For more than a minute, the world began to turn on Blake Lively. Last summer, the blonde, beautiful actress, entrepreneur and mum-of-four seemed to be on the cusp of canceldom.
An unearthed clip of her being a little spicy to journalists spurred an online pile on, an internet reckoning of Blake’s true self – and it was far from the smiling, stylish Gossip Girl star we’d come to know and love.
As we all know there’s a fine line between love and the opposite – and let’s face it, a woman like Blake could easily be someone we’d love to hate. As one part of a Hollywood power couple with her actor/producer husband Ryan Reynolds, boasting a supermodel body even with four young children, and with a lifestyle most of us could only dream of, Blake could stir envy in the most virtuous of us all.
And so it was with Blake – here was all this evidence that she was in fact too good to be true. The pitchforks and torches were out in force to prove that Blake wasn’t that funny, fabulous woman’s woman she seemed to be on screen; she was, in reality, a mean girl.
Firstly, the Nightmare Interview was dug up – in which reporter Kjersti Flaa congratulated a pregnant Blake Lively on her ‘little bump,’ to which she sarcastically replied, ‘Congrats on YOUR little bump’ (she wasn’t pregnant). Ouch.
As a journalist and a mum myself, this one hit hard. Most people in my profession will have encountered salty interviewees – the ones who, from the get-go, have a bad vibe. Here was a journalist just doing her job, trying to set a warm, chatty tone – which Blake seemed to sneer at and further belittle by appearing to ignore the reporter in the clip while chatting with her Cafe Society co-star, Parker Posey.
It indeed made for deeply cringeworthy viewing, and if I were Flaa, who said she felt so uncomfortable ‘it make me want to quit my job’, I’d be mortified and furious too.
However, everything in context. One bad interview clip does not make for a rotten human – and pregnancy can bring out all kinds of hormone horror. It’s a deeply personal and emotive thing. And clearly Blake was irked by the wording Flaa chose. In my own experience (both when carrying a child and when not) you put your head in the pillory when you dare to make such comments.
But this was enough to start the Blake backlash, which was already gaining ground over how she appeared to be marketing her big-budget blockbuster, the Hollywood take of author Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us.
Look at tone-deaf Blake, glossing over the seriousness of a traumatic love story and intimate partner violence which permeates the movie, social media screamed. ‘The subject of DV (domestic violence) clearly has too much depth for her… She’s talking about looking pretty while crying,’ scorned one Instagram viewer, while Blake seemed to do herself no favours.
In one promotional clip she excitedly tells fans: ‘Grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it.’ The world judged, and the consensus was that Justin Baldoni, Blake’s co-star and director, was the good guy.
After all, he was the one spending time uplifting the voices of domestic violence survivors in the movie’s promotional tour, while Blake didn’t partake, and just seemed to look beautiful and flag her drinks brand.
Such a topic seemed so far removed from Blake’s sparkly world. But now, we see she knew a little more about such darkness than originally thought. Now, Blake has launched a legal battle against Baldoni for sexual harassment and a smear campaign to ‘destroy’ her reputation.
For months, there’s been whispers of Blake’s diva demands on set – but when you read the list, what’s shocking about it is the fact she had to write it at all.
Blake stated that touching or sexual comments from Justin and lead-producer Jamey Heath ‘would not be tolerated’ and that there should be ‘no more improvised kissing’, ‘biting or sucking of lip’ without consent.
She banned Justin’s friends from being on set during sex scenes and said there needed to be a full-time intimacy co-ordinator. She also banned anyone from asking either her or her personal trainer about her postpartum weight, and she requested that Justin stop claiming he could ‘speak’ to Blake’s father, Ernie, who died in 2021.
This is the very least you would expect from a respectful working environment. Read between the unscripted lines, and therein lies the complete opposite.
Can you blame her for detaching from such a situation? Now, the tide has turned for our former hero Baldoni – and rightly so, if his alleged creepiness is true. He's said to be planning to file a countersuit once the courts reopen after Christmas.
The plot of It Ends With Us – a woman’s yearning for healthy love and respect – is deeply ironic in the hostile circumstances. Women should be able to go to work and not feel threatened because of their sex.
Blake’s alleged experience is still happening in workplaces all over, and shows that sexual harassment – casual or otherwise – can happen to any type of woman, and must be called out. It will be interesting indeed to see how this ends.
