And the key strategy after dousing any workplace fire is to make certain that the complaints in question do not re-occur. That means tone it down and leave it there.
During the 2023 and early ‘24 filming of It Ends With Us, Blake Lively voiced complaints about director and costar Justin Baldoni, who had optioned Colleen Hoover’s source novel for adaptation in 2019, and producer Jamey Heath.
They had behaved in a leering, overly familiar manner, Lively said, which she found sexually intimidating.
But things cooled down after the issues were aired mid-stream and protections were enacted. A 12.21.24 N.Y. Times story about a legal complaint filed by Lively last Friday reports the following:
The current question is therefore obvious as well as perplexing.
Instead of chilling or at least turning down the gas, Baldoni began acting aggressively last summer as It Ends With Us neared its 8.6.24 release.
Perhaps because Lively had challenged his directorial authority by creating an alternate cut that was approved for release, Baldoni decided to go feral by hiring a p.r. crisis firm in order to diminish her reputation.
Why start another fire? Why not just leave well enough alone and move on to the next project? What a mystifying call. Now Baldoni is re-facing the same bad-behavior complaints, and possibly a Lively lawsuit to come.
What is the lesson here? Sexually icky or insinuating behavior during filming is never cool? Or never fuck with the willful Blake Lively and her aggressively protective husband Ryan Reynolds? Or a combination of the two?
Justin Baldoni publicist Jennifer Abel to THR’s James Hibberd:
