I have a confession to make.
Few things in the news cycle faze me these days, but for months now, something has been bothering me – as a woman and as a journalist.
Why do I not like Blake Lively?
It’s a question many of us have been grappling with since a flurry of negative stories about the actress hit the press last year amid the fraught release of her romantic drama It Ends with Us, in which she plays the victim of an abusive relationship.
It has since emerged those stories were allegedly the result of a shady PR campaign involving her co-star Justin Baldoni as retribution after she complained about alleged sexual harassment and an unsafe work environment on set.
But let’s backtrack to August – before the lawsuits and the explosive NYT report about Blake being the victim of a so-called ‘Hollywood smear machine’ – and remember what so many of us thought about the saga then.
Amanda Goff examines why so many women were ready to believe the negative press about Blake Lively during the fraught release of It Ends with Us last year. Since then, we have learned there’s more to the story… (Lively and co-star Justin Baldoni are seen on set in January 2024)
‘Blake’s a diva.’ ‘She must be a nightmare to work with.’ ‘I always thought she was like that’. ‘Poor Justin.’
I’ll be the first to raise my hand. When I saw the stream of news articles and social media posts, I jumped straight on the anti-Blake Lively train.
Do I regret it now? It’s hard to say. Justin and Blake haven’t had their day in court and I’m not taking sides yet – but one thing is abundantly clear: there is a lot more to the story than we initially thought.
Now, as we await the start of the most vicious Hollywood legal battle since Depp vs Heard, many women like me are left interrogating why we were so ready to believe the narrative we were served about Blake.
Was it her perfect white teeth? Her enviable, lustrous, sun-kissed hair. Or maybe it’s the fact she bagged one of the few genuinely nice guys in Hollywood, Ryan Reynolds, and he is clearly obsessed with her. Don’t we all want a husband like that?
Or could it be she played one of the most iconic ‘mean girls’ of the 2000s, Serena van der Woodsen in Gossip Girl, and I find it hard to separate her from her character?
Or is it that infamous resurfaced interview from 2016 when Blake bristled at a journalist’s seemingly innocent comment, ‘Congratulations on your baby bump.’
Or maybe – probably, definitely – it’s just Blake’s… vibe.
The first rumblings of conflict on set emerged at the premiere of It Ends with Us last August
There’s just something about her and I just can’t put my finger on it. So many women I know feel the same, and we’re not proud of it. It’s a gut feeling, a visceral reaction.
It could be her beauty, her success, her marriage – but there’s that something about her that just rubs women the wrong way. Probably it says more about us than her, but it’s worth some introspection that a sizeable chunk of the female population punched the air and yelled ‘I knew it!’ when the world turned on her six months ago.
You won’t find any of that in the volumes of legal documents being filed left and right but trust me, that is the heart and soul of this case. It’s not just Lively vs Baldoni going to trial, but Lively vs Other Women.Â
And the worst is yet to come. Blake and Justin’s battle is the kind of Hollywood drama no script could ever capture. I could list all the accusations flying around between them, but at this stage I’m struggling to keep up with it all.
Every day, it seems, more mudslinging, more lawsuits, more allegations. One minute I’m Team Blake, the next I’m Team Baldoni. But before I continue, let me make this clear, Blake is accusing her co-star of some pretty serious and unacceptable behaviour including improvised kisses, unsolicited visits to her trailer and violating boundaries with sexual conversations, plus legal documents allege Justin brought up Blake’s weight before a scene involving him lifting her up (he has back issues).
Then there’s the NYT’s allegations of Baldoni’s camp launching a negative media campaign and social media manipulation to discredit Blake after she spoke up.
Justin denies this, calling the allegations ‘false, outrageous and intentionally salacious’ and filed a whopping $250million lawsuit against the newspaper.
And then there’s he ‘he-said-she-said’ texts flying around, plus the matter of an upside-down smiley face emoji being misinterpreted.
There’s just something about Blake and I just can’t put my finger on it. So many women I know feel the same, and we’re not proud of it. It’s a gut feeling, a visceral reaction
Christ. Pass me a Panadol, this is giving me a headache.
Are you just as confused as me? Who do we believe? No woman deserves to be sexually harassed and denigrated at work, whether she’s a cleaner or a celebrity, and the accusations are serious. But Justin’s return serve can’t simply be brushed aside.
Thankfully I’m not the judge nor the jury (although I will be glued to the screen if this civil matter is live-streamed) and I will refrain from commenting on what I think went down. I’ll reserve my judgement for now, as hard as that is going to be.
But what does raise my eyebrows is this: scroll through the thousands of comments on TikTok, Instagram or any news article about the stoush, and one thing is startlingly clear: Team Justin is very much alive and kicking, and there are plenty of people out there who will take the anti-Blake position regardless of the evidence.
I won’t judge you for taking a side. But we should also examine why huge swathes of the public were so quick to accept the allegation Blake was ‘awful to work with’ and a ‘real-life mean girl’.
Sure, she’s had her moments. What Hollywood star hasn’t had a bad day at the office, or lost patience with after sitting in a hotel room for nine hours during a media junket.
One thing is clear in all of this, there were many, many people waiting for Blake to fall from her pedestal as America’s sweetheart. And it’s more than a little disturbing.
They say the truth comes out in the wash. I fear this is just the beginning.
