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It Ends With Lawsuits: PART I
32 Plays4 months ago
Heather and Veronica, both attorneys, dive into the lawsuits that resulted from the filming of It Ends With Us: The Movie. The Book was written by acclaimed author Colleen Hoover and optioned in 2019 by Wayfarer Studios, owned by Justin Baldoni. Blake Lively was cast to play the heroine, Lilly Bloom and Justin Baldoni took on the role of Ryle. The story itself is about domestic violence.
The lawsuits resulting from this movie are awash in allegations ranging from sexual harassment to astroturfing to defamation. Listen in while Heather and Veronica break down the lawsuits and do their best to explain the documents - so you can stay informed.
A podcast from 1852 Media.
All opinions are their own. This is not legal advice.
For entertainment purposes only.
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Transcript
Introduction and New Year Plans
00:00:00
Heather Roberts
Hello, hello, and welcome to For Books Sake. I am Heather Roberts.
00:00:05
Veronica Adams
I am Veronica Adams and we are 1852 Media.
00:00:18
Heather Roberts
All right, I wanted to try a little new intro. It is the new year, and we're just trying new things this year.
00:00:24
Veronica Adams
Yes, for sure.
00:00:25
Heather Roberts
And I liked that. I liked that.
00:00:28
Heather Roberts
um today we are in the episode of it ends with lawsuits and
00:00:28
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
Lawsuits Overview: It Ends With Us
00:00:36
Veronica Adams
Doesn't it always? Somehow, someway, the asshole lawyers have to get involved.
00:00:38
Heather Roberts
doesn't it always yeah over the holidays uh there was a
00:00:46
Heather Roberts
Bevy of lawsuits filed ah regarding the movie, it ends with us.
00:00:49
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:00:52
Heather Roberts
ah by the The book itself was by Colin Hoover.
00:00:55
Veronica Adams
Or Colleen.
00:00:56
Heather Roberts
The movie had a number of A-list actors in it, was created and produced by Justin Baldini.
00:00:57
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:01:02
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:01:07
Veronica Adams
Hm.
00:01:07
Heather Roberts
Am I pronouncing his name right, Baldani?
00:01:10
Veronica Adams
Baldoni, Baldini, Bell...
00:01:10
Heather Roberts
And Baldani, I believe it is, regardless.
00:01:14
Veronica Adams
Bellend, as the British would say.
00:01:17
Heather Roberts
There's a lot, there's a lot, there are layers to this, layers upon layers.
00:01:18
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:01:21
Veronica Adams
Mm-hmm.
00:01:21
Heather Roberts
And the first instance when it dropped was, I believe it was December 20th, somewhere around one, and um Blake Lively's lawsuit was leaked.
00:01:27
Veronica Adams
Sounds right.
00:01:36
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:01:37
Heather Roberts
Leaked.
00:01:38
Veronica Adams
he
00:01:38
Heather Roberts
So, yeah. And so what a lot of people were, well, a lot of people were confused about, it wasn't technically a lawsuit yet, you know? like
00:01:46
Veronica Adams
She'd filed a civil rights complaint in California
Legal Process Insights
00:01:49
Heather Roberts
Yes. And yes. And she just filed that actual lawsuit, I believe, on New Year's Eve.
00:01:50
Veronica Adams
and then escalated that to a federal lawsuit to be filed in so the Southern District of New York, I believe.
00:02:01
Veronica Adams
Yeah, that sounds right.
00:02:01
Heather Roberts
But that's because she was waiting. So for certain, for those who don't know who aren't lawyers, and this is just also, let's give her a little disclaimer at the beginning. Veronica and I are both attorneys.
00:02:12
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:02:12
Heather Roberts
We are both licensed. We are not your lawyer.
00:02:16
Veronica Adams
That's right.
00:02:16
Heather Roberts
This is not legal advice, and this is
00:02:18
Veronica Adams
We are speculating and opining. We are not providing advice to anyone in particular, least of all you.
00:02:22
Heather Roberts
This is for entertainment purposes only.
00:02:25
Veronica Adams
That's right.
00:02:26
Heather Roberts
And these are our opinions only.
00:02:28
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:02:29
Heather Roberts
ah So yeah, what was I saying? So on the...
00:02:34
Veronica Adams
the The New Year's Eve filing and why the lawsuit would have been leaked about 10 days before it actually was
00:02:36
Heather Roberts
Right, right yeah.
00:02:42
Veronica Adams
became a real open case in federal court.
00:02:42
Heather Roberts
So for those who don't know, the certain causes of action require that you file through a government agency first.
00:02:53
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:02:53
Heather Roberts
Okay. You have to wait and get what's called a right to sue letter.
00:02:58
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:02:59
Heather Roberts
And that's essentially giving the government agency an opportunity to take up that cause on your behalf with you.
00:03:05
Veronica Adams
That's right. Yes.
00:03:06
Heather Roberts
um And you have
00:03:08
Veronica Adams
We're talking about civil rights or any other federal rights that you have. The government wants the right of first refusal to prosecute the case.
00:03:15
Heather Roberts
correct So you have to, it's, it's required. If you go to court first and you don't have that right to sue letter, they're going to turn around and say, this isn't right.
00:03:18
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:03:26
Veronica Adams
Yes, a judge is either going to put your case on hold or dismiss it without prejudice and force you to refile later.
00:03:26
Heather Roberts
You know, you.
00:03:32
Veronica Adams
You're going to go through some procedural headaches and probably piss off court staff, a judge, and several bureaucrats at whatever government department gets to issue you your right to sue letter.
00:03:42
Heather Roberts
Exactly.
00:03:43
Heather Roberts
Exactly. So. It's just not a good look. That's bad lawyering.
00:03:43
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:03:48
Veronica Adams
It really is, yes.
00:03:48
Heather Roberts
um da That's not the procedure.
00:03:49
Veronica Adams
the and A nod to inexperience, someone who doesn't necessarily know what they're doing or what the procedural requirements are.
00:03:53
Heather Roberts
yeah
00:03:57
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:03:57
Heather Roberts
So that was required. So she had to go and file this with the government agency. Wait the requisite time to get the right to sue letter, which frankly, I think she got fairly quickly being as how she was able to file on the 31st.
00:04:05
Veronica Adams
yes Yes.
00:04:11
Veronica Adams
I mean, sometimes you do things at the end of the year when people are kind of only half working and there's not a whole lot of work in front of you. You get what you need quickly.
00:04:17
Heather Roberts
That's true. That's true. So the actual lawsuit that was filed is a replica of what was leaked on the 20th.
00:04:27
Veronica Adams
And it is a shitshell.
00:04:27
Heather Roberts
So it is a massive shit show. But I just feel like that's important to note because a lot of people are like, well, she didn't actually file a lawsuit or they thought she did file a lawsuit.
00:04:36
Veronica Adams
Nope, she did. Yep.
00:04:38
Heather Roberts
No, she did. She just had to file a procedure first.
Crafting Legal Complaints
00:04:42
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:04:42
Heather Roberts
Whereas there are two other lawsuits filed in two different other jurisdictions that did not have causes of action or do not have causes of action that require that same procedure so they were able to just file at will.
00:04:45
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:04:48
Veronica Adams
Yes. Yes.
00:04:55
Veronica Adams
Great. right and including me suit against the new york times for their coverage of the leaked suit before it was filed so
00:04:58
Heather Roberts
Okay.
00:05:06
Heather Roberts
Right. Which of course it was leaked.
00:05:08
Veronica Adams
almighty
00:05:09
Heather Roberts
I mean, of course it was leaked.
00:05:11
Veronica Adams
Leaked, let's use air quotes, okay?
00:05:13
Heather Roberts
Yeah.
00:05:13
Veronica Adams
Everything, everything that has happened since this movie actually released has been, and even leading up to the movie's release and in the late spring and early summer of last year, is it's been smoke and mirrors and PR and a campaign in one form or another.
00:05:27
Heather Roberts
It's been very.
00:05:31
Heather Roberts
Yeah, yeah, it's very hard to and to know what to believe here.
00:05:36
Veronica Adams
Right?
00:05:37
Heather Roberts
I'm going into this very open minded because and not trusting really anything I'm reading, because number one, whenever you're writing a complaint, you are writing it in the yeah,
00:05:48
Veronica Adams
Ah, yes. The arts
The Lawsuits Breakdown
00:05:51
Veronica Adams
and crafts of lawyering. How much bullshit can I stuff in here before I get sanctions?
00:05:53
Heather Roberts
yeah
00:05:54
Heather Roberts
yeah, you're writing it with the facts it in the light most favorable to your client.
00:06:00
Veronica Adams
a
00:06:04
Veronica Adams
That's right. Always.
00:06:05
Heather Roberts
Always.
00:06:05
Veronica Adams
Always.
00:06:06
Heather Roberts
So you are taking The doc, whatever set of facts you have here, we have a group of text messages, which I'll get to that in a moment, but you have these, yeah I agree.
00:06:14
Veronica Adams
Yeah. Well, and um a meeting agenda. I mean, the meeting agenda is pretty damning too, if you ask me. But yes, yeah, the text messages, the meeting agenda.
00:06:25
Heather Roberts
You have all of these things. You have these pieces of evidence that you have. Then you also have what your client's telling you, right?
00:06:32
Veronica Adams
Yes, of course.
00:06:32
Heather Roberts
Um, you're lining it up with other things that you can use to corroborate, right?
00:06:37
Veronica Adams
That's right.
00:06:38
Heather Roberts
And you're taking those facts and you're putting them in a complaint in a persuasive way that in the light most favorable to your client and in a complaint, you can say fucking anything, anything.
00:06:42
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:06:46
Veronica Adams
Always. Yes.
00:06:50
Veronica Adams
Pretty much.
00:06:53
Veronica Adams
And you can attach affidavits and other evidence to back it up.
00:06:53
Heather Roberts
So yeah,
00:06:56
Veronica Adams
I mean, that's just the way it works.
00:06:59
Heather Roberts
that's how it works.
00:06:59
Veronica Adams
You can attach screenshots of text messages that you've obtained through pre-suit discovery and subpoenas.
00:07:03
Heather Roberts
Yeah, which is not like a thing. It's that's got that's like a.
00:07:10
Veronica Adams
With or without the emojis, as the case may be.
00:07:14
Heather Roberts
So, yeah, I mean, the the complaint, the complaints are meant to be shock and awe.
00:07:20
Veronica Adams
Yes, as our motions to dismiss answers and affirmative defenses, any any of the the general early pleadings, they are going to contain about as much of the salaciousness as you'll ever see in the lawsuit other than maybe in the dirty details that come out through discovery.
00:07:20
Heather Roberts
That's literally the
00:07:37
Heather Roberts
Yeah, discovery is the only other place that you're going to get the juicy juicy stuff.
00:07:41
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:07:42
Heather Roberts
But usually in discovery, that's when the facts, the fact ah truth actually starts getting a little lighter.
00:07:48
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:07:49
Heather Roberts
You start actually finding out the nuance of things and
00:07:51
Veronica Adams
Right. How much evidence does the other side have to corroborate their version of events?
00:07:52
Heather Roberts
ah
00:07:56
Veronica Adams
How much evidence do you have to support your, your claims, et cetera?
00:08:00
Heather Roberts
So from what I can gather, because I've read, there so like I said, there are three lawsuits here.
00:08:01
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:08:06
Heather Roberts
There's, let's talk about that.
00:08:07
Veronica Adams
yeah
00:08:08
Heather Roberts
So we have the lawsuit from, oops, did I put these back in order? No, I did not. Okay, so we have, and so Wayfair, Jamie Heath, Steve Sarowitz is the financier,
00:08:14
Veronica Adams
Blake, Blake's News Wayfarer, the production company, Baldoni, Baldoni,
00:08:22
Veronica Adams
The other producer, what's his name? Jamie. What's Jamie's last name? Thank you, Heath. Oh, that's the club. Yeah, that's right.
00:08:31
Heather Roberts
Okay.
00:08:32
Veronica Adams
He's the money guy.
00:08:33
Heather Roberts
He's the money guy. It ends with us.
00:08:34
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:08:35
Heather Roberts
Movie LLC is owned by Wayfarer. They are the only ones that own it per my understanding.
00:08:39
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:08:43
Heather Roberts
And then we get into the PR people and that is, that is a level and onion to this story that might require its own episode, but we'll see what we can do today.
00:08:54
Veronica Adams
I mean that that leads to the third lawsuit arguably the PR just just the bullshit happening between and amongst the PR folks gives rise to its own lawsuit yes yes yeah that's yeah the acronym they use in the pleadings tag
00:08:58
Heather Roberts
Okay.
00:09:02
Heather Roberts
Oh yeah, so Melissa melissa Nathan owns the agency group PRs. And they, so TAG is what they keep you from writing to.
00:09:13
Heather Roberts
they just And then Jennifer Abel, who at the time in which she was, got into contact with Baldoni and Wayfarer, worked for Jones Works LLC, and that's ah a PR firm.
00:09:27
Veronica Adams
Yes, a company owned by a woman named Stephanie Jones.
00:09:32
Heather Roberts
Yes. She then left or was fired from Jones Works.
00:09:39
Veronica Adams
Sixth of one, half a dozen of the other.
00:09:41
Heather Roberts
Yeah. um And went and started working for Baldoni and Wayfair on her own with her own company.
00:09:46
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:09:47
Heather Roberts
I think it's called RWA Communications. Okay.
00:09:51
Veronica Adams
Excellent.
00:09:52
Heather Roberts
So that's where we're at with the parties with Blake's lawsuit. Blake is then suing all of these people. I should note Wayfair is owned by Justin Baldoni um and j and Jamie.
00:10:02
Veronica Adams
Yes. And Jamie, I believe.
00:10:08
Heather Roberts
and yeah so Yeah, there's there's pretty much the two of them are running it. Blake's lawsuit makes it seem like Justin and Jamie and Jamie are like bros who just one day
Work Environment Allegations
00:10:26
Heather Roberts
woke up and decided to create a movie and like create a movie.
00:10:31
Veronica Adams
They're not just any bros, though, Heather. They are formerly porn-addicted bros who care, who apparently care more about being inappropriate and having, like, open sexual dialogue and banter and just endless grossness on the set of their movies.
00:10:34
Heather Roberts
yeah
00:10:37
Heather Roberts
Born addicted bros, yes.
00:10:51
Heather Roberts
Right.
00:10:51
Veronica Adams
Uh, in addition to being two guys who just woke up one day and were like, yeah, let's start a film production company.
00:10:57
Heather Roberts
Exactly. Like the way that she writes this, I don't know. And like I said, this is the complaint. So you don't, we don't know what's true.
00:11:02
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:11:02
Heather Roberts
We don't know what's not true.
00:11:03
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:11:04
Heather Roberts
um But the way that the complaint is written is basically that this production company does not really have, they don't have an HR department. They don't really have like,
00:11:15
Veronica Adams
Well, I mean, if you're going to sexually assault and harass your employees, why would you bother with HR?
00:11:20
Heather Roberts
Right, but yeah, they don't they don't really have a lot of infrastructure, so it would seem they obviously have attorneys because they had to get involved at one point or another.
00:11:25
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:11:30
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:11:31
Heather Roberts
um I don't know how many people work for Wayfair, but the way that Blake, Blake's attorneys obviously, but the way in which Blake has you know put in the complaint makes it seem like it's this sort of like,
00:11:38
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:11:46
Heather Roberts
fly-by-night, newer production company that isn't very established, has somehow hooked up with Sony for distribution purposes, but Sony's not running the show, Wayfarer is running the show, and Wayfarer doesn't have the experience it would seem in creating movies, in knowing what is industry standard, what is not industry standard, and thus,
00:11:48
Veronica Adams
yeah
00:12:01
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:12:14
Heather Roberts
Blake's expectations of what this movie would be fell like they were waiting.
00:12:19
Veronica Adams
yeah that they were not met in any way, shape, or form.
00:12:20
Heather Roberts
but we're not
00:12:21
Veronica Adams
Wayfarer is, um I guess, tantamount to a startup in terms of like production, right?
00:12:29
Heather Roberts
That's right. That's how you would not
00:12:30
Veronica Adams
So they just have not yet gotten to the place where, or have completely failed to institute all of these different things that would lead them to provide a much more professional and even sag a sanctioned or approved experience for talent and the people who work for talent.
00:12:48
Heather Roberts
So yeah, it it just sounds like, yeah, very start-up-y is how how it reads, okay?
00:12:52
Veronica Adams
Yeah. Right.
00:12:55
Heather Roberts
From her complaint. And you get that.
00:12:57
Veronica Adams
Which is a nice way to say these guys don't know fuck all about making movies.
00:12:57
Heather Roberts
so
00:13:03
Heather Roberts
So, I mean, yeah, it's a nice way of saying that. So, and she has a bunch of complaints. So what had happened was, my summary, they started filming, okay, and then partway into the filming, there were, um the the striking happened.
00:13:13
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:13:20
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:13:20
Heather Roberts
There, for those that don't remember, there was an actor strike, there was the writer's strike, there was all of that going on with SAG after.
00:13:21
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:13:28
Heather Roberts
So everything stopped, everything ceased. And then when she came when they came back to filming, Blake had some requirements that we can get into of what had to take place and agreements that had to take place before she would return to court.
00:13:44
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:13:46
Heather Roberts
All of the allegations, at least from what I can gather, All of the actual sexual harassment allegations and all of that occurred in this first segment of filming, not in, right, prior to the strike, and nothing happened after that.
00:13:57
Veronica Adams
Prior to the strike. Yeah. Well, and it I think it it's important to note that the post strike, once the strike was resolved and filming could resume, the production at that point was very brief.
00:14:13
Veronica Adams
It was only like five weeks of filming or something, like January into early February of 2024, and then they wrapped and it was done.
00:14:13
Heather Roberts
Yeah, it was like I'm alone. Yeah, correct. Right.
00:14:20
Veronica Adams
they They were ready to go into post filming production and get ready for release.
00:14:24
Heather Roberts
Yeah. And there are plenty of allegations about shit that happened after that, but not about actual stuff that has that's that has to do with that.
00:14:28
Veronica Adams
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the the I mean the press junket and all of that stuff that happens later is ah a shitstorm of a different color.
00:14:33
Heather Roberts
Right.
00:14:37
Veronica Adams
This is just about ah the hostile work environment that existed prior to the strike.
00:14:38
Heather Roberts
Right. Correct. And so Blake is basically saying that there's just, you know, Something had to have happened.
00:14:50
Veronica Adams
Oh my god, right?
00:14:51
Heather Roberts
There was not a positive work environment. something Blake and Justin didn't get along.
00:14:57
Veronica Adams
Oil and water, yeah.
00:14:57
Heather Roberts
okay That's just period. Because reading Blake's complaint, it is very obvious that she did not enjoy her time working on that set.
00:15:00
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:15:10
Heather Roberts
okay reading Blake's complaint to the New York Times, mind you, not against Blake. I'm sure though that a lot of these things that we're reading in the New York Times lawsuit is going to, you know, come out in the answer or in subsequent pleadings in this one.
00:15:25
Veronica Adams
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:27
Heather Roberts
But anyway, Reading that one makes it seem like Blake was, um you know, a diva and was taking over the film and everything that Blake talks about, it happened, but it didn't happen like that.
00:15:33
Veronica Adams
Next, she was problematic.
00:15:45
Veronica Adams
That it's that tired trope of she's too sensitive. She's a bitch. She's um impossible to satisfy. She can't take a joke.
00:15:53
Heather Roberts
Right.
00:15:54
Veronica Adams
She's a stick in the mud.
00:15:54
Heather Roberts
Correct.
00:15:56
Veronica Adams
She and her husband think they have more power and influence in Hollywood than they do. The the tired trope of the woman who dares to speak up becomes the the person who gets cast in the worst light possible.
00:16:06
Heather Roberts
Yes.
00:16:11
Heather Roberts
Basically, hey that's bla that that's Justin's reply.
00:16:12
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:16:15
Veronica Adams
Yes, yes.
00:16:16
Heather Roberts
Like we didn't mean it like that. She invited us into her, you know, okay. Well, so one of the allegations is that that he walked in
00:16:27
Veronica Adams
So many layers to this.
00:16:28
Heather Roberts
How many letters? There's so much. And like, we're trying to knock this into something digestible for you, but we may have to do this in multiple parts.
00:16:34
Veronica Adams
Yeah. ah Yeah, right.
00:16:36
Heather Roberts
So we'll get to what are the salacious allegations, because I know that's what you're waiting for, right? So there's some of the salacious allegations are that, um you know, he Justin would call her sexy at inappropriate times, that he would um not be there was like one scene where it was not there wasn't any dialogue and there wasn't any noise
Inappropriate Behavior Claims
00:17:00
Heather Roberts
and so like there was no reason to speak it was going to be like a montage in the film and they were dancing and um yeah that Blake alleges that Justin like ran his like nose up her neck and was like you smell so good
00:17:17
Heather Roberts
Yeah, so shit like that. um Talking about the the sexual relationship that each party has with their actual spouse, um sharing sexual
00:17:24
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:17:29
Veronica Adams
Yes. Yeah. and Asking invasive questions about sexual preferences and pornography use and some attempts to describe genitalia, making crude commentary about people's bodies.
00:17:42
Veronica Adams
um
00:17:43
Heather Roberts
When Blake was in the in one scene, she's giving as her character is giving birth and she all she has on is this small little like privacy patch over her vagina um and she has her feet up and stirrups and they didn't close down the set.
00:17:47
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:17:56
Veronica Adams
yeah
00:18:02
Heather Roberts
They had people walking around. they had the The financier, Steve, was there for some reason.
00:18:04
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:18:09
Heather Roberts
They didn't shut off the cameras for outside people to be able to like pull it up and watch it.
00:18:14
Veronica Adams
yeah Mm-hmm.
00:18:17
Heather Roberts
So that goes to what I was saying earlier about how it being like a completely unprofessional set.
00:18:23
Veronica Adams
Completely unprofessional set.
00:18:25
Heather Roberts
Yeah.
00:18:25
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:18:26
Heather Roberts
um
00:18:27
Veronica Adams
and the the Well, and my understanding is that in in films where there is any form of intimacy depicted, there is always someone responsible for coordinating those interactions between the actors and making sure that everyone feels safe and comfortable and has what they need um in terms of
00:18:27
Heather Roberts
anyway
00:18:45
Veronica Adams
makeup, prosthetics, protection, et cetera, right? And they're just that there were things happening related to sexual contact between the characters in the film without an intimacy coordinator present, comments being made, last-minute additions to and or changes to what everyone had agreed to was going to be filmed, um things that...
00:18:58
Heather Roberts
right.
00:19:08
Heather Roberts
I don't know, just as an aside, okay?
00:19:10
Veronica Adams
Uh-huh.
00:19:11
Heather Roberts
You and I work in the romance world, right?
00:19:13
Veronica Adams
Sure.
00:19:13
Heather Roberts
We know this book, we've known this book, you know, whatever.
00:19:15
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:19:18
Heather Roberts
it' it's It's sort of a romance, it's romance adjacent. They're romantic, but just because of the topic of it, right?
00:19:21
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:19:25
Heather Roberts
um And how it ends, right?
00:19:27
Veronica Adams
Yes. yeah
00:19:28
Heather Roberts
So it's technically, technically yeah, it technically doesn't have a happily ever after in this book. But anyway, um it's part of a series, anyway. My point being, Um, they read the script.
00:19:44
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:19:44
Heather Roberts
They knew the content of this particular story.
00:19:46
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:19:49
Veronica Adams
Yes, yes.
00:19:49
Heather Roberts
Okay. Why would you not request or have an intimacy coordinator at the outset? That is just, that seems very standard to me.
00:20:02
Veronica Adams
I personally think the answer is to that question becomes very apparent once we get to the press tour.
00:20:12
Heather Roberts
Well, yes.
00:20:14
Veronica Adams
and me the post-release issues in this lawsuit and the other lawsuit.
00:20:15
Heather Roberts
hi
00:20:20
Heather Roberts
But it's just yeah, it just seems like with the content,
00:20:25
Veronica Adams
Yeah, of course, of course.
00:20:25
Heather Roberts
you know, of the salacious content, and it it is it is about, for those that don't know, I don't know how you would, and if you're already watching this, you're probably interested.
00:20:33
Veronica Adams
It's about domestic violence.
00:20:34
Heather Roberts
It's about domestic violence, but it portrays it in a very realistic way, and so much that there is a loving relationship at one point between the two main characters, and they are deeply in love, and then it, you know, devolves um into something that doesn't look
00:20:44
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:20:52
Heather Roberts
loving but then it is loving but then it isn't loving and it shows a realistic view of what domestic violence looks like because that's oftentimes why it's very hard for women to leave the situation because it's not like you know it's just a nightmare 24-7 there are often moments of joy and love and and you know wonderful wonderful moments so but have it
00:21:12
Veronica Adams
right
00:21:18
Veronica Adams
Yeah. Well, I do believe Colleen's on record as saying that it was the story itself is inspired by a relationship that she herself witnessed growing up.
00:21:26
Heather Roberts
That's correct. um So yeah, it's it's a very realistic look at that type of a relationship, which is a very sensitive thing to be filming and acting out and portraying.
00:21:34
Veronica Adams
Yeah, right.
00:21:42
Heather Roberts
And you should have the sense to know that you should have an intimacy coordinator.
00:21:49
Veronica Adams
Not if you're a porn addict.
00:21:51
Heather Roberts
ah Right. So that anyway,
00:21:54
Veronica Adams
I mean, no no shade to folks with with addiction, no shade to folks who are in recovery, but like, you know, you you're going to let somebody who put the fox in charge of the hen house, so to speak, you're going to make a movie about intimate relationships and domestic violence and the guy who's in the the two guys who were in charge of it allegedly have porn addictions.
00:22:14
Veronica Adams
Like what?
00:22:15
Heather Roberts
Right. I mean, and listen, the veracity of that allegation is, you know, it is, a which is wild.
00:22:20
Veronica Adams
I know, I know, I know it's dubious, but like it's out there.
00:22:27
Heather Roberts
So there are some claims. This is why like I get so frustrated with complaints sometimes, because I'm like, that one's terrible.
00:22:35
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:22:37
Heather Roberts
like But then there are other claims that seem to hold water. So it's like, what do you
Ensuring a Professional Environment
00:22:42
Veronica Adams
Right. everything Everything is alleged until a judge or a jury makes a decision. I mean, that's what it comes down to.
00:22:43
Heather Roberts
you believe, right?
00:22:48
Heather Roberts
That's right.
00:22:51
Heather Roberts
So on January 4th, they have a meeting, right?
00:22:55
Veronica Adams
right yeah yeah she is She is seeking help from Wayfarer.
00:22:55
Heather Roberts
um As part of their, Blake has made complaints to the fictitious HR department um and really to...
00:23:07
Veronica Adams
Not that, you know, I mean, two of Wayfarer's top executives are her biggest issue here, allegedly.
00:23:13
Heather Roberts
Right.
00:23:14
Veronica Adams
um But she's seeking assistance from Wayfarer and from Sony, among other parties.
00:23:18
Heather Roberts
Yeah, should she she's essentially she's had her attorneys work out some some things.
00:23:23
Veronica Adams
Uh-huh.
00:23:25
Heather Roberts
And part of that was, you know, her coming back to work was this list of like 30 things that they
00:23:25
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:23:34
Veronica Adams
Yeah, it's pretty long.
00:23:37
Heather Roberts
Yeah, and as the 30th thing is an in-person meeting before production resumes with Mr. Baldani, Mr. Heath, Ms. Sacks, the Sony representative, the new producer, Blake Lively, and Blake Lively's spouse, Ryan Reynolds, to confirm and approve a plan for implementation of the above, all of these 29 other things that will be adhered to for the physical and emotional safety of Blake Lively, her employees, and all the casting crew moving forward.
00:23:47
Veronica Adams
Yes. Yes.
00:24:03
Heather Roberts
Okay, so that meeting happened on
00:24:03
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:24:06
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:24:07
Heather Roberts
January 4th. And as a result of that meeting, there were 17 points that everybody agreed to, um per my understanding. And those were essentially what what they had talked about before in that in the prior thing, like, you know, there wouldn't be any more touching or sexual comments by, you know, Mr.
00:24:27
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:24:35
Heather Roberts
Baldani or Mr.
00:24:36
Veronica Adams
We're all gonna be grown-ups and act appropriately toward each other.
00:24:36
Heather Roberts
Heath.
00:24:40
Heather Roberts
Essentially, essentially, that there would be no retaliation against Blake for bringing these things up. Yeah, so just things things like that.
00:24:54
Heather Roberts
And so they have this five-week production then, and it seems like everything's fine during that five weeks.
00:25:00
Veronica Adams
Yeah. Right.
00:25:03
Heather Roberts
Then they go off to, it's we're now in post-production and that's when things take another turn, okay?
00:25:07
Veronica Adams
Yes. Well, so the issue in post-production, the issue in pre-release press and then post-release press becomes
00:25:21
Veronica Adams
An issue of ah everybody following the agreed upon marketing narrative.
00:25:27
Heather Roberts
Right.
00:25:27
Veronica Adams
are Are we all on the same message here? And if we're not, why aren't we?
00:25:33
Heather Roberts
And that to me is a very good question because Blake's lawsuit is very clear that there was a pre-agreed upon marketing plan created by Wayfarer that she did not create this plan, okay?
00:25:44
Veronica Adams
Yes. Yes. Uh huh.
00:25:51
Heather Roberts
Whereas Justin's lawsuit makes it sound like Blake took over the entire movie, the marketing plan. And the wardrobe, yeah, the wardrobe, ever the script at times and had her husband write pieces of the script, which frankly, I mean, Ryan Reynolds is, you know, a movie genius when it comes to a certain script.
00:25:58
Veronica Adams
sure throw the woman and Throw the woman under the bus! Huh? Yeah.
00:26:16
Veronica Adams
They could never make me hate you, Deadpool.
00:26:18
Heather Roberts
I know, they really couldn't. I'm like, here's the thing. It's Ryan Reynolds, okay, and Blake Lively. They are like Hollywood royalty here.
00:26:28
Veronica Adams
hu
00:26:30
Heather Roberts
And so that comes with, right.
00:26:30
Veronica Adams
For sure.
00:26:34
Veronica Adams
He's a mother's best friend. Come on now.
00:26:38
Heather Roberts
That comes with ah a level, they're A-list actors, okay?
00:26:41
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:26:42
Heather Roberts
And Justin Baldani with his startup production has, ah you know, gotten this A-list actor and is now sort of like pissed that he has to listen to them.
00:26:49
Veronica Adams
Yes. Yes.
Media and PR Challenges
00:26:54
Veronica Adams
Well, in their empire, it it their empire i stretches out well beyond Hollywood, too.
00:27:02
Veronica Adams
I mean, Ryan is invested in and financially ah very wealthy via sports and other business interests, including alcohol and some other things I'm not fully aware of.
00:27:10
Heather Roberts
um yeah Okay a cell phone thing Yeah I haven't looked recently, but yeah, he's certainly
00:27:13
Veronica Adams
um Oh, that's right. That's it. That's it. It's the mobile, the mobile phone company, right? Yeah. So like, he's just kind of ah i he's a business, business savvy dude, right?
00:27:24
Veronica Adams
He's got his hands in multiple pots and I believe net worth starts with a B, not an M. So, yeah, your point's well made.
00:27:34
Heather Roberts
doing fine. um
00:27:37
Veronica Adams
These are very powerful, wealthy people who have a lot of influence.
00:27:39
Heather Roberts
a And so, right, so her demands, she's coming into the set expecting an A-list set and it's not apparently an A-list set to her specifications.
00:27:53
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:27:54
Heather Roberts
She's bringing things up. Justin and Jamie are like not liking that she's sort of pushing back, it would appear, and creates this sort of you know relationship.
00:28:03
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:28:06
Heather Roberts
They're thinking The way that it reads. Okay. They're thinking they're having this lovely conversation about whatever and they're just being themselves and, you know, showing videos of, Oh, we have a birth scene coming up.
00:28:13
Veronica Adams
Which is so...
00:28:21
Heather Roberts
Let me show you a video of my wife giving birth.
00:28:27
Heather Roberts
Like. Whereas Blake's looking at that being like, why the fuck are you showing me a video of your wife giving birth?
00:28:29
Veronica Adams
Uh-huh. Yeah.
00:28:34
Heather Roberts
Whereas Jamie Heath is like, this is just beautiful moment that you need to watch. Like we're not friends like that. Okay.
00:28:41
Veronica Adams
yeah Yeah.
00:28:42
Heather Roberts
And that's what Blake's saying.
00:28:44
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:28:44
Heather Roberts
We're not like that. Well, this is supposed to be a professional environment.
00:28:47
Veronica Adams
Yes. Yes.
00:28:47
Heather Roberts
Whereas they're making it seem very casual.
00:28:50
Veronica Adams
Right, so we have sort of this, I don't know, you want to distill it down to movies? So they're looking at her like she's fucking Regina George, right?
00:28:55
Heather Roberts
Yeah.
00:28:58
Veronica Adams
We got a mean girl on the set. She thinks that she's all that and a bag of chips. you know, to to quote the vernacular from 30 years ago, because it's all I'm good for anymore, is completely irrelevant pop culture references.
00:29:06
Heather Roberts
Yes.
00:29:12
Veronica Adams
um And she feels like she's having to work at the Delta Tau Kai house from Animal House, you know, right?
00:29:20
Heather Roberts
Yeah.
00:29:20
Veronica Adams
Like she is working with these disgusting oversexed idiots, and they're working with the meanest girl in Hollywood, and it's...
00:29:31
Heather Roberts
That's the environment that we're at.
00:29:32
Veronica Adams
It's been super explosive, yeah.
00:29:35
Heather Roberts
So they did not get along pretty much, it seems, from the start, okay?
00:29:39
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:29:40
Heather Roberts
So that those are the allegations having to do with the sexual harassment allegations and all of that.
00:29:45
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:29:46
Heather Roberts
Then we move into post-production and we move into a different era of crazy town.
00:29:53
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:29:53
Heather Roberts
So Wayfarer, as I mentioned earlier, and Justin are represented by Jennifer Abel, okay?
00:30:03
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:30:04
Heather Roberts
who at the time was working for Jones Works LLC.
00:30:06
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:30:11
Heather Roberts
There's Jones Works that is owned by Stephanie Jones. And she, um it would appear, started working with Wayfair and Baldoni, you know, and then sort of like assign Jennifer to the account and then eventually sort of like let Jennifer take the lead, right?
00:30:33
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:30:33
Heather Roberts
And that's what you do as a business owner. Oftentimes you have other people who are, you know, doing work on your behalf, right, for your company, and you don't know everything that's happening.
00:30:41
Veronica Adams
Of course.
00:30:43
Heather Roberts
Okay. Um, Stephanie does not like there's a third party here. Her name is Melissa Nathan and Melissa apparently, uh, interviewed or had conversations with Stephanie over at Jones works where she was actually going to come on board. Um,
00:31:03
Heather Roberts
for a time and until Stephanie, according to Stephanie, I'll just note this, this isn't Stephanie's lawsuit.
00:31:11
Veronica Adams
Yeah, which, yeah let's just tee that up.
00:31:13
Heather Roberts
Stephanie has filed her own lawsuit
00:31:14
Veronica Adams
Stephanie has also filed her own lawsuit here.
Internal PR Disputes
00:31:19
Heather Roberts
against Jennifer Abel, the publicist, Melissa Nathan,
00:31:19
Veronica Adams
And everybody scratches their head and goes, who the hell is Stephanie?
00:31:27
Veronica Adams
Her one-time employee is Jennifer. And then Melissa, yes.
00:31:31
Heather Roberts
Justin Baldani and Wayfair Studios, her former clients.
00:31:33
Veronica Adams
Of course. or That's right.
00:31:37
Heather Roberts
So the situation that and how this all intertwines is that, you know, so in this lawsuit, she says that she was going to hire Melissa. Um, until she found out a situation in which she felt that Melissa went way over the line with, um, and she was not comfortable with that. She ended up hiring two people at Melissa, like who Melissa recommended, but eventually they couldn't come to an agreement and she didn't wanted to do that with, she didn't hire Melissa.
00:32:07
Heather Roberts
And she also said that she like never wanted to work with Melissa again. And I don't know how much of an edict she shared that with her, you know, other people in her company, because as we know, Jennifer then works with Melissa again.
00:32:19
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:32:24
Heather Roberts
um And listen, in this business, you don't often get a a choice if your client wants to work with someone and you don't like them.
00:32:35
Heather Roberts
If you want to keep them as your client, you often have to work with that other person. That's just how it is. um It happens from time to time.
00:32:45
Veronica Adams
Well, and people people have their own areas of expertise and specialty too, right?
00:32:49
Heather Roberts
um
00:32:49
Veronica Adams
Like you can be in the same industry and hold the exact same title and do the same general basic thing, but be particularly focused on a certain aspect of providing that service or those contacts or that, you know, but whatever the end goal is of of your task list.
00:33:02
Heather Roberts
Right.
00:33:08
Veronica Adams
um and And I think that that is the situation here is that everybody had their own particular specialties. i And it was a team effort with multiple agencies doing PR work for individual people and for the film itself.
00:33:29
Heather Roberts
So yeah, so the agreement with Jones works was, um, Jones works were represented Wayfair for, um, $20,000 a month. Okay. And then they added Justin Baldani on as a, like an add-on to that contract for an additional $5,000 a month.
00:33:45
Veronica Adams
That seems pretty cheap.
00:33:46
Heather Roberts
So it does, but they were long-term clients and Wayfair was like, she represented Justin previously and then.
00:33:55
Veronica Adams
Yeah, they had a pre-existing relationship.
00:33:57
Heather Roberts
And then Wayfair came up. um So I feel like there was probably some discounting happening there.
00:34:03
Veronica Adams
Sure, repeat business. You do treat a returning client a little better than you might someone brand new or someone who's known to you to be a huge pain in the ass.
00:34:05
Heather Roberts
repeat Right. And she's not going to charge them both, you know, for 25,000 per. So she's doing like an add on with like just for 5,000.
00:34:17
Veronica Adams
Yeah, for sure.
00:34:18
Heather Roberts
So it ended up being $25,000. They had a one year contract that renewed automatically, unless either party gave notice 90 days prior to the end of the contract.
00:34:29
Veronica Adams
This all sounds so standard, yeah.
00:34:30
Heather Roberts
Very standard. um There's also other standard things like there was a 30% commission if Jones Works booked any in-person speaking engagements and 10% for any third party other work that they may get for Wayfair or Beltani.
00:34:47
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:34:50
Heather Roberts
So but very standard, nothing insane. They're paying like clockwork all as well. Jennifer Ebel's assigned to the case, account, you know, whatever.
00:35:01
Veronica Adams
Right, right.
00:35:02
Heather Roberts
And it's just regular communications work. It's like she's acting as their publicist. She's getting she's working with the media.
00:35:06
Veronica Adams
okay
00:35:09
Heather Roberts
She's helping them coordinate stories about, um you know, the the movies coming out, helping to coordinate a campaign for that. And um just generally speaking as their representative.
00:35:23
Heather Roberts
Media questions come in they'll funnel them to them, etc, etc That's how that works.
00:35:27
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:35:30
Heather Roberts
It's ah the the buffer um and then There's these sexual so all like the assault allegations and sexual harassment.
00:35:39
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:35:39
Heather Roberts
I'm sorry not assault sexual harassment allegations um that pop up and They realize oh we might want to have a crisis team in place for in case she goes public with this.
00:35:55
Veronica Adams
You think? You think?
00:35:56
Heather Roberts
Yeah. So Jennifer Abel brings, or I don't know who brings her in, Melissa Nathan. I believe Jennifer Abel brought her in, but yes.
00:36:06
Veronica Adams
Yeah, she is known as the crisis fixer. Like, if that's are either her title or her reputation, she is the crisis fixer.
00:36:14
Heather Roberts
Yes, that that seems to be her reputation. um And she recently started her own agency as well. I think if my memory serves, she was with another agency before this, and there's a whole thing with that.
00:36:22
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:36:28
Heather Roberts
But I'll do a little more research and get into this, get into that later. bye Melissa Nathan regardless she's brought in as the the crisis manager. Okay, her fees are $175,000 for three to four months of work.
00:36:46
Heather Roberts
That's like the whole shebang or um I think it was like 30 K for For three months like per month or something like that for a smaller package Okay, but we're not talking about small money here
00:37:00
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:37:03
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:37:04
Heather Roberts
Like this is obviously expensive work. However, what do you get for that? She can't tell you over the phone because that would be too much and I can't put that in writing or else, you know, I could get in a lot of trouble.
00:37:21
Heather Roberts
That I think was one of the most damning text messages that I read.
00:37:25
Veronica Adams
It's such a red flag. It's such a red flag. Yeah.
00:37:28
Heather Roberts
That is not good for her at all.
00:37:31
Veronica Adams
but I will do this very extensive work, but I cannot tell you specifically what it's going to be or what results you can expect.
00:37:37
Heather Roberts
Yeah, not not good for her.
00:37:41
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:37:41
Heather Roberts
um Because here, I'll be very blatant and and and open about it. um Just from from what I was reading, they are making it seem like um in the the Baldani New York Times
Media Narrative Manipulation
00:37:58
Heather Roberts
lawsuit.
00:37:58
Veronica Adams
The libel suit, yeah.
00:37:59
Heather Roberts
um Because I should note that the lawsuit against the New York Times is not just Baldani versus the New York Times.
00:38:05
Veronica Adams
No, it's like ten other, ten other parties.
00:38:06
Heather Roberts
It's Wayfarer, Justin Baldani, Jamie Heath, Steve Sarowitz, Melissa Nathan, the agency PR group, Jennifer Abel, her company, RWA Communications, Jed Wallace, who I'll talk about in a moment, and Street Relations, that's his company.
00:38:20
Veronica Adams
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:38:23
Heather Roberts
So it's all the players that were taught. We have, we have sides here. Okay. We have all of those people. And then we have Blake Lively on the other side and then Stephanie Jones and Jones works also on Blakely at lively side, but not in the same lawsuit.
00:38:31
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:38:39
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:38:39
Heather Roberts
Okay. So that's what we're dealing with here. And, um, they make it seem like, you know, Oh, well, we were just doing our job.
00:38:49
Heather Roberts
Like. We have all they they picked in two, you know, they they cherry picked the text messages. The reason that they have the text messages at all is because obviously Jones works gave them to play lively's team.
00:39:04
Heather Roberts
Okay.
00:39:05
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:39:06
Heather Roberts
Obviously, they say that they got them via subpoena. I don't know how that happened because there was no lawsuit at the time. There's no such thing as a pre-lawsuit subpoena, okay? there That just does not exist. It does not exist. The only thing that was ongoing, it would appear from reading everything, was an arbitration between Stephanie Jones Works and Jennifer Abel during their dissolution.
00:39:39
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:39:40
Heather Roberts
So what happened was, Abel is working for Jones Works. She decides, I guess, that she hates Stephanie and wants to create her own firm in literal direct violation of the contract that she has with Stephanie.
00:39:53
Veronica Adams
Yeah. Yeah, there's.
00:39:58
Heather Roberts
So yeah, i don't that there's no getting around that.
00:39:58
Veronica Adams
Correct.
00:40:01
Heather Roberts
And she doesn't talk about that at all.
00:40:02
Heather Roberts
So that's going to be interesting that it's convenient.
00:40:02
Veronica Adams
It's convenient.
00:40:05
Veronica Adams
Oh, the light most favorable.
00:40:08
Heather Roberts
Yeah, so there's ah there's an employment agreement between Jones Works and Jennifer Abel, as of course there should be. Part of that is, you know, you don't steal our clients, you don't take any proprietary information, you don't, you know, all of these things.
00:40:24
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:40:25
Heather Roberts
So what does Jennifer Abel do? She creates her own company, RWA, in July of 2024. starts sending documents to from Jones works documents contracts, all of that sort of stuff to her to her own account to her own email address ceiling proprietary information. She starts talking to clients of Jones works and employees of Jones works about
00:40:56
Heather Roberts
getting people to come over with her um when she leaves.
00:40:59
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:41:02
Heather Roberts
And then apparently some sort of tech, like the IT t department discovered this, brought it up to Stephanie and Stephanie fired her in August of 2024.
00:41:17
Heather Roberts
And they went through arbitration um ah because Stephanie was obviously upset and they she breached the contract.
00:41:24
Veronica Adams
yeah
00:41:25
Heather Roberts
um and
00:41:26
Veronica Adams
Also, it's a court order saying that ah jen has sister Jennifer has to stop doing whatever it is she's doing for whatever the terms of their, you know, if they have a non compete or something, you know, in addition to the taking of proprietary information, etc, etc.
00:41:39
Heather Roberts
And, which they didn't have it, there was a non compete in there.
00:41:42
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:41:43
Heather Roberts
um And part of their contract required arbitration, which is why they were in arbitration. When Jennifer left, she took her phone and she had it forensically audited and reviewed and secured from the moment that you know that happened.
00:41:57
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:42:01
Heather Roberts
And that's where the majority of these text messages are coming from.
00:42:06
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:42:08
Heather Roberts
So how Blake Lively's team, unless they were gifted them, but they said they got them through subpoena. So I at a loss for what legal process they were in that allowed that to occur.
00:42:24
Veronica Adams
yeah
00:42:24
Heather Roberts
But that will come out later. I'm just very curious. um But that's where all of these text messages came from.
00:42:32
Veronica Adams
right
00:42:33
Heather Roberts
And what's not good for Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan is that there are multiple text messages between them, basically slamming Stephanie and talking about like, I'm going out of Jones works with a bang and ha ha ha ha ha.
00:42:51
Heather Roberts
You know, there's this kill story that's about to happen on Stephanie Jones that they literally planted with Business Insider.
00:42:54
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:42:59
Heather Roberts
You you can't get around that one. I don't know how you're,
00:43:01
Veronica Adams
yeah
00:43:03
Heather Roberts
I don't know how they're getting around that one. I'd be interested. I'll be interested to see that one. Um, there's a website, Stephanie Jones lies or some shit. And it's all a slam piece.
00:43:16
Heather Roberts
When you look at Melissa Nathan, and what I know,
00:43:19
Veronica Adams
It's so hard. It's so hard to take some of this shit seriously, like...
00:43:24
Heather Roberts
I know. It's so juvenile, right? Like it's ridiculous. when you when you And then when you look at what Melissa says that she does in her own words, she talks about websites and Reddit threads and placement of articles and things like that.
00:43:41
Veronica Adams
Right, right.
00:43:42
Heather Roberts
also So she's doing the same thing that she's alleged to have done to Blake Lively to Stephanie Jones.
00:43:48
Veronica Adams
Mm hmm.
00:43:51
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:43:51
Heather Roberts
And she talks with Jennifer Abel about how they're gonna make so much money and la, la, la, la.
00:43:56
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:43:58
Heather Roberts
Well, Justin Baldani and Wayfair Studios are included in this Stephanie Jones lawsuit because they were clients of Jones Works and then their contract said that they wouldn't poach any of their you know employees.
00:44:07
Veronica Adams
Yes. Right. and And they are now being alleged to have poached Jennifer or induced her in some way to violate her agreements with Jones Works and to have financially and perhaps even in terms of intellectual property ah injured Jones Works in irreparable ways.
00:44:32
Heather Roberts
and And they just stopped paying as well. like they They said, oh, we're fired.
00:44:35
Veronica Adams
No, we're done.
00:44:36
Heather Roberts
you know we're we're moving with We're done.
00:44:38
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:44:39
Heather Roberts
We're moving with Jennifer Abel. But the problem is the contract doesn't allow for that.
00:44:45
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:44:45
Heather Roberts
And you they still owe $25,000 a month until May of 2025. And they're not paying her $25,000 a month. So they've breached the contract there.
00:44:54
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:44:54
Heather Roberts
So they're going to have a whole ah whole thing about that in this lawsuit.
00:44:59
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:45:02
Heather Roberts
So yeah, it is it is a lot to unpack with that.
00:45:06
Veronica Adams
Yeah. And we haven't even touched the press junket yet, like the real meat of what happened on tour, which
00:45:11
Heather Roberts
yeah
00:45:18
Heather Roberts
Right.
00:45:18
Veronica Adams
for anybody who's as chronically online as I am was pretty obvious to see once it kicked off where things were headed, so it was nasty.
00:45:24
Heather Roberts
Oh, it was crazy. I mean, we can talk a little bit about it today if you want, or we can wait until next time, which, I mean, It's up to you, but no, I think, I think we dive into it.
00:45:37
Heather Roberts
I mean, what happened on tour? We can at least start talking about it and then we can see where we end up.
00:45:41
Veronica Adams
Okay, cool, cool.
00:45:45
Heather Roberts
Um, so when they go out to the press tour and they have their marketing plan, which has been criticized.
00:45:48
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:45:52
Veronica Adams
Yes. And the the the entire point of the marketing plan is that we are not going to oversell or even adequately sell the domestic violence angle.
00:46:04
Heather Roberts
Yes.
00:46:04
Veronica Adams
We are going to lift up the female main character, Lily, as a person of strength. And we are going to make this more of a ah female empowerment narrative rather than a domestic violence narrative in terms of how we are presenting the story in interviews and podcasts and, you know, in public appearances, et cetera.
00:46:33
Heather Roberts
And Blake Lively and I shall note, Justin Baldani seemed both to be on board with this at the very beginning.
00:46:39
Veronica Adams
And initially, yes.
00:46:41
Heather Roberts
Yeah.
00:46:41
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:46:42
Heather Roberts
Initially.
00:46:43
Veronica Adams
And then people start kind of questioning, like people who've read the book, book talk,
00:46:46
Heather Roberts
Yeah. Book talk.
00:46:48
Veronica Adams
Book talk. People start scratching their heads. Like, what? Did anybody making this movie read this book?
00:46:56
Heather Roberts
Right. Right. Right. Like it was a little odd. um And so, but Blake is doing her part.
00:47:06
Veronica Adams
Uh-huh.
00:47:07
Heather Roberts
And then Justin pivots.
00:47:09
Veronica Adams
Yes, yes. And suddenly it looks like Blake's kind of tone deaf.
00:47:17
Heather Roberts
Right.
00:47:18
Veronica Adams
And she's out here upholding this idea that Lily is strong and this is like, you know, a girls night out kind of thing that you guys, you know, you can go to the movie with your girlfriends and just enjoy um embracing each other in in your feminine strength and like, you know, and suddenly Justin's the one talking about the domestic violence stuff and he's the only one talking about it.
00:47:33
Heather Roberts
almost like it's a fun rom-rom. Yeah.
00:47:45
Heather Roberts
Right. So when this all started coming out, it was very much like, what is happening here?
00:47:52
Veronica Adams
uh-huh yeah yeah uh-huh
00:47:53
Heather Roberts
ah From from our perspective we were just like watching all of these controversy stories drop and Something happened on set and we don't know what and all Right Right Of course
00:48:03
Veronica Adams
And nobody in the cast and crew from ah follows him on Instagram. like He's now like this lone wolf out here speaking about how important it is that we show and and have representation for women who are in these situations, and and anyone really who suffers domestic violence, because it can and does happen to men too. But like specifically from the the narrative, like Suddenly, it looks like Blake is just kind of this vapid airhead who doesn't give two shits about what real women struggle with.
00:48:34
Veronica Adams
And Justin is suddenly this big advocate for women who are in violent and abusive relationships.
00:48:41
Heather Roberts
Right. it's It's wild.
00:48:44
Veronica Adams
It is. It's really odd.
00:48:46
Heather Roberts
And the tone switched ah you know on social media. A lot of people got really upset with Blake and were really not in love with that summer mold.
00:48:50
Veronica Adams
Yeah. Uh-huh.
00:48:57
Veronica Adams
I specifically remember seeing clip after clip of like cringy interviews she did years ago, like 10 years ago for movies, you know, most of us didn't even watch.
00:49:00
Heather Roberts
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:08
Heather Roberts
Right.
00:49:09
Veronica Adams
And of her being kind of, I don't know, out of touch or condescending or, you know, it was it was very interesting to see it start to happen in real time.
00:49:15
Heather Roberts
Yeah. and It was, because I mean, we we watched it because we were, yes.
00:49:25
Veronica Adams
Well, we're chronically online because our work requires us to be.
00:49:28
Heather Roberts
And because this was about a book that was very prominent in our industry, we were right in our wheelhouse.
00:49:32
Veronica Adams
Yes. and Right, right in our wheelhouses. Yeah.
00:49:35
Heather Roberts
So we saw this happening in real time.
00:49:38
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:49:38
Heather Roberts
We saw our friends and readers commenting.
00:49:42
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:49:43
Heather Roberts
on this and, you know, we saw Blake Lively appear at Book Bonanza to, which is Colin Hoover's book event, to do the premiere of the movie.
00:49:44
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:49:49
Veronica Adams
Mm hmm.
00:49:54
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:49:56
Heather Roberts
We had friends that were there who got to see the movie first and, you know, yeah.
00:49:59
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:50:03
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
Support and Future Plans
00:50:05
Heather Roberts
So we we saw this happening in real time and it was it was completely wild to see. and um And I was just thinking at the time, what is happening?
00:50:15
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:50:15
Heather Roberts
you know like there' is something There's something happening here.
00:50:16
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:50:18
Veronica Adams
For sure.
00:50:19
Heather Roberts
and yeah And Colleen had made some sort of a vague comment. like um You don't always know what's happening behind the scenes or or something like that.
00:50:27
Veronica Adams
It was very cryptic.
00:50:31
Heather Roberts
Yeah. And so we I was like, okay, all right, so something something's going down.
00:50:33
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:50:36
Veronica Adams
Yeah. All right.
00:50:37
Heather Roberts
she is not
00:50:37
Veronica Adams
Mentally, let's put a pin in this one. All right. we're gonna see We're going to see more later. That's Colleen signaling that not all is the way we think it is from the outside looking in.
00:50:44
Heather Roberts
yeah And her inviting, blake having Blake at that premiere, you know, signaled her support of Blake.
00:50:46
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:50:51
Veronica Adams
Yes. yes
00:50:54
Heather Roberts
and and all of that. So it was, it was very interesting to see. And then she had, she has thus after December 20th come out and with a a more, you know, detailed, a much more direct statement and sort of like, um, but yeah, so we're watching this in real time and wondering, you know, what the heck's going on.
00:51:04
Veronica Adams
a much more direct statement in support of Blake. Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:14
Heather Roberts
And then we did we get this lawsuit that basically alleges that this entire thing was orchestrated
00:51:23
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:51:24
Heather Roberts
that and the the Jed guy that we had spoken of earlier was hired by Melissa Nathan.
00:51:31
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:51:31
Heather Roberts
And he essentially has not a bot farm, but he his company specializes in producing getting people to produce content that appears organic.
00:51:45
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:51:46
Heather Roberts
And listen, we we know these people in the book world, these people do exist. um i have so I have names that I could send you to if this is something that you want to do.
00:51:51
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:51:56
Heather Roberts
But there are people in the book world who literally have like 200 phones. They hire people who have like 200 phones and they will, and all these accounts all over the place, they're manufactured accounts, but they appear organic.
00:52:13
Heather Roberts
they're they're sort of bot farms, but there are in and they will go on and post about things. And when you have like 200,000 posts from different accounts coming in around the same time, the algorithms appear, they will they will push that content up because they think that it's organically coming, that it's something that's organically popular.
00:52:35
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:52:37
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:52:37
Heather Roberts
And so it'll be shown to more people and will appear organic when it's not organic at all.
00:52:43
Veronica Adams
Right.
00:52:45
Heather Roberts
Okay, it's manufactured. And that is essentially I got from the lawsuit what what this Jed guy does, street relations. Or at least part of what he does.
00:52:59
Heather Roberts
So that's, yeah, Jen. I'm sorry, I couldn't, I was like, Jen.
00:53:03
Veronica Adams
Yeah, Chad.
00:53:06
Heather Roberts
So that's where he comes into play. And that's what it was alleged that he had some placements essentially with these grassroots social media that were creating this type of buzz.
00:53:24
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:53:24
Heather Roberts
and then it bursts up and then you know people that you know start spouting these opinions and and all of that.
00:53:27
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:53:31
Veronica Adams
Well, and with maybe in the next episode, we can get into greater detail about why it is all of this began to happen, you know, and what what led to the decision to to even pursue this strategy.
00:53:44
Heather Roberts
Oh yeah, allegedly, allegedly.
00:53:44
Veronica Adams
ah Allegedly. Yeah.
00:53:48
Heather Roberts
And it, yeah, it's just really, it's amusing to me that in the Baldini lawsuit, okay, which one is this?
00:53:53
Veronica Adams
Mm-hmm.
00:53:58
Heather Roberts
Yeah. And the Baldini lawsuit in the second page,
Future Episode Teasers
00:54:04
Heather Roberts
but like page two, and it's,
00:54:12
Heather Roberts
excuse me, or what is a little it's it's only the first yeah first few pages page three i apologize it's basically saying it was lively not plaintiffs who engaged in a calculated smear campaign so their allegation is that she did it to she did it and so therefore we had to protect ourselves and that's what resulted from all and all of this and we can
00:54:20
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:54:40
Veronica Adams
In a domestic violence situation, this is called reactive abuse.
00:54:44
Heather Roberts
Yeah. And this is just wild. The whole thing is wild. And there are truly so many, so many layers. I think in the next episode that we talk about this, which will be in February.
00:54:56
Heather Roberts
So for the next episode, be lying now.
00:54:57
Veronica Adams
Look at Heather setting the tone.
00:55:00
Heather Roberts
I'm setting this down for the new year. We're trying something new for the new year. We're goingnna we are going to do two episodes a month.
00:55:04
Veronica Adams
Yes, we are.
00:55:07
Veronica Adams
here
00:55:07
Heather Roberts
One is going to be sort of a deep dive into legal issues like this or stuff happening in the publishing and or
00:55:10
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:55:16
Heather Roberts
Adjacent industry world industry um and then the other episode we are going to be doing a guest interview and Talking about our guests and also about other things that are happening in the world.
00:55:17
Veronica Adams
Book world generally, yeah.
00:55:29
Veronica Adams
Yep, super excited about that.
00:55:29
Heather Roberts
So um Our next episode will be at the end of January and that is going to be with chasing Oz also known as Danielle She actually is a romance author herself and she also has her
00:55:38
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:55:45
Heather Roberts
own TikTok account, Instagram account, um you know YouTube.
00:55:50
Veronica Adams
I would be shocked if you guys have not heard of her and or scrolled past her or listened to a few of her videos on TikTok at least once.
00:55:54
Heather Roberts
Yeah.
00:55:57
Heather Roberts
Exactly. She talks a lot about politics.
00:56:00
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:56:00
Heather Roberts
She's lovely. ah She has hundreds and hundreds of thousands of followers, and we are so pleased that she's willing to come on our podcast.
00:56:07
Veronica Adams
Yes, super excited to have her.
00:56:09
Heather Roberts
She has her own podcast, and she actually just did an interview with V from Under the Desk News.
00:56:14
Veronica Adams
ye
00:56:15
Heather Roberts
Um, so love that, uh, for Danielle and we are so excited to have her on the next episode of four books sake.
00:56:20
Veronica Adams
Yes.
00:56:23
Heather Roberts
So that's my teaser there. So we will deep dive further into this in February.
00:56:27
Veronica Adams
yes And I'm sure we will have legal, like substantive legal updates by the time we circle back around this.
00:56:32
Heather Roberts
how is Yeah. And that is also my hope that if we push this out a little bit in different parts that we'll actually have more information to talk about, um, because it's
00:56:35
Veronica Adams
Yeah.
00:56:39
Veronica Adams
Yeah. Exactly. So we can get into the really dirty details of the press tour and then talk about what has happened since we last touched on it.
00:56:47
Heather Roberts
Right. So if you have questions that you want answered about this lawsuit from a legal perspective, you know, please put them in the comments, please email us and let us know.
00:56:54
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:56:58
Veronica Adams
Yep.
00:56:59
Heather Roberts
We're happy to get into it and answer some questions that you may have had.
00:57:02
Veronica Adams
For sure.
00:57:03
Heather Roberts
And, you know, we're we're excited to be doing this this year. We're happy to be back. And we're excited to talk to you this year with for book's sake.
00:57:14
Veronica Adams
Yeah?
00:57:15
Heather Roberts
So Until next time, this is Heather and Bronica.
00:57:19
Veronica Adams
See ya.