Blake Lively Justin Baldoni controversy
Transcript
0:00: I So the Blake Lively Justin Baldoni controversy started out as an inside Hollywood drama, with many believing Lively had been done dirty by her It Ends with us co-star and director Baldoni.
0:14: Lively filed a legal complaint accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment on set, as well as coordinated smear campaigns to destroy her reputation during the film’s release.
0:25: This this was back in August.
0:26: Now Lively’s complaint was expounded upon in a lengthy.
0:30: York Times article titled We Can Bury Anyone Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.
0:35: This article pointed to text messages that appear to show Baldoni and his publicist plotting a manipulative takedown of Lively in the press and also on social media.
0:45: But then there was a real bombshell which changed pretty much everything.
0:49: This week Baldoni and his team filed a $250 million defamation suit, and it’s not against Lively.
0:58: But it’s against the New York Times.
1:00: They say that the New York Times took private text messages out of context to serve the narrative of lively and A-list celebrity.
1:07: Here’s what Baldoni’s lawyer told NBC News,, when asked about the many claims Lively has made against him.
1:14: Was there a coordinated smear campaign to bring down Blake Lively?
1:17: 100% no.
1:19: You know, Justin Valdoni from the get-go said.
1:23: I don’t want to do anything negative toward her.
1:25: I don’t want to hurt her.
1:26: Do you plan to sue Blake Lively?
1:28: Absolutely.
1:29: You will.
1:29: Yes, I am more than willing to take every single text message that exists out there.
1:38: Lay them out, put them on a website for the world to see.
1:41: Have them see the truth and determine the truth for themselves.
1:48: So the lawsuit accuses the Times of printing the story before receiving comment from Baldoni, omitting text exchanges that paint Baldoni in a positive light, and cherry picking portions of exchanges that actually defame Baldoi.
2:04: His team is now seeking a jury trial against the New York Times.
2:07: I join.
2:08: Me now, Ken Terkel, who represented both Hulk Hogan and Sarah Palin in their defamation suits.
2:13: The latter was against the New York Times, and also Elaine Bredahoff, who was Amber Heard’s trial attorney against Johnny Depp.
2:22: So very curious what you both have have to say about this.
2:24: Elaine, I, I want to start with you on Baldoni’s lawsuit.
2:28: Says The New York Times quote central thesis encapsulated in a defamatory headline designed to immediately mislead the reader, and I want to show you the headline.
2:39: It says,, we can bury anyone inside a Hollywood smear machine.
2:47: They called it a smear machine.
2:48: , why do you think this is fair?
2:52: Well, let me just tell you, Baldoni’s suit is 85 pages of whining and filled with inaccuracies.
3:00: First, it attacks the New York Times article claiming the reporters accepted as true Blake Lively’s narrative.
3:06: But if you read the article, the vast majority of the articles based on text messages and emails of Baldoni and his PR team.
3:14: Also, Baldoni was given 14 hours to respond, plenty of time to deny and provide the evidence that existed.
3:21: The same is true.
3:22: For the complaint, you just heard Baloni’s attorney say, Oh, you should read all the text.
3:27: Well, he should have incorporated them into the complaint because what he’s got in there now is not very impressive and it’s not, not, it’s basically irrelevant and a lot of whining.
3:38: Second and very importantly in this case, Baldoni and his PR team brought the suit in California, even though the New York Times is in New York and Blake Lively brought her suit in New York.
3:49: But this is going to come back to haunt him and bite him.
3:52: Because California sports one of the strongest anti-slap laws strategic lawsuit against public participation in the country.
4:01: When someone brings a retaliatory suit against the exercise of free speech on a subject which is in the public interest or a matter of public concern.
4:11: The suit can be dismissed upfront by the court upon motion brought by the defendants.
4:16: The New York Times article speaks against those being accused of sexual harassment or domestic violence using PR teams to target and falsely smear the victims in retaliation.
4:27: Sounds like a matter of public concern to me.
4:30: And remember Depp brought his suit against Amber Heard in Virginia, far away from any witnesses or litigants because Virginia has terrible anti-slap laws and California’s are so strong.
4:43: Third, and I think this is important, the complaint claims the text messages, text messages are out of context.
4:48: It gives one.
4:50: where the PR team is bragging because someone else caught the bug from them and attacked Blacklake Lively online.
4:58: How do you claim the text message, quote, He wants to feel like she can be buried, end of quote, is out of context.
5:05: How do you claim the text message, quote, We know we can bury.
5:11: Well, yeah, Elaine, this is the text message.
5:13: I don’t want to interrupt you, but I just wanna explain.
5:14: Let’s put the text message back up so people can see what you’re talking about.
5:17: , this is a text exchange between the publicity team where it says you really outdid yourself with this piece, and there is a piece called Could Blake Lively be canceled,, but, but the,, the emoji, the upside down emoji Baldoni is saying that wasn’t included in the New York Times article,, and it should.
5:39: Been because Baldoni’s legal team is saying that shows that this whole thing was, was a joke.
5:45: I mean, what, what do you make of it, Ken?
5:47: Well, my point is that was one example, and they were all thrilled because somebody else went online and attacked Blake Lively after they made their target at a point.
5:58: But what I was just saying is, I’m quoting to you what the other text messages said.
6:03: He wants to feel like she can be buried.
6:05: We know we can bury anyone.
6:07: You can’t put this in writing because that would get us in lots of trouble.
6:11: , all of this will most importantly get untraceable.
6:17: These are all these Ken, what do you think?
6:20: I mean, should they, should they, should they have included the emoji, Ken?
6:25: Is is it unfair?
6:26: , it’s not, I wouldn’t look at it in a vacuum, and I think that as much as like the text messages are nothing you ever want to see,, we see this a lot with slack with internal messaging where they, you know, they’re just talking freely about it.
6:40: The fact that they say we could bury anyone or whatever, it doesn’t really matter.
6:44: What matters is whether they published something that was false or they published it with, you know, knowledge that falsely reckless disregard.
6:50: , what I find interesting is Brian.
6:52: Freeman went to great lengths.
6:54: It’s not just one text.
6:55: He, he embedded, we call that embedding in the complaint.
6:58: It’s a practice has become more and more popular with internet speech, where you’re taking texts or tweets or whatever, embedding them and commenting.
7:06: Then he does this laborious analysis of how they’re incomplete or amissive.
7:11: Now, you can have defamation in a number of different ways.
7:14: You can have it through,, implication where maybe in a vacuum, sentence one is true, sentence two is true, standing alone, sentence 3 is true standing alone.
7:22: But when you put them together to imply something different that’s false,, then you can have a defamation by implication.
7:30: You can have a direct falsity where they just say something false,, and you can have contextual defamation where the overall context of the statements,, omits.
7:40: It omits this, I should say that overall, the totality of what they published omits the context, right?
7:47: And Brian Freeman’s point, and I think it’s a fairly good point in this case, is that they cherry picked things for the, the,, the complaint that was filed,, over in New York, which is a Title 7 complaint like,,,, employment law type labor employment law complaint.
8:02: , with a breach of contract and they’re on the loan out agreement.
8:05: What I find fascinating,, is number one, that the degree to which they went to analyze these texts and show the lack of context or the leaps that were made to imply,, to imply truths that don’t exist, right?
8:18: And I think that’s always a solid ground to have.
8:20: The other thing that I think is amazing and it’s really an interesting practice.
8:23: , there’s this big discussion about the New York Times providing them an email and a chance to comment.
8:29: , and Brian, that happens often now.
8:31: I would have told you 5 years ago, I never engaged in that.
8:35: I didn’t do that.
8:35: I would be like, forget it, they’re gonna publish.
8:38: But as time has gone on,,,, really, maybe more than 5, even maybe 7, but we engage, if I get a case pre-publication now, and they send me, here’s what we’re going to do.
8:49: Here’s the hit piece.
8:50: Here are the topics.
8:51: Would you like to comment?
8:53: I avail myself of that now in a very non-combative way, frankly, because the goal should be for all of us to find truth.
9:00: Now, what I find interesting here was he sued them, saying that they breached their contract to wait until noon and published before noon.
9:10: My personal practice,, and Brian Freeman may do it differently.
9:15: The minute I get that pre-publication email, they’ve been working on something for days if not weeks, if not months.
9:20: I immediately asked for an extension.
9:22: And I tell them, give me a week.
9:25: I can’t digest this.
9:26: I just get out of court, whatever, and let me give you answers that will help you publish something that’s true.
9:32: I don’t want to sue you.
9:34: It’s a loss if I have to sue you.
9:36: Let’s get the truth there.
9:37: Maybe it dilutes some of the, the,,, acute nature of what they’re saying.
9:43: Maybe it gets them to pull topics out.
9:45: I’ve had that happen more and more successful every day, and a good reporter should engage in that.
9:51: We should collaborate.
9:52: And I’ll look at them and say, I understand you’re doing your job and you’re going to try and put in there what you want, but listen before you do it so I don’t sue you on something you could have prevented.
10:01: If they say no and they don’t give me time, my setup at that point for reckless disregard or actual malice or cross-examination is amazing now.
10:11: I said you didn’t want the truth.
10:12: I offered.
10:12: I couldn’t do this in 14 hours.
10:16: I’m done.
10:17: Yeah, and that’s a good, I think that’s a good strategy you have.
10:20: That’s a good strategy you have, Ken, asking for an extension because you’re right.
10:22: Some reporters, and it’s not right, but they’ve already got their whole story ready to go and then at the last second they ask for a comment.
10:29: And what’s interesting here is they’re saying the New York Times reached out to Baldoni at 10 p.m., told them that he had until 12 the next day, but then published at 10:11 a.m. so.
10:39: Basically 2 hours early and didn’t give him those extra 2 hours to to come up with a response.
10:46: We we only for Brian to make for Baldoti.
10:48: I think it’s a fair point, but what I would tell you is this, right?
10:51: They’ve been working on this forever.
10:53: I’ve had that email come to me with the date turnaround and 150 bullet points on it, and I’m like, pound sand.
11:00: You wanna publish and get that back or I’ll take your chance.
11:03: All right, that’s it.
11:05: I’m good.
11:05: Yeah, yeah, well, well, Baldos, Baldo’s lawyer, Baldo’s lawyer is gonna join Chris.
11:12: Sorry.
11:14: Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.
11:15: What did you say, Elaine?
11:16: What was the last thing you said?
11:17: I said he responded.
11:19: He denied it.
11:20: He didn’t say, Oh, and I’m gonna give you some more stuff in another hour, so go ahead and wait till till noon.
11:26: He had already responded to him, so they already had him, but if you said why not wait the extra 2 hours if you, if you said noon though, Baldo’s lawyer is gonna join, is gonna join Chris on Monday, so he’ll.
11:40: I’ll tell Valdo’s gonna join Chris on Monday, so we’ll hear, we’ll hear more from him.
11:44: But at one point they probably have a more substantive response, you know.
11:50: I’ve done that.
11:50: I’ve done that drill before, man.
11:52: Yeah, it’s possible.
11:54: There’s a Ken, Elaine Bredahoff, sorry, we’re out of time.
11:58: I’ll give you, let me give you 30 more seconds, Elaine.
11:59: Then we gotta go out of time.
12:01: Go ahead though.
12:01: The biggest question is motive here.
12:05: You know, Blake Lively has absolutely no motive to complain about sexual harassment, no motive whatsoever.
12:11: She wants that movie to succeed.
12:14: So why would she?
12:15: Put herself out there with the complaints of sexual harassment unless they’re true.
12:19: And then you think about Baldoni’s justification for asking about her weight.
12:24: There isn’t a doctor in the universe who’s gonna say, oh, you have a back problem?
12:28: Well, you can lift 110 pounds, but you can’t lift 120, so you better find out how much she weighs.
12:35: They would re or use a body double.
12:38: This is just ludicrous what he’s coming back on you.
12:41: Well, there’ll be more like I said, we’ll have more Monday,, Baldonis or we’re out of time.
12:46: Thank you both for coming on though, Ken, Elaine, I hope you both have a good weekend.
12:50: appreciate you both.