes, like, doing pranks on her grandma.
A
And, like, there are some funny moments. Moments. But it's not even comedy. Like, it's comfort creation.
B
That's kind of your thing.
A
Oh, my God. I love when there's a word for what I. What I'm thinking.
B
Okay. And speaking of words that I didn't know, Astroturfing, I think. Okay. Do you have anything else you need to catch up on?
A
No, I guess not. Let's get into it.
B
Okay. So I'm sitting outside. I forget where I was when I heard this.
A
You were in my house because you were telling all of us, you know.
B
But I forget which part of thing was sitting. Getting some sun.
A
You were getting sun. Yeah.
B
And I saw this lawsuit. Now, much like everybody else, everybody's initial thought was like, this was Blake Lively trying to rehabilitate her image. And to be honest, I was staunchly Team Blake in the beginning. But even I saw this, I was like, it's very hard to prove these things. There's no way she has any actual evidence. I was like, you know what? Pop off, queen. Like, you have a ton of money. You and your husband have endless resources. Bury him. I love it. I did. I did think it was, like, a rehabilitation thing. And it wasn't until that I read the actual. It's not a lawsuit. What's it called? It's. It's her. I keep using the wrong word and all these layers, like that complaint. People like, that's that right? Okay. It wasn't until I read her complaint that I was like, one, not only, like, I was right, but, two, she has so much proof and so much evidence. Screenshots, receipts, proof, timeline. One of the biggest mysteries to me of this whole saga Is like, how did she get these people's text messages?
A
Yeah. Something about, like, in discovery when she was, like, suing them. Like, you have to hand over evidence.
B
But also Melissa, Jennifer, the other one, Because a lot of people said. Because if you look at it, it looks like it's coming from her phone.
A
Yeah.
B
People thought she was subpoenaed and had to fork over the messages, but she says she wasn't. She has no idea how.
A
So one of them works for Jonestown PR or whatever.
B
Okay.
A
And she has since. Since all this happened. She was fired because I think she went to start her own shop, and the. The owner of that PR company, like, fired her. Took her phone on the way out. This is read. Oh. And then happily gave it over because. So she can, you know, ruin her new biz.
B
Right, right. Oh, love that. And then. So I feel like there's also a lot of confusion here because there was a lot of different, like, parties and agencies involved. So Melissa Nathan, who's kind of like the mastermind publicist of this whole thing, who I have to like so much to say about. But the first is that. So she's a part of this company called the Tag Agency. The agency group. So everybody's like, the agency group, all their clients. Like, they're all doing grassroots astroturfing. And it's actually. It's actually a fairly popular PR company. I know a lot of people whose publicists are there. It's not a nefarious PR company. The PR company itself is not like one of these Hollywood machines. Like, okay, but Melissa is, like, this nefarious actor who works with this company based out of Dallas, who is like, the astroturfing farm energy masterminds. So I think a lot of people are now, like, misunderstanding how some of the agencies work and being like, everyone who works for tech PR has. Why can't I remember the word astroturfing has astroturfing movements against them. That's actually not true. It was, like, a special combo of Melissa and this person she knew, based out of Texas, who ran these types of campaigns, which I had never even heard of.
A
I think what was also confusing is, like, Justin Baldoni is nobody in this world. How does he have enough money to, like, put Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds out of business? But it's the backer of Wayfarer Studios because this, her. Blake Lively's initial sexual harassment complaint against hr, like, would have really damaged the studio that he works with. And he has a lot of.
B
No, Justin, his studio. He is wayfair.
A
Studios.
B
He has a partner, Jamie, and this guy Jamie, who's also named in the suit for doing really fucking weird things, like showing naked videos of his wife to Blake Lively on his phone.
A
So it's those people who are backing Wayfarer Studios who are paying for this, because, like I said, like, Justin Baldoni, he's not Richie Rich.
B
Right. He's not made of money.
A
Moneybags Baldoni, that he could spend more money than them.
B
Yeah. And I don't even think Blake. First of all, I'm, like, the most chronically online person ever. I did not know that this was a thing that you could do. I doubt Blake did either.
A
I think a lot of people didn't know that until recently. And now it does make sense. There's so many, like, random tweets by random people that go super viral.
C
It kind of even reminded me of holding space.
A
Who the was that person?
B
A real person.
A
A real person.
B
Yeah, it was a real person.
A
Happy for him, but that was only positive. A studio could do that to create a moment for themselves. Like, it could happen in a positive way or a negative way. The thing is, like, negativity catches fire so much faster. But there are a lot of people with, like, these, you know, quote, tweets, block tweets, with hateful opinions that go super viral, and now you have to question everything.
B
It's insane that you like that it's at this level. I think, like, you know, as big.
A
Pop culture fans, if someone said to me, like, this is what they do in Hollywood. They have these bot farms and they make these fake accounts, and then they all go viral, I'm like, that. That doesn't happen. Like, that's conspiracy.
B
It is, but it's not.
A
But it's not.
B
And the crazy part, you're right that it is Wayfair Studios, because so many people who are, like, who hate Blake and just, like, want to. Who the campaign worked on and don't want to believe her, they're like, well, why didn't she just go to the studio? And that's the crazy thing. Justin Baldoni was the studio. Not only was he the director and the star, it was also his production company who produced the whole film. So everyone, all the bosses on set, the HR department, it's him.
A
Yeah.
B
So that's why when the SAG strike, the whole thing really starts. When the SAG strike happened, they went on break, and Blake had a meeting, just basically being like, there's been, like, really weird behavior on set. Like, I don't want to come back after the strike until it's all settled. So there's this long list, list of complaints that she made that, that she.
A
Asked for them to stop doing, his freaks to stop doing Jay and the.
B
Freaks to stop doing. And they like wrote it out and it's a part of this complaint. So that was the first thing in the complaint that's like really damaging. It's basically an admission of guilt that, like, they all agreed to come back to work after the sex strike because this would stop. So you agree it was happening, you know, and so it's Blake's thoughts in the suit that she's filing is that everything that happened to her afterwards was retribution, retaliation from Wayfair Studios. But also, if we discredit Blake and she ever comes out and says this, no one's gonna believe her.
C
For the rest of this pargylicious episode, head over to patreon.com the toast. We are going in on the Justin Blake and flaw of it all, of course, the flaw of it all, and talking about this entire saga from start to finish while never forgetting to say that we were right. This is such a fun pop culture episode because we also do a little bit of rapid fire pop culture at the end of the episode talking about all the other that have happened since we've been off. So it's a really great pop culture catch up. And if you're missing your girlies, head over to the Patreon because we are missing you. And we have so much fun content over at our Patreon this month. Really great vlogs from this month. But also if you join our Patreon today, you will get access to every episode we've ever done for Patreon. So that's over 400 episodes of content. You will no longer have to miss us, us so dearly until we return in the new year. And Patreon, if you've never used it, it's a fab app and website. If you don't want to download an app, just head over to the website, patreon.com the toast. You make a login, two seconds, boom, yada in, and you have access to all of this content that we have been doing for years. And it's really pargy stuff, a lot of personal stuff, family stuff, vlogs, really fun, fun times with the famous. And friends. There's Friends too. There's Dana, there's Abe. Everyone's popped into the Patreon at some point in the last seven years. So it's seven years worth of content and it's really a grand old time. So if you're looking for a little something today, head over the Patreon and we will be back soon. We love ya and we miss ya. Bye.
Podcast Summary: The Roast of Justin Baldoni (& Flaa) The Toast | Hosted by Dear Media (Jackie & Claudia Oshry) Release Date: December 30, 2024
In the episode titled "The Roast of Justin Baldoni (& Flaa)," hosts Jackie and Claudia Oshry delve into the tumultuous saga surrounding Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. The discussion navigates through the complexities of public relations battles, lawsuits, and the intricate dynamics within Wayfarer Studios. Throughout the episode, Jackie and Claudia intertwine their personal experiences and reflections, providing listeners with both insightful analysis and relatable anecdotes.
00:13 - 02:19
Jackie initiates the conversation by addressing the necessity to clear their names amidst the ongoing drama involving Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. Claudia echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the challenges of avoiding becoming entangled in personal dramas orchestrated by high-profile individuals.
Claudia (00:26): "We make everything about ourselves. Of course, it's just kind of like our natural inclination, but it's... It’s human."
The hosts reflect on their involvement in grassroots movements, particularly supporting Blake Lively, and how their unwavering stance has made them targets of publicists frustrated by their refusal to back down.
Jackie (00:49): "We could not be tur. And we could not be manipulated."
They acknowledge their reputation for delivering "hot takes" and being perceived as contrarian voices against mainstream narratives.
02:00 - 09:18
The discussion shifts to the intricate world of public relations, focusing on astroturfing—a practice where campaigns appear as grassroots movements but are orchestrated by organizations. Claudia provides an in-depth explanation of how Melissa Nathan and The Tag Agency have been pivotal in shaping public perception against Blake Lively.
Claudia (08:13): "Melissa Nathan... is the mastermind publicist of this whole thing."
Jackie questions the financial capabilities of Justin Baldoni, underscoring his role in backing Wayfarer Studios and the implications of his actions on Blake Lively's reputation.
Jackie (09:18): "Justin Baldoni is nobody in this world. How does he have enough money to, like, put Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds out of business?"
The hosts dissect the lawsuit filed by Blake Lively, highlighting the absurdity of the initial disbelief and their eventual realization of the substantial evidence Blake presented.
Claudia (07:34): "She has so much proof and so much evidence. Screenshots, receipts, proof, timeline."
They explore the internal dynamics of Wayfarer Studios, detailing the misconduct from Justin Baldoni and his partner Jamie, and how these actions catalyzed the legal battle.
Claudia (11:16): "That's why when the SAG strike, the whole thing really starts."
09:38 - 11:33
Jackie and Claudia discuss the broader implications of the lawsuit on public perceptions of both Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. They articulate how Blake's reputation suffered initially but evolved into increased respect as the truth surfaced.
Jackie (02:19): "Blake's reputation was definitely tarnished in the public eye now for me... I have even more respect for her because she had to deal with all this."
Claudia emphasizes the strategic maneuvers by publicists to discredit Blake, ensuring that even if she comes forward with the truth, it would be challenging for the public to believe her.
Claudia (11:33): "If we discredit Blake and she ever comes out and says this, no one's gonna believe her."
03:12 - 06:20
Interwoven with the main discussion, Jackie and Claudia share updates about their personal lives and content creation endeavors. Jackie highlights her recent vlog project, expressing both anxiety and satisfaction with its reception.
Jackie (03:32): "I put my heart and soul into that vlog. An hour and 15 minutes... I'm so glad that people are really loving the entirety of it."
Claudia complements Jackie by praising the vlog’s calming effect amidst the ongoing drama, likening their content creation to "comfort creation" that resonates with their audience seeking relatable and uneventful storytelling.
Claudia (06:17): "Comfort creator... YouTubers who document their life very uneventfully... they become their comfort creators."
06:30 - 12:06
Returning to the core topic, the hosts provide a chronological analysis of the events leading up to the lawsuit. Jackie and Claudia examine how Justin Baldoni’s position and resources played a significant role in orchestrating the PR campaign against Blake Lively.
Claudia (10:57): "And the crazy part, you're right that it is Wayfarer Studios..."
They discuss the strategic filing of complaints by Blake Lively during the SAG strike, highlighting how these legal actions served as both a means of retaliation and a tool to safeguard her reputation.
Claudia (11:33): "...because this would stop. So you agree it was happening, you know, and so it's Blake's thoughts in the suit that she's filing is that everything that happened to her afterwards was retribution, retaliation from Wayfarer Studios."
The hosts critically analyze the dissonance between public perception and the underlying truths, questioning the ethics and motivations behind large-scale PR manipulations.
Jackie (10:43): "It's insane that you like that it's at this level."
12:06 - End
As the episode draws to a close, Jackie and Claudia reiterate their confidence in having accurately assessed and predicted the unfolding events surrounding Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. They emphasize the importance of independent thinking and resisting manipulative campaigns orchestrated by powerful entities.
Claudia (12:06): "So it was like the straight up an admission of guilt that, like, they all agreed to come back to work after the sex strike because this would stop."
The hosts wrap up by encouraging listeners to stay informed and critically evaluate the narratives presented by public figures and their entourages.
This episode of The Toast offers a comprehensive exploration of the intricate battle between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, underscoring the profound impact of PR strategies and legal maneuvers in shaping public discourse. Jackie and Claudia Oshry adeptly blend analytical insights with personal reflections, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of the events while reinforcing the value of authentic content creation.