Unless you’ve been completely logged out over the last few months, you’ve more than likely seen someone sounding off on social media about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
Even if you’ve followed every twist and turn in these actors’ ongoing public feud, you might be wondering why these two mid-tier celebrities are getting quite so much airtime. Why armchair legal analysts are spending hours parsing the nuance and subtext of their text message exchanges. And how Taylor Swift is involved.
“It’s fascinating because it’s become a very public PR and legal feud between Hollywood stars, and there are new headlines and narratives almost weekly about who did or said what to whom,” said Kristi Piehl, founder and CEO of the PR and social media agency Media Minefield.
Both Baldoni and Lively’s accusations that the other has sought to damage their reputation by seeding negative stories in the media and on social media have brought the behind-the-scenes practices of public relations professionals into the spotlight. “It’s also frustrating because this entire situation has put crisis PR under the microscope,” said Piehl. “Real crisis PR is not about negatively manipulating public perception; it’s about building or restoring the public’s trust through open, honest communication and transparency and, when necessary, taking accountability for any potential missteps and sharing what’s being done to resolve the issue.”
Here’s your cheat sheet on the feud, plus expert analysis on the public relations crisis that just won’t end.
Who are Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni?
Blake Lively is best known for playing Serena Van Der Woodsen in the original “Gossip Girl” series and one of the quartet of stars in 2005’s “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.” More recently, her enduring presence in the public consciousness is tied to two personal relationships: Her husband of 13 years, Canadian actor and Marvel star Ryan Reynolds, and her close friend, Taylor Swift, who she’s accompanied to the Super Bowl and on paparazzi-documented double dates with NFL player Travis Kelce.
Justin Baldoni also owes the CW network his original rise to fame: He played the unwitting sperm donor on “Jane The Virgin,” which ran for five seasons from 2014. He went on to launch the “Man Enough” project, a book and podcast on modern notions of manhood, addressing topics such as male privilege and toxic masculinity. In 2019, he co-founded the production company Wayfarer Studio and directed two films before optioning Colleen Hoover’s novel “It Ends With Us,” and producing, directing and acting in an adaptation of the story that centres on an abusive relationship. Lively was his co-star on the film.
When did Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s dispute begin?
Rumours about tension between Baldoni and the rest of the movie’s cast and crew gained traction on social media around the August 2024 premiere. Unusually, Baldoni did press for the film solo, and was not part of any group events or photo calls with the cast. As well, many people who worked on the film, including Lively and Hoover, unfollowed him on social media.
At the time, the Hollywood Reporter reported that Baldoni had hired a crisis PR firm, and quoted sources who said there was a “fracture” between him and Lively, stemming from Lively commissioning her own final cut of the film.
Lively, too, had a disastrous press tour for this film. She was accused of downplaying the sensitive, serious subject matter after her off-key exhortation to “grab your friends, wear your florals and go see it.” During this time, an uncomfortable moment resurfaced from another press tour, in which Lively was rude to a reporter who made a comment about her then-pregnancy.
A few months later, the legal action began. Lively, who launched the first claim, accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and launching a smear campaign against her. Baldoni has countersued, citing defamation and extortion.
What is Blake Lively accusing Justin Baldoni of?
To reduce thousands of pages of legal filings to a single sentence: Both Lively and Baldoni are both alleging each other behaved very badly over the course of making and promoting “It Ends With Us.”
In December, Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni with California’s Civil Rights Department claiming he sexually harassed her on set. It cited Baldoni walking into her dressing room without knocking, making derogatory comments about her weight, discussing his sex life and porn addiction in front of her, and instigating “unwanted and unplanned” kissing while filming scenes together.
She also accused him of launching a smear campaign against her after she complained about his behaviour. This story broke in the New York Times with the headline “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside A Hollywood Smear Machine.” The piece was co-written by Megan Twohey, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her #MeToo reporting on Harvey Weinstein. Along with detailing the contents of Lively’s complaint, it delved into Baldoni and his PR team’s alleged campaign to cancel her by planting negative posts and comments on social media for months. It also included texts between Baldoni and Lively that appeared to support her allegations. On New Year’s Eve, Lively officially filed a lawsuit against Baldoni.
Baldoni has denied Lively’s claims, but the fallout was swift. His agency W.M.E. dropped him, and his podcast co-host Liz Plank left the show saying she wishes to “support everyone who calls out injustice and holds the people standing in their way accountable.”
What is Justin Baldoni accusing Blake Lively of?
In mid-January, Baldoni and his production company countersued Lively and Reynolds, citing breach of contract, defamation and civil extortion and seeking $4 million USD in damages.
The suit refers to “an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team, and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new, and doctored information to the media.”
Baldoni is trying to make the case that Lively has twisted events to suit a narrative that will garner her sympathy and make him untouchable in a post-MeToo world. For example, Lively has claimed there was no intimacy coordinator on set; Baldoni produced emails that appear to show he proactively engaged one, but Lively refused to make the time to meet with them.
He’s also claiming that she wrested control of the movie from him, making daily changes to the script that interfered with production, and requesting her own edit of the film be used instead of his.
Baldoni has also sued the New York Times for $250 million USD, for defamation over the article accusing him of involvement in a smear campaign against Lively.
Why is the internet so obsessed with this story?
A few factors have contributed to this feud’s ongoing virality.
Most compelling is the treasure trove of personal communication between Baldoni and Lively, released as part of these lawsuits, which the talking heads of the Internet are all too happy to parse to ascertain “the truth” of what actually happened between them.
Texts and emails between the actors and various staffers have been shared by both sides, and this week, a seven-minute voice note that Baldoni sent to Lively at 2 a.m., released by his team.
Baldoni’s lawyers have also released rough cut video that shows the pair filming a scene in which the two characters are dancing, and meant to be falling in love. In Lively’s account, this was when Baldoni “leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, ‘it smells so good’… When Ms. Lively later objected to this behavior, Mr. Baldoni’s response was, ‘I’m not even attracted to you.’” The video, however, shows them making banal small talk while slow dancing in the intimate way the scene appears to call for. When she jokes about getting spray tan on him, he said, “It smells good,” and she replies, “It’s not that, it’s my body makeup.”
The fact that there is footage of some of the encounters described in the allegations makes this case unusual. “It is rare for the video to be released. Instead of people filling in the blanks about what was said and the intention, the high-quality video and audio allow people to make their own decisions,” said crisis PR expert Piehl. “It is more common for internal emails or cell phone videos to become part of a social media crisis.”
The many and frequent developments are also keeping this story in the headlines and giving online commenters whiplash. At first, it seemed to be yet another case of a man abusing his power on set. This was muddied when Baldoni presented his version of the story, painting Lively as willfully mischaracterizing events to cast him in a bad light.
How are Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift involved in this dispute?
Another reason this feud has the Internet’s attention is because two more famous people, Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift, have both become part of it.
Baldoni’s lawyer has accused Reynolds of mocking his client in the movie “Deadpool & Wolverine,” claiming the man-bun-wearing character Nicepool is a mocking caricature of Baldoni. Baldoni also said Reynolds “aggressively berated him” for supposedly “fat shaming” Lively.
Taylor Swift is part of this because she was at Reynolds and Lively’s house on the night when Baldoni said they tried to persuade him to use a new version of the key rooftop scene that Lively had re-written.
Baldoni declined but praised her “passion” for the project. In a text she sent to him in response, Lively said that reaction “didn’t feel great for me. Or for them,” going on to refer to Swift and Reynolds as her “dragons” while likening herself to Khaleesi from “Game of Thrones.” “For better or worse, but usually for better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you.”
In the aforementioned voice note, sent shortly after, Baldoni apologizes for his reaction to her rewrite, saying, “I’m really sorry. I f—-ed up. I will admit and apologize when I fail. I’m a very flawed man, as my wife will attest.” He goes on to say, “There’s nothing more exciting to me that I get to work with Blake Lively and have all of her. I mean, that’s what I want!” and close to the end adds, “I’m sorry. You probably have kids all over you, and a baby on your boob and you’re listening to me ramble.”
In the court of public opinion, who is winning Lively and Baldoni’s feud?
From a crisis PR perspective, neither of them are winning. “There has been significant damage to both of their brands and reputations, and I don’t think anything that either of them or their teams can do at this point can change that,” said Piehl. “Perhaps only if or when there’s a court decision from an impartial party that weighs the facts and evidence in the cases will it change people’s opinions — but until that happens, they’re both losing.” The case will be heard on March 9, 2026, more than a year from now. But at a “pre-trial conference” on February 3, a judge will review Lively’s request for a gag order on Baldoni’s lawyer due to “improper conduct,” which he denies.
Piehl points out that the damage extends to their families, friends and business partners. “This case hasn’t just affected their reputations, careers and bottom lines,” she said. “This is a classic case of what happens when a crisis spirals out of control; the path of destruction gets bigger and bigger the longer it goes on.”
If either Lively or Baldoni were her client, Piehl said she would give them the same advice: Stop talking. “The only thing that’s going to help them is to be quiet and wait for everything to play out in court,” she said.
“Sometimes in crisis PR, you have to cut your losses and ask, ‘When does defending myself become more of a liability?’ For both of them to continue to comment on the situation and have this play in the court of public opinion isn’t going to change how people perceive them currently, or the damage that’s already been done to their reputations.”
