Latest / The Lila Rose Show / BONUS: My Take on the Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni Drama

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BONUS: My Take on the Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni Drama · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
Hey everybody, hello, hello, welcome back to the Lila Rose
0:03
show you guys. Oh my goodness, this has been a
0:06
crazy Newsweek and I haven't done a live here in just a
0:09
couple weeks. I'm excited to be back.
0:11
I'm sorry in advance for the scratchy voice.
0:14
Those colds are going around and I've got one of them.
0:16
But there's a lot to break down today and I think this story of
0:20
the Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively competing lawsuits and just
0:24
Hollywood in general crisis PR firms, me too, sexual
0:28
harassment, all of this. I think the point that has not I
0:33
have not seen being made, but I think that absolutely needs to
0:36
be made is that all of this could be avoided or 99.9% of it
0:41
could be avoided if we did some dramatically different things
0:45
and how we approach entertainment as a country.
0:49
So I'm going to unpack this in today's live share my take on
0:52
this and why I think it's important.
0:54
Quick content warning, obviously this isn't going to include this
0:57
podcast episode's going to include conversations about from
1:01
clips, movie clips from, you know, ends with us and different
1:06
allegations about sexual harassment about, you know,
1:09
lawsuits, all of this. So if you're going to be
1:11
listening to this later on podcast app and you're with
1:13
kids, this might be an episode to save for when you don't have
1:16
kids in the car because it is a bit of a content warning.
1:19
I'm not showing any sex scenes or anything like this obviously
1:21
on the show, but a bit of a content warning.
1:23
All right now as we go. I'm also going to be.
1:25
Keeping an eye on the chat. Hi TK O'Rourke, thanks for
1:28
joining. Hi Nilda, thanks for joining.
1:30
Hello the art scene nurse. Thanks for joining.
1:33
You guys as we go, if you want put any comments or questions in
1:36
the chat, and I will be keeping an eye on the chat during this
1:39
episode. All right, so lots to unpack
1:42
here, but I wanted to start with the latest allegations coming
1:47
out of these huge controversy that is engulfing Hollywood
1:51
right now. You've probably seen the
1:53
headlines, but to give you the quick rundown, Blake Lively had
1:58
a huge story out in the New York Times just a few weeks ago where
2:02
she was suing along with Ryan Reynolds, her husband, her Co
2:06
star and the director of the film that she was just in called
2:08
It Ends With Us. And she was suing him for sexual
2:12
harassment as well as retaliation against her for
2:15
being concerned about sexual harassment by trying to quote UN
2:18
quote bury her and destroy her reputation in the news media.
2:22
So you guys might have heard of this big news article from the
2:24
New York Times. We can bury anyone inside a
2:26
Hollywood smear machine and says private messages detail an
2:29
alleged campaign to tarnish Blake Lively's reputation after
2:32
she accused Justin Baldoni of misconduct on the set of It Ends
2:35
With Us. And the article actually
2:37
included text that they got access to from the publicist for
2:41
Justin Baldoni, him in responding to these different
2:45
publicists and talking about how they wanted ultimately Blake
2:49
Lively's reputation to not look good in the media.
2:51
They wanted her to look like a bully.
2:52
They wanted her to look like this.
2:53
So that comes out. That was a huge story in the
2:57
last few weeks. Then just a couple weeks ago,
2:59
Justin Baldoni has a response and he has a lawsuit out and he
3:04
sues Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds back for 400 million
3:08
claiming defamation and claiming that they were using their own
3:12
lawsuit to try to take control of it Ends with us the movie
3:16
make it their own thing and basically destroy his his
3:19
reputation and as part of his lawsuit back.
3:22
You guys, if you might have seen this, I think it came out just
3:25
this last weekend or was it the weekend before?
3:26
But in just the last week, Justin Baldoni put up a website
3:30
with all of these detailed text messages and emails and all of
3:35
these things, communications between him and Blake Lively,
3:38
trying to prove that based on his text messages and these
3:41
communications that Blake Lively was no, not the victim of sexual
3:45
harassment at his hands. And in fact, Blake Lively was
3:48
trying to get control of his movie.
3:50
And that's that's what this is all about.
3:52
So a lot of opinions are flying around on social media.
3:56
And I want to share with you a little bit of background about
3:59
why I feel like I have a bit of a different perspective on this.
4:02
All right. So first of all, Justin Baldoni
4:06
is somebody that I've known about before, before this movie
4:08
and before this big scandal, because he was on a pretty
4:11
popular pro abortion podcast that he Co hosted with a woman
4:18
named Liz Plank, who's a very pro abortion activist.
4:20
And he was her Co host for a few years.
4:23
And I remember seeing clips of this come through my feed.
4:25
They would be talking about abortion, talking about how
4:27
abortion was necessary. They'd be telling me stories
4:30
about how abortion is great. So that's how I had first
4:32
noticed Justin Baldoni even existed was that he was actually
4:35
promoting pro abortion talking points on this podcast.
4:38
This was all before it ends with us all before all of this.
4:41
And I also noticed that Justin Baldoni was this kind of self
4:43
identified male feminist that he was kind of writing and and
4:47
putting out all of this content about how he wants to understand
4:50
men and help men be basically in touch with their feelings and in
4:53
touch with their emotions. So some of that might actually
4:56
be not a bad idea. I'm not saying it's, you know,
4:58
men should not be in touch with their emotions and that men
5:01
should not. You know, he's very rejecting
5:03
toxic masculinity. Like, there's some good there,
5:05
right? But obviously promoting pro
5:08
abortion talking points on a podcast, not OK.
5:11
And then his whole brand of I'm a male feminist.
5:13
I'm so trusted because I'm a male feminist.
5:15
It does wreak a little bit of potential inauthenticity, which
5:18
is why I think when people first saw the lawsuit coming out from
5:21
Blake Lively, a lot of people were taking her side.
5:25
Now, I want to also share another piece of important
5:27
context that I haven't really seen many people talking about
5:30
with this whole drama that's unfolded.
5:33
As you guys might remember, there was a whole franchise
5:36
called 50 Shades of Grey. You guys remember that.
5:38
It was really dark, really horrible, a lot of sex scenes, a
5:42
lot of violent sex scenes. And it was this phenomenon in
5:44
Hollywood where millions of people went and watched these
5:47
movies and read these books, and we're so excited.
5:49
And they love this romance story of a abusive man controlling and
5:54
abusing Anastasia, this young woman, and this whole story.
5:57
Which? Just captivated all these
5:59
people. Basically glamorizing sexual
6:02
violence. That's what it did, right.
6:04
And so you look at It Ends With Us, this movie that just came
6:08
out. And by the way, it performed
6:09
really well at the box office. It actually outperformed
6:12
expectations, I think. I think the film It Ends With Us
6:15
with Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, it cost like $25 million
6:18
to make and they made I think over 300 million in the box
6:20
office. So the film is commercially a
6:22
success, but it ends with us. I think one of the dynamics that
6:26
this is all connected, by the way, to the lawsuits.
6:27
Let me get there. One of the dynamics was that it
6:30
ends with us by Colleen Hoover. The book is about domestic
6:33
violence. It's about as a abbreviated DV
6:36
domestic violence between ultimately a married couple, a
6:40
man abusing a woman and about how this woman in the movie,
6:44
it's Blake Lively says no more, I'm going to leave you because
6:47
you're abusing me. And now that I have a child,
6:49
don't especially leave you to protect my child.
6:51
So Sony Pictures was the distributor for It Ends With Us.
6:55
And if you look at some of the debate between Baldoni and
6:58
Lively, you can see one of the issues was that Sony was kind of
7:03
figuring out how to market this film because It Ends With Us is
7:06
about domestic violence. But people don't want to go to
7:09
see a movie about domestic violence.
7:11
They want to go see a ROM com, They want to go see a romance
7:13
flick, or God forbid, they want to go see a 50 Shades of Grey
7:16
movie that straight up glamorizes domestic violence and
7:19
makes the abuser kind of a hero. Who can, you know, be reformed
7:24
by the woman and they can all make it up together and be happy
7:27
in the end, right? Which is the 50 Shades of Grey
7:29
narrative. Not so with it ends with us and
7:31
it ends with us. There's a clear bad guy Ryle,
7:33
who's played by Justin Baldoni. And there's a clear good guy
7:36
Atlas, who is the other male Co star to Blake Lively.
7:40
And Blake Lively is the clear victim, playing Lily Bloom where
7:44
she is abused by Ryle and then she has the courage to say no.
7:47
So Sony in deciding how to market this film is thinking,
7:50
OK, we can't just make this straight up a domestic violence
7:53
film because of those typically do not sell in movie theaters.
7:56
It's kind of a tough watch to go and see a movie about domestic
7:58
violence. You want to do something that's
8:00
a little more fun, a little more light.
8:02
And so one of their marketing approaches was to kind of
8:04
girlify it a little bit, trying to make it more about women's
8:07
empowerment. Lily Bloom, that's the whole
8:09
where your florals. So some people I've seen have
8:11
been criticizing Blake Lively for saying where your florals
8:14
and, you know, having these more positive promotions in the
8:17
press. And then and Justin Baldoni
8:18
comes in saying, no, it's about domestic violence.
8:20
The reality is that's less about Baldoni and Lively and more
8:23
about Sony Pictures. Who knew that they needed to
8:25
find an angle for this film that was less about hardcore domestic
8:29
violence and more about romance, love and women's empowerment.
8:32
So all that to say, and the reason that this matters is all
8:36
of these dynamics that I'm talking about ended up getting
8:39
weaponized in these competing lawsuits between Blake Lively
8:42
and Justin Baldoni. And all of this is just, you
8:46
know, chaotic, right? So Justin Baldoni is now counter
8:49
suing Blake Lively. And I want to look at some of
8:51
the allegations against each other.
8:53
But a big spoiler alert here guys.
8:55
I am not taking a clear side in this video I don't think
8:59
personally. My opinion is we do not have
9:01
enough information to take a definitively clear side that
9:04
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are fully in the wrong and
9:07
Justin Baldoni is fully in the right, or Justin Baldoni is
9:10
fully in the wrong and Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are
9:12
fully in the right. I don't think we have enough
9:14
information. I think there's a lot of
9:16
information that shows problematic things with both
9:20
parties, and I also think that the bigger issue here is the one
9:23
that I'm going. To get to.
9:24
Which is about a massive, institution wide problem with
9:28
Hollywood that even makes this drama possible.
9:31
So we're going to get to that. But I want to unpack quickly
9:34
some of these allegations to show you, quite frankly, why I
9:38
don't think the Internet or us have enough information to make
9:42
a final conclusion on this matter.
9:44
And I think they're going to be litigating this, it sounds like,
9:46
or settling it, settling it outside of court.
9:49
And they can do that. But I know that the Internet, I
9:51
know that it's so easy to want to pick a side and say this
9:54
guy's bad, this guy's good, this guy's good, this guy's bad.
9:57
But the reality is there's always a lot more to these
9:59
stories. And we don't have all the
10:01
evidence. We have the evidence that Justin
10:03
Baldoni released on his website and then we only have what?
10:06
Like Lively has in her lawsuit. But we don't have all of the
10:09
footage from the set. We don't have, you know, Blake
10:12
Lively presentation of all of the text that she might want to
10:15
show. There's a lot that we don't
10:16
have. There is a lot we have, but
10:17
there's a lot we don't have so. Let's take a look at some of the
10:21
scenes from this movie and some of the allegations that were
10:24
made. And I want to start with the
10:27
kind of key scene that introduces these two characters
10:32
and it ends with us. So this is where Blake Lively
10:35
playing Lily Bloom meets Ryle, her Co star played by Justin
10:40
Baldoni, who ends up being the abuser in the film.
10:43
And this is their big meet cute or their big scene here.
10:46
OK, So let's go over to that clip here.
10:51
I'm going to say hello to the chat.
10:53
Black is saying Team Blake all day.
10:55
OK, I get it where you have different teams, Casey says. 50
10:59
Shades wasn't about violence. Stop saying that.
11:01
It was about dominance and SNM sexual satisfaction.
11:05
Well, S&M is about violence in sex.
11:08
Like that's the whole, what it means is that it's it's violent
11:11
acts of sex that lead to sexual satisfaction according to those
11:14
people. And I think that's extremely
11:15
dark and wrong. And it was about domination of
11:18
this guy who basically learned in this powerful wealthy man who
11:22
learned in this young woman. Anyways, we're not going to
11:24
litigate all of that here here, but we're going to get to this
11:28
scene, OK? This is the big scene where
11:30
Justin Baldoni meets Blake Lively for the first time,
11:33
playing Ryle and playing Lily Bloom on the scene.
11:36
It on the rooftop of it ends with us now before we play the
11:40
scene guys, I want you to just think about real life.
11:43
Think about your own experiences, think about the
11:45
experiences of your friends and family.
11:47
Think about all the stories you know of people who have met each
11:49
other for the first time and are dating.
11:51
You know, you meet somebody you know very beautifully
11:53
providentially maybe like you know at A at an event and then
11:57
you you start to fall in love. You meet someone at a wedding
11:59
and think about the first conversation you might have with
12:01
that person right. This is that first conversation,
12:04
supposedly, that Lily Bloom has with her love interest trial.
12:07
And look how Hollywood and look how.
12:10
Colleen Hoover and it ends with us.
12:12
Does the scene. Let's play it.
12:17
The first guy I had sex with was homeless.
12:20
Stop. Yeah.
12:22
No, I'm really in high school. Yeah.
12:24
Tell me more. I actually think we're supposed
12:25
to say temporarily unhomed or or or displaced that users.
12:29
Supported the question. Said I.
12:31
Think I'm done? Can't top that.
12:32
That was both sexy and disturbing.
12:35
OK, just shock me. Say, I mean you can say
12:37
anything. I want to have sex with you.
12:40
But that's his like pick up line, right?
12:41
And already you see like the Hollywood narrative here, it's
12:45
all about sex. It's all about like trying to
12:47
create this like innuendo on this steaminess.
12:49
And they just baldly put it out there.
12:51
She's talking about having sex, He's talking about having sex.
12:53
They've just met each other and this is the meet cute.
12:56
Like this is the romantic scene where they're supposed to fall
12:58
in love. And this is how they ran the
12:59
scene. So.
13:01
I think one of the immediate takeaways of it ends with us
13:04
both the book and the movie and the immediate takes away take
13:06
away of the scene is this unnatural, unreal, realistic,
13:10
quite quite frankly, framing on hardcore sexual activity, Like
13:14
let's just make this about sex. Let's not make this about being
13:17
cute, getting to know each other, meeting, having this kind
13:19
of interesting exchange. No, it goes.
13:21
Right to like. Raw, cold, carnal, like I want
13:24
to have sex with you. This is not realistic, OK?
13:27
I mean, people listening, you guys can tell me in the comments
13:29
section. Maybe you've run into in the
13:30
dating pool somebody that was this bald and this aggressive
13:33
and this ridiculous straight up in a in a few minutes of meeting
13:37
them. But typically speaking, this is
13:38
not the way way that people meet each other and certainly not the
13:41
way that people fall in love, right?
13:43
So I'm bringing this up because already what we're seeing it
13:46
ends is us. And this is something that
13:47
nobody's talking about in all of these lawsuit conversations and
13:50
sexual harassment conversations is the film itself is
13:53
definitively, in my opinion, a flaming dumpster fire of
13:59
innuendos and nonsensical scenes like this one.
14:02
And then later on you're going to see in the film, if you watch
14:05
it, which I don't recommend you necessarily watch it, there's a
14:07
sex scene. So Blake Lively, a married woman
14:10
with four children, Justin Baldoni, a married man with I
14:13
think two or three children are having a sex scene in this
14:17
movie, right? And they're like, like full.
14:19
On having this intimate intimate scene together right for the
14:24
whole. World to see presumably when the
14:25
movie is released so already I just want to zoom out guys on
14:29
the context here the fact that. Blake Lively saying there was
14:33
sexual sexual harassment and Justin Baldoni is saying, no,
14:36
you were, you know, inappropriate.
14:38
Blake, all of this, it's like you guys were simulating sex on
14:42
camera for millions of people to see when you were married.
14:45
So what is the lesson to learn from this?
14:48
One of the lessons to learn from this, and this is one of the
14:51
bigger points I want to make with this show today, is if you
14:53
play with fire, you get burned. You play with fire, you get
14:56
burned. There is a reason that in the
14:59
porn industry, abuse is a regular part of porn
15:04
productions. That abuse inevitably ends up
15:07
being part of porn productions. And I would argue that porn,
15:10
period, is self abuse. Creation of porn is self abuse,
15:13
and the creation of porn with another person is abuse of them,
15:16
whether you're the male or the female.
15:17
But inevitably there is boundaries that are crossed.
15:21
Inevitably, there is. Consent that is not given.
15:23
This is commonplace in the porn industry.
15:26
It should not surprise us that in Hollywood, when they are
15:29
literally simulating sex scenes between married people like that
15:32
are married outside of the movie that presumably love their
15:35
spouses and love their families, that they are going to be
15:37
boundaries that are very easy to cross.
15:40
And there will be boundaries that will likely get crossed
15:42
because you are literally actively crossing boundaries on
15:46
film for the whole world to see. So if we now breakdown some of
15:51
the allegations that were made by Lively against Baldoni, I
15:55
want to get into this because I think it does speak to this
15:57
larger point that I'm making here.
16:00
So I talked about the meet cute when Baldoni and Lively first
16:03
meet about how, you know, sex scenes are part of this movie.
16:06
But I want to go to a couple of the specific allegations between
16:10
Baldoni and Lively. So Megyn Kelly, who has a lot of
16:14
great reporting on different things.
16:15
She had a take and I'm going to share with you part of her take
16:18
and also part of the video that she watches.
16:20
Now, I have a slight disagreement with Megan, but I
16:22
think that she has, you know, a lot of good things to say.
16:25
Megan, I'm just showing you in this clip she's talking about.
16:29
Baldoni's suit against Lively, and one of the things that
16:33
Lively said was sexual harassment that Baldoni did was
16:36
that in a scene where they were slow dancing, he improvised off
16:41
script and added in steamy kisses, added in conversation
16:46
that was not part of the script. They were supposed to just do a
16:49
slow dance for like a minute. Justin Baldoni, as the director
16:52
made it 10 minutes long and was like talking to to Lively and
16:57
was saying all this stuff and was like kissing her and
16:59
smelling her. And after the fact, Lively said
17:01
she told Justin Baldoni this was inappropriate.
17:04
I didn't like that. I don't like that.
17:05
Please don't do that again. Now this is not why Lively sued
17:10
Justin. She later on sued Justin because
17:12
she believed Justin in addition to doing that, retaliated
17:15
against her to try to destroy her reputation online by hiring
17:18
this PR firm, which is a fact. He did hire APR firm and he did
17:21
try to show her out to be the bad guy with his PR firm.
17:24
Now he would argue that was the right thing for him to do
17:27
because she was the bad guy. That's Justin's response and
17:30
then he also responds by saying hey hey hey, I wasn't in any way
17:34
harassing Blake Lively. This was me just being in
17:37
character. And, you know, smooching her
17:38
basically. OK, so I want to show this
17:41
scene, guys, because, again, we're kind of getting in the
17:43
weeds here. But I do think it matters.
17:45
And we're going to hear as part of Megyn Kelly's take on this
17:47
and how I disagree. But this is the scene where
17:50
Lively is saying Justin Baldoni went too far.
17:53
And Justin Baldoni is saying, no, this is me just doing my
17:56
thing, you know, creating great film right here.
17:59
All right, I'm going to take a quick look at the comments
18:01
before we show this clip. So Jason Bourne says, Casey,
18:07
it's still violence. Don't be naive.
18:08
He's talking about 50 Shades of Grey.
18:10
I agree. Completely agree with that.
18:12
AL says This is why doing sexual scenes, even as an actor is
18:15
immoral, especially when married.
18:18
Bingo. Totally agree.
18:20
Whether you're married or not married, because that's someone
18:22
else's spouse or future spouse. And you, you know, you don't
18:25
have a right to their body and certainly not to play at sex
18:27
scenes in front of an audience. Like that's wrong.
18:29
So that is a larger point to make here.
18:31
But Black is saying he clearly made her uncomfortable in that
18:34
scene. OK, let's watch the scene now.
18:37
We're going to play this, and we're going to hear a little bit
18:39
of the lovely Megyn Kelly's commentary on this too.
18:42
You may remember that one of the key allegations in her complaint
18:45
against Justin Baldoni was as follows.
18:47
OK from paragraph 48 of her complaint, she writes.
18:51
On another occasion, Mr. Baldoni and Miss Lively were filming a
18:53
slow dance scene for a montage in which no sound was recorded.
18:58
Mr. Baldoni chose to let the camera roll and have them
19:00
perform the scene, but did not act in character as Ryle.
19:04
Instead, he spoke to Miss Lively out of character as himself.
19:08
At one point, he leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from
19:13
her ear and down her neck. As he said, It smells so good.
19:19
None of this was remotely in character or based on any
19:22
dialogue in the script, and nothing needed to be said
19:24
because, again, there was no sound.
19:26
Mr. Baldoni was caressing Miss Lively with his mouth in a way
19:30
that had nothing to do with their roles.
19:32
When Miss Lively later objected to this behavior, Mr. Baldoni's
19:35
response was, I'm not even attracted to you.
19:38
Well, guess what? TMZ has gotten its hands on that
19:42
video and you can hear Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni
19:46
interacting as themselves, knowing that this is all on
19:49
video and that this is going to be used to create this dance
19:51
scene. And no such moment is shown.
19:56
Just just watch. It so Megyn Kelly, she gives the
20:00
background here, does a great job of that.
20:01
She says no such a moment is shown.
20:03
I actually disagree. I think what you're about to see
20:05
is, is actually exactly what Blake Lively alleged against
20:08
Baldoni. Now, that doesn't mean Blake
20:09
Lively was in the right and it doesn't mean that it was
20:12
completely fair that she qualified that as straight up
20:14
sexual harassment because again, the lines are blurred.
20:18
The boundaries are already blurred.
20:19
These guys are simulating sex on camera for millions of people to
20:22
see. So it's kind of weird to be
20:25
alleging sexual harassment against a Co star when your job
20:29
in this movie is to be do sexual things on camera with them right
20:33
now. In Blake's defense, and I would
20:36
argue is she's right, the letter of the of the lawsuit is right
20:40
in that this scene did not call for kissing.
20:42
It did not call for talking. And it was only supposed to be
20:45
like a minute long. And apparently Baldoni, the
20:47
director, he had the power, made it go for 10 minutes and he was
20:51
doing all of this conversation with Blake, kissing, doing all
20:54
this stuff we can take a quick look at.
20:55
It Oh my. Gosh, we don't stop.
21:06
Emily and I have like we have this.
21:08
Moment staring. Literally.
21:10
We've done it for like 5 minutes.
21:12
It's like. So they're talking about their
21:15
spouses. Right, it's literally. $1000.
21:17
And. Like they know they they can we
21:21
pause it really quick, Harris, actually, sorry guys, I need to
21:23
say this. This is important.
21:25
This is important. Why am I showing you this to you
21:27
guys, not just trying to burn your eyeballs?
21:30
This is important. This is real life footage of
21:33
Justin Valdoni and Blake Lively acting super awkward with each
21:37
other because they're doing a slow dance kind of sultry scene.
21:41
Well, knowing they're married to other people.
21:43
They're talking about the other people they're married to.
21:45
And they're both, you can see, uncomfortable with the fact that
21:48
they're married to other people, but they're acting like they're
21:50
married or they're in love with each other.
21:52
So already it's a red flag, but we can keep watching.
21:54
Oh. It's been for us from the
21:55
beginning. No, we're like, Oh my God,
21:57
there's and they score again. Oh my God, tell you something
22:02
else? I think that's cute.
22:05
You guys are really cute. I.
22:06
Think it's more cute? OK, so here's Valdoni getting
22:11
all nosy. With her acting like.
22:12
What's like? What's it?
22:15
Like they're. Uncomfortable.
22:17
We can. Address this, it's not too late,
22:20
just gotta shut down. We're going to call on insurance
22:22
month and just deal with. Like trying to change my
22:24
subject. Deal with your big nose just.
22:27
Kidding. OK, this is the part that.
22:30
There OK this. Is very upset it's just like
22:33
excuse me my. Head in her neck, so.
22:36
You can pause it and you can see lively.
22:38
It's like. OK, this was this made it into
22:41
the lawsuit of Lively against Baldoni where she's like, what
22:45
in the world? And afterwards she told Baldoni,
22:48
don't do that. So just to be clear, Blake
22:50
Lively, there's no evidence she was going to sue Baldoni over
22:54
this scene. She chose to sue Baldoni after
22:56
she felt he retaliated against her for being upset about this
22:59
scene later on by hiring the public relations forum to smear
23:02
her in the media. Right.
23:04
But apparently on set, she told Baldoni afterwards, hey, I was
23:06
uncomfortable with that. Please don't do that.
23:08
Do not improvise. It's, you know, the sexual or
23:12
like romantic movements with me that are not in the script.
23:14
Let's make sure it's in the script and we agree upon it in
23:16
advance because otherwise it makes me very uncomfortable.
23:19
And apparently Baldoni agreed to that.
23:21
And that's recorded. That's not somebody's opinion.
23:23
That's recorded because she actually told Baldoni this.
23:25
This is in writing during the filming, and this is that big
23:29
infamous meeting that she and Ryan Reynolds had with Baldoni
23:31
and I think his other producer. And they sat down and they
23:34
talked about the demands where Baldoni's like or Lively was
23:37
like, don't do this anymore, Justin.
23:39
You need to not improvise any sort of romance with me.
23:41
It has to be scripted. OK, That's pretty reasonable in
23:44
my view. That being said, the whole thing
23:47
is unreasonable because they are married people simulating sex
23:51
for millions of people to see. They are clearly uncomfortable
23:54
with it. They are clearly feeling that
23:56
boundaries were crossed in Lively's case in particular.
23:59
And clearly the whole thing is a smoking dumpster fire like I was
24:04
saying earlier. OK, I'm going to take a quick
24:06
look at the chat and we'll keep going here.
24:10
Cynthia Johnson says team Baldoni.
24:12
I get it, guys. There's Team Blank.
24:13
There's Team Baldoni. I think that there can also be
24:16
just team Truth or Team Virtue where we're like, guys, we don't
24:20
have to play Hollywood's game. Hollywood's game is they want
24:23
our attention. They want our eyeballs, they
24:25
want our likes, they want our clicks.
24:26
They want us to go watch their movies in theater and pay money
24:29
for it. The reality is Hollywood at
24:31
large is a disaster. Hollywood at large today is
24:35
selling smut and they're presenting it as art.
24:40
And that's really, I think one of the end conclusions of the
24:44
whole It ends with Us controversy is that if this
24:48
sexual innuendo, sex scenes were not in the movie, would Blake
24:53
Lively have ever filed a claim against Justin?
24:55
Would there ever have even been a place for a lawsuit?
24:58
Would there ever have even been the drama that we are seeing
25:01
now? And I would argue no, there
25:03
wouldn't have been. I'm not saying they wouldn't
25:04
have thought about something else.
25:05
I'm not saying that it's impossible for people to
25:08
sexually harass each other without it also being in the
25:10
movie. Of course I'm not saying that,
25:12
but I'm saying. It's a perfect firestorm.
25:14
You play with fire, you might get burned.
25:17
All right, there's one more thing I want to share about the
25:20
allegations between Baldoni and Lively, because it's connected
25:23
to this bigger point I'm making about boundary pushing, about
25:27
indecency and about just the smut that is in Hollywood right
25:31
now and this. Is a voicemail and I think
25:35
Baldoni released this thinking it would vindicate him.
25:38
This is a voicemail from Baldoni to Lively.
25:41
It's a voice note. Like you know how you can do
25:43
that on iPhone and he released this and it's him sending it to
25:47
Lively at like 2. AM in the morning.
25:50
And they were going back and forth via text about the
25:52
different scenes because she was a producer.
25:55
This is also a point that a lot of people are missing because
25:57
they're like, Lively was taking so much control of the movie.
25:59
She was a big name producer on the movie.
26:02
Producers sometimes have creative calls even over the
26:06
director, depending on how it's set up, right.
26:08
So this idea that Lively was butting her way in there, she
26:11
had no creative control. She had no creative abilities.
26:14
That's not true. I mean, objectively speaking,
26:16
she was a producer on the film and she also was using her
26:19
connections to bring in people like Taylor Swift and Baldoni
26:22
hired her and let her be a producer specifically because he
26:25
wanted those connections. He wanted that clout.
26:27
So for her, for him to then not want Lively to give her opinions
26:32
and even make some demands about how it was going to go I think
26:35
is unrealistic. But that being said, let's take
26:37
a listen to some of this 2:00 AM voice note that Baldoni sent to
26:41
Lively his Co * and he released this thinking it would vindicate
26:44
him against sexual harassment claims.
26:47
It is 2 in the morning. Hopefully this does not wake you
26:52
up. Wow, there's so much I want to
26:57
say to you and I hope that we can FaceTime or or see each
27:03
other in person soon and get to talk more.
27:07
But I'm just going to send you a few thoughts and hopefully it's
27:09
not going to be more than a few minutes, But that's I don't have
27:13
the best track record. I don't think either one of us
27:15
have the best track record for our voice memos.
27:21
I want to start with an apology. Man, I reading the second part
27:29
of your message my heart sank and I'm really sorry.
27:36
Can you pause it really quick? Excuse me?
27:40
OK, you guys, this is a 2:00 AM voice note.
27:43
And Justin, like, hey, Blake, I hope we can FaceTime soon.
27:46
Like, it sounds inappropriate. I'm just going to put that out
27:49
there. I think it's inappropriate.
27:50
In addition, he's like, I need to apologize to you.
27:53
What's he apologizing for? Well, apparently Blake had sent
27:56
him a boatload of messages basically saying, listen, I have
27:59
creative ideas. Trust me, I'm a good creative
28:02
collaborator. Listen to my ideas.
28:04
There's that infamous text that she sent saying I'm like Khalizi
28:07
the queen, and I've got creative ideas.
28:09
Like she's kind of defending herself to him.
28:11
Like I have good ideas, Justin listen, and the reality is she
28:15
shouldn't have to say that to Justin because she's a producer
28:17
on the film and she is a huge * and she should be able to come
28:20
and even just as an actor and bring her creativity to the
28:22
script, but certainly as a producer.
28:24
So I already see the dynamic. Like my Spidey sense went off
28:27
when I was reading about this, because the dynamic to me was
28:30
that Justin was pretty, you know, high on his own supply.
28:34
He was like, I'm so I'm the director, I've got Blake, she's
28:37
now my underling. She's my Co star.
28:39
I get to decide her lines like this is and so he but then he
28:43
also is engaging because she's saying, hey, listen, I've got
28:45
ideas like, you know, use my ideas, please.
28:47
And so it's like, OK, Blake, I'm so sorry I didn't use your ideas
28:50
like I'm, you know, like I'll send you a, you know, a very,
28:53
you know, sultry 2:00 AM voice note.
28:56
It all speaks to me a very inappropriate dynamic.
28:59
And I'm not fully blaming Baldoni for it because I'm not
29:01
saying blithely didn't have better.
29:04
If she might, if she had had better boundaries, maybe this
29:06
wouldn't have happened. And maybe, you know, she her
29:09
approach to this could have certainly been improved.
29:11
But the reality is already the dynamic is weird, right?
29:15
Because Lively should be able to tell Baldoni, hey, these are my
29:18
opinions about the script. I'm the actor.
29:20
I'm a producer. I'm also, you know, bringing in
29:22
huge talent for this, myself and other people included.
29:26
And Baldoni should be professional with her and be
29:28
like, hey, like that idea. I don't like this one.
29:30
Let's talk about this more. But I think there was this weird
29:33
dynamic between them where Baldoni was sort of, I mean,
29:37
dismissive, arguably of Blake and like, I'm the man, right?
29:40
Blake is like, please don't be dismissive of me.
29:42
And then Baldoni gets all personal and like suggested with
29:46
her, like, hey, it's 2:00 AM, let's FaceTime.
29:49
It's just over the top. So I can see the pace for why
29:52
Blake would have thought this is ridiculous and over the top.
29:55
And I can also see the case where Baldoni would have thought
29:57
I tried so hard to play Kate Blake.
30:00
I even sent her 2:00 AM voice notes.
30:01
Why is everyone mad at me? Right?
30:03
I can see both sides of their story in this interaction.
30:06
But I think the bottom line of this interaction is a lack of
30:09
professional boundaries, a lack of professionalism.
30:13
And I can understand why. Again, all of the drama ensued
30:17
because when you, when you don't have good boundaries personally
30:20
and professionally, crazy stuff can happen, especially between a
30:23
married man and a married woman. We'll listen to a few more
30:26
minutes and then we'll, we'll go to the, the, the most important
30:29
point of all, which I have yet to make, but we're going to go
30:31
to that next. So let's, let's finish making
30:32
the voice note. Oh, before we do the voice note,
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App at hollow.com/lila. OK, so you guys, I want to take
32:52
a quick look at the chat and then we'll finish listening to
32:54
this voice memo. All right, so Justin's got
32:58
receipts from Jazz. He's far from perfect, but he's
33:00
much more believable here. Agree with Ale, though.
33:02
The problem is people shouldn't be doing this again.
33:05
I think Justin definitely has his data, but we're unpacking
33:07
that in this thing. And I'm not saying that he's
33:10
fully wrong and that Blake is fully or he's fully right and
33:13
that Blake is fully wrong or vice versa.
33:14
I think it's a little bit more complicated than that.
33:17
OK, a couple other things Here is you've us as Lila.
33:21
She was not a producer. The lawsuit clearly says she
33:24
threatened not to promote this movie if she didn't get a
33:26
producer credit. So Blake was a Co executive
33:29
producer on the film. And if you're coming in as a big
33:32
name actor to a film, typically you want a producer credit,
33:35
especially if you're going to be actively involved in getting
33:37
other talent to join the film, like her friend Taylor Swift and
33:40
and the soundtrack and you're going to be actively involved in
33:42
the script and things like that. So it's pretty understandable
33:45
that Blake would want that producer credit.
33:47
And that part of her negotiation was like, I want to be a
33:49
producer on this film. I don't just want to be your
33:50
actor. That's a pretty normal course of
33:53
action there for Blake. All right?
33:56
Ail says. I feel like this video is a
33:57
little bit misinformed and chewed in Blake's favor.
34:01
Again, my position here is not that Blake is fully innocent and
34:04
you know, Justin's all wrong. Blake's all right.
34:05
As I've been saying, I think there's a lot more to the story
34:08
than what has been presented in the media.
34:09
And the bottom line is boundaries were crossed because
34:13
they were actively already crossing boundaries in this
34:16
film, doing these sex scenes as a married couple, etcetera.
34:19
All right, let's finish listening to this voice.
34:21
Note that we started that Justin Baldoni left for Blake Lively at
34:24
2:00 AM in the morning and he personally released this voice
34:27
note as sort of an, you know, a reason for why he was innocent
34:32
of the sexual abuse charges that Blake had made against him.
34:35
For sure fell short and you worked really hard on that and,
34:41
and the way you framed it and, and, and how that made you feel.
34:47
I just want to say thank you for sharing that with me.
34:50
That takes a lot of trust and vulnerability and I just, I feel
34:57
really grateful that you feel safe enough to tell me that
35:01
that's how you feel. So we can pause it.
35:03
I mean, my read on this is that it's very condescending because
35:07
Blake saying these are my opinions about the film and the
35:09
script and everything else. Like you don't need to have a
35:11
response from someone saying I feel so good that you feel safe
35:14
telling me this. Instead, a response could just
35:16
be like, hey, I agree, I disagree, let's talk about this.
35:19
But I can understand why this would have ticked maybe Blake
35:21
off because he is basically making it about this
35:24
interpersonal, emotional thing between them as opposed to let's
35:27
just talk about the script, let's just talk about the, you
35:30
know, movie that we're working on.
35:31
Let's keep listening. With me and I, I'm really sorry
35:37
I've up. That is a fail on my part.
35:40
One thing you should know about me is I will admit and apologize
35:47
when I fail. I am far from perfect.
35:50
I'm a very flawed man, as my wife will attest.
35:54
And and I'm going to I'm going to say the wrong thing.
35:58
I'm going to put my foot in my mouth.
36:01
I'm going to you off probably. But I will always apologize and
36:06
then find my way back to center. That is one thing I can assure
36:09
you of and I'm sorry I made you feel that way.
36:13
That must have felt terrible and I will for sure do better.
36:17
That was not my best weekend and I should have given it more time
36:21
and and damn right, you got great friends if if that's how
36:27
you felt and they knew that. And we should all have friends
36:31
like that. Aside from the fact that they're
36:33
two of the most creative people on the planet, the three of you
36:37
guys together, it's unbelievable.
36:39
Talk about energy and just force.
36:43
OK, so there's a part where he he referenced her like
36:45
breastfeeding. I don't know how much further.
36:47
We don't have to keep listening to the whole thing, but he kind
36:50
of ends it including a line about you've got, you know, a
36:52
baby at your breast. Like he's kind of talking about
36:54
her body. Again, this is not to say Blake
36:57
Lively is above reproach, but I think this is a 2:00 AM voice
37:02
note that has creepy vibes and IA lot of people are saying that
37:06
even people who are defending Baldoni that this isn't
37:08
necessarily the flex he thinks it is to release this voice note
37:11
that the whole thing speaks of a lack of boundaries.
37:14
All of this speaks of a lack of boundaries.
37:16
So I don't want to litigate this any further because there was
37:19
literally over the weekend, a website put up by Baldoni with
37:23
hundreds and hundreds of text messages, emails, documents to
37:27
try to prove his case. I'm sure Lively, you know, in,
37:31
in a court of law, will respond with her evidence When, when, if
37:34
they, if this happens, if it goes to that.
37:36
But I think the bottom line, the big picture, the take away for
37:39
us is not just to be entertained by Hollywood imploding, right?
37:44
Because I think some people are like, look, Hollywood's so crazy
37:47
they're imploding. And then some people are saying,
37:49
you know, me too is dead, believe all women is dead.
37:52
See, Blake Lively is making these harassment claims against
37:55
Baldoni, and they're false. She's just using that to hurt
37:58
Baldoni and try to up her own career.
38:01
I mean, there's allegations flying around right and left.
38:04
But I think the big take away that we can learn from this
38:08
entire drama is this. Hollywood is completely out of
38:14
control. We have gotten totally
38:17
desensitized as a society to reverence for sex, reverence for
38:22
marriage, and professional boundaries when creating art.
38:26
And if you play with fire, IE in this case sex, it is very likely
38:30
that you will get burned. The solution to all of this,
38:34
There is a beautiful solution to all of this, but I want to
38:37
remind you guys about something that happened about how it's
38:41
60-70 years ago, the Motion Picture Association of America
38:47
used to have standards for decency in films.
38:51
Did you guys know this? You probably know this if you
38:54
like movies like Casablanca or It's a Wonderful Life or Roman
38:58
Holiday. Remember all of these gorgeous
39:00
old films, love stories, romances, Audrey Hepburn, Cary
39:05
Grant, and they have these gorgeous storylines and these
39:09
beautiful romances and it's all clean.
39:12
It's all stuff like It's a Wonderful Life.
39:15
There is romance between the husband and the wife and you can
39:18
watch that with your kids. Roman Holiday.
39:21
There is romance, but it's something you would be
39:23
comfortable letting your 10 year old watch, right?
39:26
If you look back at Hollywood before, say, the 1960s, you will
39:30
see a treasure trove of films that include some very intense
39:34
romance romantic themes that do not include that specifically
39:38
exclude steamy sex scenes. And why is that, guys?
39:43
There is a reason because back in the day, before I was born,
39:46
before you were probably born, there was something in Hollywood
39:49
called the Haze Code. Let's pull this up guys.
39:52
A little trip down memory lane here for those who might
39:54
remember this if you were around back then, for all of us to
39:57
learn about this history. The Hayes Code was a set of
40:01
guidelines self-imposed by Hollywood studios regulating the
40:07
moral content of films produced from 1934 to 1968.
40:12
What happened around 1968? Nineteen 70's, the sexual
40:16
revolution, the pornification of America, the all things go, no
40:21
holds barred approach to sex and to love.
40:25
Has that gotten us very far? I would argue absolutely not.
40:28
It's destroyed us. But the Hayes Code actually
40:31
forbade profanity, obscenity, and it also forbade certain
40:36
interactions between men and women on camera that were
40:39
overtly sexual. So the point I'm making here is
40:43
there wasn't a golden age in Hollywood where there were some
40:46
phenomenal films that were made and some amazing actors that
40:49
made their debut. Where there were standards,
40:52
there were actually standards and films that said, no, you
40:55
don't don't just jump into bed together.
40:56
No, you don't just do these sexual overt things on camera.
41:01
No, that's not that's not how we do entertainment.
41:03
That's not how we do art. And there were standards that
41:05
everyone abided by. Those standards were completely
41:09
removed in the late 1960s. And today we have complete trash
41:14
like this latest Noquel Kidman movie that was a huge story in
41:18
just the last few months. Let's pull up a an article on
41:20
this story. So Nicole Kidman is a obviously
41:23
an A list actor. She was just in a movie that was
41:27
called Baby Girls, and it has extreme sex scenes in it.
41:32
She's talking about there's like bestiality themes in this movie.
41:37
There's even an article from Nicole Kidman talking about how
41:40
she's exhausted because there were so much sex in this movie.
41:44
OK, did you guys know that UCLA commissioned a study of Jen
41:51
Ziers Jen's ears and ask them, what do you want to see more of
41:55
an entertainment in Hollywood and movies.
41:57
So let's pull up this article here.
42:00
Well, you guys, we got a you can see the graphic really good
42:02
character. You can pull that back.
42:03
This is funny. I saw this for the first time
42:06
like a year ago and I thought this was very funny.
42:09
All right, it says for those who are listening later in podcast
42:11
app, if you're on YouTube, you can see it.
42:13
It's a coffee cup pouring coffee into an overfilling coffee cup.
42:18
The hand says makers, the coffee cup says useless sex scenes.
42:22
The ones that's pouring the the the coffee in and then the
42:25
bottom coffee cup that's overfilling says any show movie.
42:28
Meaning there is endless amounts of useless sex scenes in movies
42:32
today. It's like every movie has to
42:33
have a sex scene. It's ridiculous.
42:35
It is not necessary at all. It needs to stop.
42:38
It's ridiculous, right? OK, let's pull up that article
42:40
if you have it here, is about Gen.
42:42
Z. Back in 2023, AUCLA study
42:45
reported that nearly half of Gen.
42:48
Z audience members want movies and television to include less
42:52
sex. They are increasingly concerned
42:55
about plot, it seems, and they insist that sex is not necessary
42:59
for most plots. Gen.
43:01
Z, we should listen to our youngers because they are spot
43:04
on. They're like, what are you guys
43:05
doing? This is ridiculous.
43:08
And here's the bottom line, guys.
43:11
Imagine if Hollywood went back to the golden era where we
43:15
actually wanted to celebrate in film.
43:18
Beauty, romance, marriage, love, and do it in a way that, yes, is
43:25
dramatic and thrilling and beautiful, but is very tasteful.
43:29
Imagine if we get back to that time where we use the
43:32
technologies we have today. We use obviously the new ideas
43:35
we may have today, but we had some of the basic standards that
43:38
Hollywood used to have in the first half of the last century.
43:43
And think about the amazing art that would be created if film
43:46
makers could no longer be lazy and just stick to inserting
43:49
gratuitous sex scenes everywhere.
43:51
And incredibly bad script lines like the Baldoni Lively scene
43:56
And it ends with us where they just say I want to have sex with
43:58
you as they're meet cute. Imagine if, imagine if writers
44:02
needed to be more creative, have more ideas, and imagine if films
44:08
had to be more artistic and actually show romance, show
44:11
love, show falling in love in a way that was tasteful,
44:14
ultimately in a way that was virtuous.
44:17
It would be amazing. So I think that in the end is
44:20
the take away from all of this drama, and I will say it
44:24
unapologetically. Sex scenes do not belong in
44:26
movies. Married couples like Blake
44:30
Lively and Ryan Reynolds, Justin Baldoni and his wife Emily.
44:33
It is completely understandable that if you put 2 married people
44:38
who are married to other people in a film and they're supposed
44:39
to simulate sex with each other, there's going to be awkwardness.
44:42
There's going to be boundaries that may be crossed.
44:44
There's going to be confusion, there's going to be maybe even
44:45
allegations because they shouldn't be doing it in the
44:49
first place. You play with the fire, it's
44:52
very likely that you're going to get burned.
44:54
So the good news in all this guys is that there can be a
44:58
bright future for Hollywood. There can be a bright future for
45:01
arts and entertainment in this country.
45:03
But guess what? We are the audiences, right?
45:06
We get to demand what we want to demand.
45:08
We get to call for what we want to call for.
45:10
So what should we be calling for?
45:12
Take sex out of movies. It doesn't belong there.
45:14
It belongs only in a loving marriage and instead bring back
45:19
romance, bring back beauty, bring back beautiful
45:22
descriptions, artistic descriptions of love and
45:25
marriage in in film like we used to have back in the day.
45:29
I think the whole country would be so much better.
45:32
And the likelihood of these crazy lawsuits, these crazy
45:35
conflicts that have just emerged, like in this case with
45:38
Baldonian Lively will go dramatically down.
45:42
All right, guys, thank you so much for listening to this
45:44
episode of the Lila Rose Show. As always, I love doing these
45:47
lives with you guys. Thank you for those in the chat.
45:49
Thanks so much, Brianna, for joining and thank you AM you
45:53
guys. Do not forget to subscribe to
45:54
the show. We have found that over 90% of
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people who often watch the videos on YouTube are not even
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make sure you're subscribed there.
46:05
Thanks so much guys, and we'll see you next time.