Blake Lively made a stunning arrival at Monday night’s Met Gala gala.
She ascended the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in an archival 2006 Versace, just hours after the humiliating settlement of her lawsuit against former co-star Justin Baldoni. She waved an arrogant finger to ensure that her male attendants properly arranged the gown’s train.
It was all about the optics. Almost before the contract with Baldoni was signed, she was here to retake her position as a gilded member of the privileged, garlanded with diamonds borrowed by Lorraine Schwartz.
There are more power plays inside.
Lively was seated at one of the tables hosted by Anna Wintour, the head of Vogue and an old acquaintance. This year, the Met Gala is organised by controversial sponsors Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, and his wife Lauren.
Blake’s return with a capital ‘B’ could not be more charmingly reaffirmed.
Lively was inviting, or perhaps demanding, that everyone not only bow down to her beauty, style, and connections but also forget the startling “mean girl” behaviour that was exposed in her megabucks lawsuit after the filming of the 2024 hit movie It Ends With Us. This was seventeen months after she filed the extraordinary lawsuit against Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios, accusing him of sexual harassment.
Specifically, how she had taken control of the movie from director Baldoni, whom she called a “doofus” and a “clown” to her friend Taylor Swift; how she insisted on editing the movie and having her edit used despite an executive at Sony calling her a “terrorist”; and how Baldoni and his family ended up sitting in the basement instead of being allowed to watch the premiere in the same auditorium as Blake and her husband Ryan Reynolds.
Blake Lively walked up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art just hours after the humiliating settlement of her lawsuit against former co-star Justin Baldoni.
“Going to the Met Gala was not a business-as-usual move from Blake Lively, but actually just proved exactly what Wayfarer has been dealing with in terms of her character,” a source claims. The source is still upset about this attempt to put a Blake-centric gloss on a drawn-out, unsightly, and costly legal ordeal.
They further argue that Blake’s “giant” ego, which was on full display on Monday, has always controlled this case.
According to the source, “lives have been wrongfully put on hold due to what amounted to nothing more than the whim of an overinflated ego.”
“The end product – the movie It Ends With Us – is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life,” said the joint statement announcing the case’s conclusion, which was made public on Monday afternoon. We support increasing awareness and having a significant impact on the lives of survivors of domestic abuse, as well as all survivors.
We acknowledge that the process was difficult and that Ms. Lively’s concerns should have been taken seriously. We are still steadfast in our commitment to workplaces devoid of inappropriate behaviour and unproductive settings. We sincerely hope that this provides closure and enables everyone to proceed peacefully and constructively, even in a polite online environment.
Since then, Blake’s PR team has made a valiant, if unsuccessful, attempt to portray the conclusion of the story as a victory, most likely at the behest of her über agent Ari Emanuel at WME.
“Baldoni blinked” in their coverage of the settlement, according to the reputable industry website Deadline, which depends on advertising from major movie studios.
Let’s examine the facts, though. Blake Lively filed the lawsuit, alleging that she was the target of a toxic public relations campaign after experiencing sexual harassment on work. One month after a terrible ruling that dismissed ten of her thirteen claims due to harassment, slander, and conspiracy, she has abandoned it.
Three remaining claims—breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting in retaliation—were upheld by Judge Liman.
She has not received an apology from Justin Baldoni or the staff at his film studio Wayfarer. They haven’t given her a dime either.
It Ends With Us stars Blake and Justin Baldoni. She filed a complaint alleging sexual harassment against his company, Wayfarer Studios, following the movie’s premiere.
Baldoni and his spouse, Emily, relocated from California to Nashville, Tennessee, with their two small children. His current goal is to resume his filmmaking career.
Additionally, neither the “retaliatory campaign” that Lively ordered Baldoni launch nor the incidents of sexual harassment that Baldoni made public are included in the approved statement.
Baldoni argued that the media discourse was caused by Lively’s “mean girl” behaviour prior to and during the film’s release, not by the crisis PR team he hired when he felt his reputation was in jeopardy due to being sidelined at the premiere and unfollowed by Lively and his co-stars.
There are several noteworthy aspects of the saga’s conclusion. One is that a non-disclosure agreement does not bind the parties as is normal.
Additionally, I can disclose that although they are prohibited from discussing the settlement’s terms, they are not otherwise gagged. In the upcoming weeks and months, Baldoni is adamant about making his voice heard.
He has not yet chosen the outlet for the entire sit-down interview that will take place. He then intends to write a book that will be at least partially about this remarkable story, in which one of Hollywood’s most powerful ladies seemed determined to ruin a person who, before to the movie, no one had much heard of.
The actor, director, and producer relocated from California to Nashville, Tennessee, with their wife Emily and their two little children during legal proceedings.
According to a friend, “He really likes Nashville and they are looking forward to making it their home.”
He wishes to resume his filmmaking career.
“He will continue to work, he still has his film studio,” I am informed.
Will anyone want to collaborate with him, though?
It has been noted that Blake’s reputation would have remained mostly unharmed if she had done nothing following the film’s 2024 release.
According to a source who speaks to Alison Boshoff, “She couldn’t handle that people don’t like her.” “That was all there was to it.”
“Justin doesn’t have enough value in the market to overcome the suspicion that he may have created an unsafe set,” a “high level” female studio executive told the US entertainment website Page Six. He might not be able to cast a film at this time.
“Blake is still a movie star, but she will have to take a break and give up her first pay cheque.”
However, not everyone believes that he has made such a terrible appearance. “Most of Hollywood knows what’s up,” a male talent manager tells the outlet. Yes, he may be strange, but he didn’t break any laws. Whether they acknowledge it or not, Blake did this to herself.
“I think she can be in some TV show, but she’s hurt the worst since he can finance his own films,” remarks a different male CEO.
Naturally, there is a large cost to pay in the near future.
Teams of solicitors from several different firms were employed by both parties, and they were all very costly.
In fact, during the last few weeks as the deal was being worked up, Lively brought in a team from renowned litigation firm Sussman Godfrey.
The battle has been incredibly costly because it involved a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times for initially reporting the lawsuit, another defamation and extortion lawsuit against Blake Lively by Wayfarer that was also dismissed by the judge, and legal actions between competing publicists.
A final figure of $60 million is being reported by industry publications. I am informed, however, that the amounts in question are truly “over $100 million.”
Who makes the payment? Both of them do. It is clear from the terms of the confidential settlement that each side will pay their own fees. Although Blake’s husband Ryan Reynolds is valued at $400 million because to his interests in gin and technology, this is extremely negative news for them both. Steve Sarowitz, a billionaire co-founder of Wayfarer, is underwriting Baldoni’s share.
It has been extremely costly to reach the “stalemate” deal.
Blake Lively has reportedly been “desperate” to reach a settlement since Judge Doug Liman’s decision on April 4.
This puts the “victorious” statements she and her lawyer made just after the decision in a different light.
“For Blake Lively, the greatest measure of justice is that the people and the playbook behind these coordinated digital attacks have been exposed and are already being held accountable by other women they’ve targeted,” stated Sigrid McCawley, Lively’s lawyer.
“The last thing I wanted in my life was a lawsuit, but I brought this case because of the pervasive RETALIATION I faced, and continue to, for privately and professionally asking for a safe working environment for myself and others,” Lively added in response on Instagram.
“I hope the Court’s ruling demonstrates to others that you can speak up, despite how unbearably painful it is.”
Behind the scenes, I’m informed that Lively was “desperate” to reach a settlement and didn’t want to go to court to attempt to prove that she had been the victim of retaliation, even after claiming a “moral victory.”
Everyone on the legal team advised her to settle because there were numerous issues with the case, according to a source. She needed to settle badly. It was she and her legal team who pushed for a settlement, even if no money was exchanged.
Lively was not technically an employee of Wayfarer because she had not signed her Actor Loanout Agreement, which is a contract where an actor’s personal service company contracts with a production company to provide the actor’s services rather than the actor contracting directly. This appears to have been a technical flaw in the case, as the harassment suit was dismissed.
Apart from this, however, the abundance of texts and emails that appeared to show Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds actively plotting and spinning against Baldoni—in one email, Reynolds called Baldoni “a bucket of dumb dumb juice”—only served to confirm that she, not him, was the aggressor.
“The world can see what she did by her own words and the texts and emails she wrote,” according to my source.
It has been astutely noted that Blake’s reputation would have remained mostly intact and the drama of the contentious press tour—during which Baldoni and Lively were criticised for marketing the domestic violence film as a chick flick—would have passed if she had done nothing after the film’s 2024 premiere.
According to the source of the lawsuit, “it was for no good reason except to show that Ryan and Blake had power and he and his team didn’t.” The couple also seemed to want to “destroy” Baldoni.
Baldoni, meantime, has had to deal with damning accusations that he was a sexual predator, which the judge deemed unpersuasive.
Regarding Baldoni’s behaviour in a scene that was complained about, Judge Liman wrote: “He was acting in the scene.” The behaviour wasn’t all that out of the ordinary for a slow dancing scene between two characters, assuming he was improvising.
According to the judge, Lively’s claims that Baldoni had harassed her by asking her personal trainer how much she weighed were likewise not harassment. “It is not reasonable to interpret the behaviour as showing animosity toward Lively as a woman or toward women in general.”
Baldoni’s team is currently focusing on the ongoing legal dispute between PR director Stephanie Jones, whose company was defending Baldoni, and Jen Abel, an employee of Stephanie’s who quit her job and took Baldoni with her.
After Stephanie Jones gave Blake Lively’s publicist messages from Abel’s business cell phone, Jen Abel is suing Jones for slander.
“She lit the match,” claims Jones’s source.
It is anticipated that Blake Lively would participate in an interview where she will carefully discuss her charitable activities, with a focus on online behaviour. Notably, since the judge’s decision in April, she has not brought up the subject of sexual harassment.
Will the woman who famously snapped “congratulations on your little bump” at a journalist who wasn’t pregnant offer her congratulations? We’ll see in time.
Everyone is thrilled about this week’s outcome, but it is bittersweet, according to my source.
For the past two years, she has put numerous women and their kids through the shredder because she was unable to deal with the fact that people didn’t like her.
That was all there was to it. That was too much for her to handle.
