Blake Lively's allegations against Justin Baldoni have highlighted Hollywood's “evil” tactics.

Actress Blake Lively was arguably public enemy number one of the internet for two weeks this summer. Now she has filed a controversial legal case that she claims lifts the lid on the “vicious” tactics used to damage reputations in Hollywood – and which leaves people wondering who and what to believe.

Blake Lively has always been a harmless actress.

She has been in hit TV shows and movies, such as Gossip Girl and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She married her co-star Ryan Reynolds. She is friends with Taylor Swift.

Then in August, while promoting her latest film, It Ends With Us, she said It suddenly became controversial, To the brink of cancellation.

She was criticized for comments that appeared to belittle domestic violence, which is the subject of the film. While old embarrassing interviews have resurfaced and been reused as evidence of bullying behaviour.

Public opinion – at least among those who knew and cared – seemed to have turned against her.

Then the movie came out, the hype died down, and social media moved on.

But Lively has now filed a lawsuit claiming she was sexually harassed by It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni – and when she complained, he and his studio Wayfarer retaliated with a campaign to “destroy” her reputation.

She was the subject of a “sophisticated, coordinated and well-financed retaliation plan” aimed at “silencing” her, involving an “armed digital army” and feeding fake stories to “unwitting reporters,” her lawyers claimed. – That's why it became the focus of negative propaganda.

Her lawyers released text messages sent between Jennifer Appel, Dooney's publicist, and Melissa Nathan, a crisis communications specialist hired by his studio to help manage the harassment complaint. It seems to give a rare glimpse into conversations that are usually kept out of the spotlight.

Nathan offered a strategy to “seed threads” on social media, to “create, seed and promote content that appears to be authentic,” and engage in “social manipulation,” according to the legal papers.

“You know we can bury anyone,” Nathan wrote to Abel in one damned discussion.

Now, the people who were hired to do crisis PR for Baldoni are doing crisis PR for themselves.

Appel said Lively's lawyers “carefully selected” which messages to include in their case without crucial context, and that “defamation” was not carried out.

“No negative press was facilitated at all, no social battle plan, although we were prepared for that because our job is to be ready for any scenario.

“But we didn't have to implement anything because the Internet did the work for us.”

Appel said the backlash against Lively happened naturally and he did not need their help.

This was echoed by attorney Brian Friedman, who represents Baldoni and his studio as well as Abel and Nathan.

He said Baldoni appointed a crisis manager because of “multiple demands and threats” allegedly made by Lively, including “threatening not to (show up) for filming, threatening not to promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if she asks for it.” “It has not been fulfilled.”

He said the plan drawn up by Nathan's company “proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively's actions, interviews and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful, and responded organically, which was picked up by the media themselves.”

Overall, Friedman called Lively's complaint “shameful” and full of “categorically false accusations.”

In recent days, Lively has received support from a series of former co-stars and others in Hollywood.

The name of one of its supporters stands out.

Amber Heard, ex-wife of Johnny Depp, He told NBC: “Social media is the ultimate embodiment of the classic adage, ‘A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can put on its shoes.’”

“I've seen this firsthand and up close. It's as terrifying as it is devastating.”

Heard was on the receiving end of social media hostility during two high-profile libel trials involving Depp in the UK and US in 2020 and 2022. Nathan was reportedly working for Depp.

Friedman responded to Heard by saying that the only connection between her and Lively was that “for decades, every move they made was there for everyone to see” so the public could “make up their own mind — which they did organically.”

Tortoise Media head of investigations Alexi Mostros, who hosted the podcast, called Who is the Amber Troll? Earlier this year, examining the abuse she received, she said there were similarities.

“In both the Blake Lively case and the Amber Heard case, you see PR firms working with digital media specialists and other 'contractors' to promote online stories that are beneficial to their wealthy clients in mysterious and poorly understood ways,” he told the BBC. news.

“It is an unregulated world where all kinds of tactics can be carried out behind closed doors.”

Variety said Lively's case “reveals a show business operation designed to operate in the shadows — hiring high-priced crisis communications experts to influence opinion and raise customers' profile.”

Its allegations indicate a “sinister shadow campaign” that has gone beyond what most Hollywood publicists consider acceptable. The Wrap's Sharon Waxman wrote.

According to Rory Lynch, partner and head of reputation management law at Gateley Legal, it is a “very common tactic” in Hollywood and commercial disputes for “PR representatives on both sides to plant negative, and sometimes false, stories about the opposition.”

“Even in the Golden Age of Hollywood, there were rumors that Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were using public relations professionals to negatively inform each other.”

However, he told the BBC that PR staff who worked for Baldoni and his studio “dropped the ball a bit” by discussing tactics in scripts.

“It doesn't surprise me, especially in the United States and Hollywood, that you have people in PR who are in a severe crisis.

“But the fact that they put it in writing, I think it probably wasn't the wisest thing to do. Normally they would do something like that over the phone.”

Lynch added that Lively herself is a “sophisticated worker” who “will have her own PR people working away in the background as well.”

New York TimesShe, who broke the story of Lively's complaint over the weekend, said she “denied that she or any of her representatives planted or disseminated negative information about Mr. Baldoni or Wayfarer.”

The newspaper also noted that it was “impossible to know how much negative publicity” toward Lively was originally planted by those working on Baldoni's behalf, “and how much they noticed and amplified.”

Many fans who turned against Lively now see the situation in a different light.

“We are very capable of being manipulated into hating a woman, and all it takes is a coordinated public relations effort for us to change our attitudes against the victim of domestic violence, or America's beloved long-time sweetheart.” Maddy Mussen wrote in The Criterion.

“Now that our eyes are open, will it be difficult to fool us? Or will we still want any excuse to turn against a famous woman who has suddenly become, in our eyes and the eyes of those who manipulate us, unworthy of attention?”

The Guardian's Laura Snapes wrote She and her friends “now look, horrified, at what we have said about her in recent months.”

She added: “Lively's complaint left my head spinning. What can you really trust?”