The Justin Baldoni vs. Blake Lively saga has left me both disheartened and hopeful.

I have a lot of thoughts.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in It Ends With Us. Stills via YouTube trailer.

This is my first newsletter of 2025 (I took the month of January off to transfer it from Mailchimp to Substack—welcome to this wonderful platform, if you’re new here!), and it was supposed to be about habits. I was fully planning on penning a very innocuous passage on habit-building that you could take into the new year.

But the inside of my head has been hijacked by the insane feud involving the two It Ends With Us stars, Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Swift, The New York Times, and their respective PR teams that is unfolding in real time—and it’s all I want to talk about. I can’t get enough of it, y’all. I eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff.

(Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. But my husband would beg to differ, given the hours of Candace Owens’ podcast¹ I’ve consumed in the last week.)

I think it’s worth noting, I’m not some die-hard fan of the IEWU franchise or any of the players involved. Out of curiosity for the hype, I read Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel a few months before the movie premiered in August, and then I took dragged Scotty to see it in theaters for date night. We both agreed that the film was well-done for the most part, and I appreciated that the gut-wrenching story sparked one or two meaningful conversations on domestic abuse for us. I wasn’t aware of the conflict brewing beneath the surface until my sister-in-law brought it to my attention a few days later. Of course, I then started noticing the headlines everywhere.

There are a number of reasons why I (and so many other ordinary people out there) are emotionally invested in what, on the outside-looking-in, appears to be a typical case of “he said, she said” petty celebrity drama—but when you start sifting through the facts of what’s actually occurred in the last year or so between Baldoni and Lively, it becomes clear that none of it is petty or harmless at all. The details are insidious and deeply disturbing.

Why We’re Obsessed

At the end of the day, a good chunk of the public is watching this play out with bated breath because no one wants to see a defenseless person get bullied or silenced into submission. And, sadly, that’s exactly what has happened here. This case is the textbook definition of abuse of power, and regardless of what Jenny Slate and mainstream media will have you believe, the one doing the abusing is not Justin Baldoni. (I used to like you, Jenny.)

I hope you’ll excuse my stream of consciousness going forward, but this month’s newsletter will serve simply as a dumping ground to organize my thoughts and conclusions on the matter, and hopefully provide a bit of entertainment for you as well. My apologies if you couldn’t care less about pop culture, or if you’re just so dang tired of reading about Blake Lively. Celebrity gossip is not my niche, I’ll admit, but this ongoing fight has fully captured my attention—and, frankly, made me angry.

I’m no Candance² though, so I won’t be summarizing every single complicated finding so much as sharing my opinion on the main things I’ve learned/heard/discovered and ultimately believe as a result of my deep dive into all of the different documents, theories, and speculation being divulged out there on the interwebs. Buckle up, friends, it’s a lot.

Disclaimer: The following points are just my opinions based on information I’ve obtained from a variety of sources. (I tried to link to as many as I could without being annoying.) It’s okay if you disagree with me on any (or all) of the particulars, but either way, give me your two cents in the comments!

Justin Baldoni is innocent.

Let’s start with my most obvious conclusion, which is that Justin Baldoni never did a damn thing wrong. People are referring to him and Lively as Johnny Depp and Amber Heard 2.0, but I’d be willing to argue that this is significantly worse than that. While I don’t pretend to know much about the Depp v. Heard case, I do think it’s safe to say that Heard did not have the same status, power, or influence over Depp that Lively has had over Baldoni throughout this multi-year process. My man JB is a true victim, as evidenced by: 1) the countless voice message, text, and email exchanges between the coworkers, 2) the video clips taken by fans + behind-the-scenes footage from the shooting of IEWU, and 3) the firsthand accounts from crew members who witnessed the ill-fated duo working together on set. He literally has nothing to hide, and he’s proving that by bearing it all on his new website for the world to see. Okay, now that that’s out of the way…

Blake Lively was largely responsible for her own downfall.

I’ve admired Blake Lively ever since her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants days, which is what kept me from immediately choosing sides when this war came to light. I found it hard to believe that someone seemingly as sweet and down-to-earth as this wholesome mom of four could be manipulative, power-hungry, or backstabbing. But then, like the rest of the world, I started paying attention to her old interviews, and I couldn’t deny how out-of-touch she comes across in conversation: Many of the things she’s said have been extremely tone-deaf, self-absorbed, or flat out rude—it’s honestly quite difficult to watch—and makes me wonder why so few of us picked up on this before. Perhaps because she and her team have expertly branded her for years as the likable ‘girl-next-door’ type who straightens others’ crowns?

I’m all about giving celebrities the benefit of the doubt (even the best of us say and do stupid things, especially under pressure), but after stumbling upon the umpteenth Instagram reel showcasing her poor taste and judgment, I couldn’t ignore the writing on the wall: Blake Lively definitely gives off ‘mean girl’ energy. Just ask Kjersti Flaa. Or Anna Kendrick. Or Leighton Meester. And lest anyone be fooled into thinking that this was all a part of some smear campaign to ruin Lively’s reputation, Baldoni’s PR team has stated that none of these damning videos was their doing; on the contrary, the clips resurfaced organically when word got out that Lively was a nightmare to work with on IEWU. The only reason Baldoni even hired a crisis management team in the first place was because Lively and Reynolds made it crystal clear that they were coming for his career. (We’ll get into theories on why in a bit.)

Another area in which Lively shot herself in the foot with IEWU fans was how poorly she handled the press tour, choosing to hone in on the glitz and glamour of the film—flowers, fashion, romance!—rather than showing any amount of respect for the troubling topic of domestic abuse and those affected by it. Her main goal, other than to express her love for clothes, was to get the word out about her new haircare brand. Oh yeah, and to plug her husband’s movie. In comparison, Baldoni approached his interviews with sensitivity and humility, appearing to carefully consider how his words would impact the survivors of DV every step of the way. Here’s the craziest part: Ryan Reynolds pushed Baldoni to take ownership of and apologize for the negative press surrounding Lively while promoting the film, and even threatened to make his life difficult if he didn’t. As if her cringe-worthy comments and lack of self-awareness was Baldoni’s fault. Good riddance! Thankfully, he found his backbone and refused.

Even after all of this, though, I was still willing to overlook Lively’s mishaps with the press: After all, it could’ve been that she was instructed by the marketing team to keep interviews lighter, happier, and more uplifting than her more serious boss. Maybe she was just doing as she was told?

Blake Lively wanted creative control over Justin Baldoni’s passion project, despite the fact that she never even read Hoover’s book.

But it then became all too apparent that Lively doesn’t do anything as she’s told. Since the beginning of the production process, Baldoni—who, may I just remind everyone, is the owner, director, writer, and lead actor of the film—claims she strong-armed her way into roles of authority that far surpassed the responsibilities of a lead actress, including (but not limited to): rewriting major scenes (and allowing her husband to do the same, unbeknownst to Baldoni or any of the studio execs at the time), dictating and designing her character’s wardrobe (which fans hated) for six times the budget allotted, having the original composer fired in order to include a song by Taylor Swift, convincing Baldoni to name her a producer of the film, hiring her own production team to edit it, AND—despite test audiences preferring Baldoni’s cut by a landslide—demanding that her more “feminine” version be the one ultimately released in theaters. For the cherry on top of this crap sundae, Lively and Reynolds tried to ban Baldoni and his family from attending the red carpet premiere in August. (The photos of the director and his supporters making the most of it in the basement of the AMC Lincoln Square Theater is maddening.)

She was able to pull all of this off, might I add, by taking full advantage of the close proximity she shares to powerful people—namely, Reynolds and Swift, aka “her dragons.” Let’s be real, Justin Baldoni never stood a chance.

But maybe Lively was just passionate. I mean, who could blame her for taking her craft seriously? Baldoni himself praised the actress for her desire to be involved in every aspect of the project, even as she was pulling the rug out from underneath him. Read that again: Even as Lively was calling dibs on the brainchild that Baldoni had put his blood, sweat, and tears into for the last five years, he remained overly accommodating, self-deprecating, and disgustingly sweet to her until the end. Why? Because that’s WHO HE IS. Baldoni is a hair-donating, meditation-practicing, peace promoting feminist and family man to his core—and, up until now, the only fault that I can attribute to him in this crazy situation was sincerely believing that a woman could do no wrong. (Ugh, poor guy.)³ Which makes this next point absolutely infuriating.

Ryan Reynolds made it his personal mission to ruin Justin Baldoni’s life.

Before we get into the WHY, let’s cover all of the ways in which Reynolds and Lively tried to make Baldoni’s life a living hell during and after production had wrapped.

1. They put him in his place. Baldoni alleges that Reynolds berated him in front of room full of people for “fat-shaming” his wife. (The fat-shaming in question: Baldoni had privately asked Lively’s fitness trainer what she weighed during filming, so he could prepare for a scene in which he lifts her up, hoping to prevent further injury to his previously damaged back.)

2. They publicly humiliated him. Reynolds created a character based on Baldoni in his latest movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, that came out a month before IEWU. The character, Nicepool, wears a man-bun, calls himself a feminist, describes Ladypool (played by Lively) as gorgeous, and is used by Deadpool (played by Reynolds) as a human shield while Ladypool violently shoots him to death in front of a flower shop. But the humiliation doesn’t stop there: Nicepool is credited as “Gordon Reynolds,” the same name that Lively gives special thanks to in the closing credits of IEWU. Lively literally makes fun of Baldoni USING HIS OWN FILM.

3. They isolated him. If you’re curious as to why Baldoni was always alone during the press tour, I originally had the same question. Why would such a nice, guiltless fella be forced out of his own group? But here’s the thing: It’s well-documented that Colleen Hoover had a ton of respect for Baldoni since 2019, when they teamed up to bring her books to the big screen. And Isabela Ferrer (who played Young Lily in the film) had nothing but good things to say about working with the director back in 2023. It wasn’t until Reynolds and Lively used their elite status to lure the author and the cast over to their side that we saw the collective attitude shift. Candace Owens provides some piping hot tea in this episode to support the theory that the power couple effectively bought the cast members’ loyalty with promises to help further their careers.

4. They tried to get him fired. Rumor has it that Reynolds was overheard in a heated conversation with a talent agent at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere, in which he called Baldoni a “sexual predator” and pressured William Morris Endeavor to choose between the IEWU leading man and himself (as well as his posse, Lively and Swift). Well, surprise surprise, the agency eventually dropped Baldoni. WME has since issued a statement that this encounter never happened, but if you want my personal opinion? Politics are everything in Hollywood, and WME did what they needed to do to keep their A-list stars. (If anyone who works at WME is reading this, don’t be stupid. Bring Baldoni back!)

5. They made him out to be a monster. At this point, I think the world might have eventually forgotten about the feud if Lively would have called it quits and just let Baldoni be. But then her reputation began to tank, and she couldn’t simply let it run its course and fizzle out like most celebrity gossip cycles do. Instead, she filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against Baldoni and his producing partner in December, accusing the director of sexual harassment on set and of planting stories in the media to tarnish her image. She also conspired with The New York Times (as early as October—more on this below!) to publish a defamatory article that positioned Baldoni as an abuser. Even though Baldoni’s lawyer refuted these claims, he was let go by WME immediately. (Keep in mind, this dumpster is going up in flames around the same time that the L.A. fires are wreaking havoc on Southern California neighborhoods near Baldoni’s home, as Lively and Reynolds watched from their safe and cozy NYC penthouse.)

The question remains: Why do Lively and Reynolds hate Baldoni so much that they would go this far to see him punished?

I’ve heard a few theories, but these two sound the most plausible to me:

1. Ryan was the jealous husband who couldn’t stand the budding relationship between his wife and Baldoni. It’s been noted by multiple sources that there was some flirting going on between the co-stars during the making of the film, which doesn’t at all surprise me. They’re playing lovers, after all; it would be weird if they didn’t have any chemistry whatsoever off-screen. Whether this flirting was harmless or a product of blooming feelings on either side, we’ll probably never know for sure—but either way, given Reynolds’ reputation as being insecure and borderline controlling in relationships,⁴ is it a stretch to imagine that the Deadpool actor might have harbored resentment towards Baldoni from the beginning and wanted to see him go down, even at Lively’s expense? Candace Owens, for one, suspects that Reynolds may have been the puppeteer pulling the strings behind the curtain and orchestrating every strange and hurtful action that Lively took against Baldoni, just to get back at the both of them. Yeah, it’s giving narcissist. (And if this is at all accurate, get out while you can, Blake.)

2. Lively and Hoover teamed up to reclaim the rights to the IEWU books so that Lively could have complete control of the sequel. Lively told a reporter that she would “follow Hoover anywhere,” but Hoover can’t legally ditch Baldoni—UNLESS he is accused of doing something heinous. Apparently, there’s a morality clause in Baldoni’s contract with Hoover stating that if Baldoni were to face serious allegations (ahem, like sexually harassing someone), he would lose all rights to Hoover’s books—and she could resell them to whomever she pleases. Could it be that, amidst the actress and director’s creative differences, Lively and Hoover decided at some point to take matters into their own hands by sabotaging Baldoni and leaving him in the dust? If I were Hoover, I’d probably choose Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds over a no-name actor to represent my novels, too. This may seem like too heartless a move for the beloved author to make, but deactivating her Instagram account and reportedly retiring shortly after Baldoni’s messages were leaked screams suspicious. I mean, why go into hiding if you’re not guilty of anything?

Honestly, I think it might be a combination of both.

Baldoni FINALLY stood up for himself by suing The New York Times.

Hallelujah, this is where the tables began to turn. If you read Baldoni’s very thorough receipts of his correspondence with Lively, it’s easy to see how the Times cherry-picked and twisted communications between the co-stars and their PR teams to make it look as if Baldoni was the bad guy all along. It’s also obvious that most (if not all) of Lively’s accusations of Baldoni acting inappropriately on set—e.g., when he “repeatedly entered her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed…or breastfeeding”—were fabricated lies. Thank goodness that Baldoni kept detailed records, because had he been less careful, we might have fallen for Lively’s tricks.

If I may, a digression: It might seem like I’m being super critical of Lively and Reynolds. I suppose it’s possible that Baldoni did do something on or off set that made Lively feel uncomfortable. Maybe Reynolds just felt the need to protect his wife’s honor, and in doing so, overcompensated a bit. Are they really the conniving monsters I’m making them out to be? If not, here’s what I don’t understand: Why go through all of this effort and spend all of this money to bring down a “predator” only to invent half-truths that can so easily be debunked? If they actually had a case against Baldoni, they wouldn’t risk spreading misinformation that could ultimately backfire.

Baldoni is not backing down, nor should he.

I think that with all of the powerful “dragons” on her side, Lively expected Baldoni to fold and fade into the oblivion as soon as the Times published their article. And when he didn’t, she panicked and filed her own lawsuit. But Baldoni is fighting back, and I’m so here for it: On January 16, Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios sued Lively and Reynolds for damages, including lost future income. (He and his production company lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of Lively’s complaint, and Baldoni was scrapped from at least three jobs, including a role in the live-action Pac-Man movie.)

Can you imagine if Baldoni continued to let Lively, Reynolds, and the Times kick him around like a puppy? This all could have gone the opposite way. As a society, we might have asked less questions and mistakenly embraced the side of the aggressor over that of the victim—leading to Baldoni being forever “cancelled” and Lively rising ever more to the top. Yikes.

Was Taylor Swift involved or not?

Swift denied any involvement in the production of IEWU or the drama that ensued, and is allegedly upset with Lively for “dropping her name” with cast and crew for clout.

I love you, Tay Tay, but I’m kiiiinda calling BS on that one. Lively is was the popstar’s bestie, and the pair have been known to collaborate on one another’s artistic endeavors. You telling me you weren’t there supporting your gal pal along the way, and had absolutely nothing to do with the production of IEWU? I’d like Swift to be spared, don’t get me wrong—but my guess is that she’s not being totally truthful, and she’s trying to save face so she doesn’t get deposed. Plus, given Swift’s history with sexual harassment/assault (and how seriously she takes it—as she should), you’d think that if her best friend was legitimately harassed, Swift would have Lively’s back all the way to the end. Her silence says everything, IMO.

I also find it suspect that Taylor Swift was spotted hanging out with Ronan Farrow (one of the of three reporters responsible for reigniting the #MeToo movement) on multiple occasions around the time that the newspaper is rumored to have begun working on their Baldoni hit piece. Which begs the question: Is she the powerful person that connected Lively to The New York Times? If so, Swift has got some explainin’ to do.

This is the dark side of the #MeToo movement.

Listen, I read Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor’s book, She Said, chronicling the heroic takedown of Harvey Weinstein—and I ate it up. I’ve supported the #MeToo movement since its heyday in 2017, when the Times article on Weinstein’s history of sexual abuse went live. Which is why I was all the more disappointed to see Twohey’s name on the byline of this piece of “journalism.”

Let’s just sidestep the speculation that The New York Times colluded with Lively to defame Baldoni weeks—or even months, according to the article files’ metadata—before she issued her formal complaint. I’m focusing instead on the way in which Megan Twohey, Mike McIntire, and Julie Tate “stripped and deliberately spliced” messages “of necessary context to mislead readers” in their reporting of the Baldoni/Lively debacle. Not only did Baldoni call out the bogus charges of sexual harassment (with proof, might I add) and deny launching a smear campaign targeting Lively, but his publicist Jennifer Abel also responded to the allegations. I don’t subscribe to “believe all women,” but I do believe Abel. Why? Because what she said aligns with the evidence (pun intended). That’s more than I can say for the Times writers.

By altering the narrative to fit a one-sided agenda that barely took into account Baldoni’s side of the story, Twohey and her co-workers were complicit in lying to the public. And, more upsetting still, they poked a rather large hole in the validity of the #MeToo movement—because now we have to ask ourselves: How many other false accusations regarding abuse of power made by these Pulitzer Prize winning journalists went unchecked simply because of the popularity of the movement and those championing it? How many men have been shunned from society as a direct result of irresponsible reporting?

This is what reaaallly gets my goat though: When someone deceptively cries “rape” or “harassment” or “abuse,” their counterfeit claim essentially serves to discredit all of the women who have actually been on the receiving end of sexual violence. It makes a mockery of the suffering of real survivors. What Lively and the journalists of the Times did was dishonest, at best; at worst, it was exploitative of victims and their pain. That’s perhaps the most despicable thing about this whole shebang.

The future of journalism is by the people.

As I mentioned in the title of this unbelievably long rant, I’m disheartened by Lively’s actions and those of our “trusted” investigative reporters. But I’m also hopeful. The real story is being uncovered, bit by bit, not by prestigious newspaper outlets—but by independent voices. It’s the average person—the consumers of politics and pop culture, the stay-at-home moms (and their husbands), and the social media sleuths who prioritize authenticity above all else that are making the biggest waves. They are the ones that will not be bought or swayed by people of influence, money, or power; they are the everyday John and Jane Does who have no loyalties other than to the facts. And with all of the facts about this case at our fingertips, I’m confident that the truth will prevail in the March 2026 trial.

So yes, there is a silver lining in this mess, and it’s that we the people are no longer letting ourselves be fooled by corrupt corporate journalism. Regular citizens are changing the way our society investigates, produces, and consumes news in this country, and I believe that this change is ultimately for the better. It’s for truth. It’s for justice. It’s for a brighter tomorrow.⁵

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1. Before this legal battle broke out, I couldn’t really stomach Candace Owens and rarely tuned into her show. Now you can consider me a fan. Say what you will about her ruthlessness in some situations, but girl calls out evil when she sees it and courageously speaks the truth—two things I very much respect.

2. Seriously, go listen to her show on the same topic. It’s much more thorough than this newsletter.

3. But also, I do have a lot of respect for Baldoni’s ability to remain calm and collected during times of distress, never once badmouthing Lively in interviews. Facing the same kind of cruelty, I’m not sure I’d have it in me to stay so grateful and humble.

4. Reynolds supposedly convinced Baldoni to change the filming schedule to accommodate his own, and sources say that he would randomly show up on the set of IEWU and help himself to the dailies (daily footage). “Controlling” doesn’t even begin to cover it. But it kind of checks out when you consider the rumor that Reynolds himself fell for a co-star (Lively) while still married to Scarlett Johansson. (Karma’s a bitch.)

5. At the risk of sounding like Superman.