Fact-based Arguments on Behalf of Justin Baldoni

This is in response to this post. This op asks if there is a master post that summarizes both sides' arguments presented from the perspective of each side. I have put together one for the Justin camp. If anyone wants to put together one for Blake, I will gladly make a post that presents both and pin it to our highlights. I will likely edit this post to be more precise with more cited sources, but I thought this was a good place to start. Let's establish some truths to start out with.

Summary of Blake Lively's claims: Justin Baldoni and Jamey Heath allegedly sexually harassed her and other cast mates on set during phase one of filming. Before returning to production in November, Blake brought forth a 17-point document to address the lack of workplace safe guards, which was then signed by Wayfarer. They returned to set in January for phase 2 and wrapped filming in February. No other instances of misconduct took place during the second period of filming. The film premiered August 6th, 2024. Following the premiere, Blake Lively received an unusual amount of backlash and public hate. Around this time Justin Baldoni had hired a crisis PR team. Blake alleges the crisis PR team was responsible for the online hate, and this was in direct retaliation to her bringing forth the issues of workplace misconduct and sexual harassment.

Allegations of workplace misconduct and sexual harassment include:

  • Fat-shaming, and pressuring Blake to lose weight using devious tactics.
  • Inappropriate discussions about past sexual experiences, including previous porn addiction, sexual experiences when consent was not given, and sexual experiences with current partners.
  • Improvising kissing during scenes and embellishing sex scenes that weren't in the script.
  • Entering, or pressuring to enter Blake's trailer when she's nude, nursing, or pumping.
  • Claims from other cast members of unwanted, inappropriate comments.
  • Other unprofessional behavior i.e. Justin brings up Blake's dead father, saging the set, spoke and asked about religion.
  • No protocols in place: no intimacy coordinator in place, no nudity rider in place, no protocols to report SH, no protocols to investigate SH, open set during nude scenes, and no protocols to protect against COVID.

Evidence provided of retaliatory campaign:

  • Text messages between Justin's PR representatives.
  • Retail success of Blake Brown hair products.
  • Trend of negative mentions online about Blake Lively. ___

Fact-based argument on behalf of Justin Baldoni: I'm typing this out based on memory - please feel free to comment if there's anything you need clarification on. I'm approaching this by looking at the over-arching story, rather than arguing hand-picked details. Overall there is much more evidence to suggest extortion and a film takeover, than there is to suggest sexual harassment and retaliation. The order in which these allegations have been made are very important. This is because the actions that directly followed the alleged SH, make the allegations themselves incredibly difficult to consider honest. There are really five major recurring accusations between both Justin and Blake's lawsuits. This is not from a legal standpoint, just in layman's terms.

  1. Blake claims sexual harassment
  2. Justin claims extortion
  3. Justin claims film takeover
  4. Justin claims public humiliation & isolation
  5. Blake claims retaliation

1. Sexual Harassment Claims

The SH allegations are not substantiated. This is not to say they can't be, but at this point in time, we don't have much to point to that support Blake's claims. All of Blake's allegations have been thoroughly addressed in Justin's lawsuit, and some of his explanations are even supported by events discussed in his podcast/book. I could go through each specific allegation, but at this point, a lot of the allegations are he said/she said scenarios. However, the allegations that aren't hearsay favor Justin's versions of events.

  • Impromptu kissing scene - Justin released footage. Public consensus was the footage was not SH.
  • Coming into trailer while nursing - After several instances of alleged SH, Blake invites Justin to rehearse lines in trailer while pumping via text message.
  • Nudity rider - Justin's team pushed for Blake to sign her nudity rider before filming. She never did, and never provided feedback.
  • Intimacy coordinator - Justin included texts to Blake inviting her to meet the intimacy coordinator before filming. Blake says she doesn't need to because she's comfortable.
  • Other cast members claims - Several other nameless cast members have been mentioned, however, there are no texts or documents to substantiate.
  • General tone of communication - The general tone of communication is friendly, complimentary, and comfortable.
  • Nature of accusations - Several of the accusations fall into a category of behavior that many deem somewhat harmless. Crying at work, saging the set, saying a character looks "hot", all seem rather inconsequential when put in context of an unconventional work setting that requires employees to kiss, simulate sex, and act out violence.
  • This is not to say any of these specific points disprove sexual harassment all together, but they certainly do not support Blake's claims.

2. Extortion Claims

The claims of extortion make a lot of sense. Extortion is the only well reasoned explanation for claims 3 & 4 (film takeover and public humiliation).

  • The most convincing piece of documentation that supports Justin and Jamey's claims of extortion is Jamey's letter that he sent in June 2024 outlining that Blake had been threatening them and that is the only reason in which they sent letters of support for her PGA credit.
  • The other largest piece of evidence here is that Blake never signed her contract. This left her with the leverage to threaten to not promote the film.
  • Justin's PR team also exchanged text messages between each other that said Blake is a psychopath that's fraudulently claiming Justin's a predator (paraphrasing).
  • The Khaleesi text also shows a threatening approach to gaining to control.

3. Film Takeover

It is indisputable that Blake took over the film. She agrees that she gained full creative control in her lawsuit by stating Justin took credit for her work. Blake's complaint does not explain how she went from an actor/EP, to a producer with a PGA mark and full creative control of the film. It is public information that Blake's version of the film was released to the public. The film takeover doesn't happen without the sexual harassment claims. How she was able to do this without extorting Wayfarer has yet to be explained.

4. Public Humiliation

It is also indisputable that Justin was isolated from the rest of the cast and forced to endure public humiliation. We know he was forced into the basement during the premiere. We know he was uninvited to Book Bananza. We know the entire cast unfollowed him on social media. We know he wasn't allowed to participate in promotional events with any of the cast. We know the cast did not mention his name once during the promotion of the film. We know he was not on any of the art for the film. We know that Colleen, Isabella, and Hasan did not have negative feelings towards Justin after the film wrapped, and something abruptly changed.

5. Retaliation Campaign

The retaliation allegations become a bit more nuanced when put into context with the other major events that allegedly took place in between. This is because it explains why Justin hired a crisis PR team, which was not to "get back at Blake", but rather to manage the public reaction to him being iced out from the cast and film. The extent of his PR team's efforts are unknown, but their communication indicates little effort was needed to push Justin's narrative. We also know the texts between his PR rep's in Blake's original complaint were cherry picked and taken out of the context. Many of the text messages show sarcasm or broader context that completely alter their meaning, when shown in full form. It is difficult to gauge what is fair or unfair without knowing the full extent of what both PR teams were doing.

Overall Takeaways and Other Key Points

  • I highlight these five accusations because they are dependent on one another. The extortion, film takeover, and public humiliation cannot happen with the sexual harassment claims. And the retaliation efforts do not happen without the extortion, film takeover, and public humiliation claims.
  • Main takeaway is we've seen very little evidence to support Blake's claims of sexual harassment and retaliation for reporting sexual harassment. On the flip side, we've seen extensive documentation that supports Justin's claims of extortion, a film takeover, and public humiliation. These events tell a different story, and have not really been addressed by the Lively camp.
  • It would be impossible for me to say with certainty, that the SH and retaliation never happened. However, we do know that the communication in Blake's lawsuit was misrepresented with the intention of fooling the public. On top of the suspicious altered text messages, Justin has produced his own text messages, emails, and raw footage that also severely undermine Blake's claims.
  • Justin's lawsuit provides more context in terms of timing, patterns of behavior, the professional dynamics, the interpersonal relationships at play, etc. His lawsuit also provides over 10x the communication than Blake's does.
  • Justin's story and timeline haven't changed. It provides a very clear, linear recollection of events. Simply put, he has become a reliable narrator.
  • Blake has removed several allegations from her amended lawsuit after Justin included contradictory evidence in his.
  • Blake's lawsuit spends a considerable amount of time on irrelevant character assassination, opening the complaint with a quote from his Ted Talk from ten years ago. Justin's lawsuit doesn't bring up Blake's controversial past.
  • Blake has admitted publicly that she has a history of taking over other people's movies and poisoning her castmates against one particular cast member. 
  • Justin has a fairly pristine professional reputation, including with his cast of JTV. We've seen many testimonies that vouch for his reputation of treating everyone with kindness and respect.
  • Blake only went public with these allegations after her reputation took a major hit, which was due to her own promotion of the film. This leads people to believe that this lawsuit is in vain, rather than to seek justice or protect other women.
  • Blake has shown that she's willing to misrepresent information and take things out of context in order to gain support.
  • Blake has not taken responsibility for any missteps along the way, even just the marketing of the film and promotion of her own products (one which included an alcohol brand when the film was about DV).