Justin Baldoni And His Lawyers Play The Johnny Depp Card In The Raging Legal And PR Battles Against Blake Lively And Ryan Reynolds
DARVO (Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender) are the words used by Blake Lively’s legal team to dismiss Justin Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit against the It Ends With Us Star, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and her PR person, Leslie Sloan.
Despite its simplicity, DARVO proved very effective against the influence of the MeToo movement after it won the last big Hollywood defamation lawsuit for Johnny Depp against Amber Heard. True to the words of Lively’s lawyer, Baldoni and his team seem to be replicating it to perfection.
Having made a name for himself as a feminist, Baldoni has continued to present himself as a perfect gentleman who would never hurt a woman throughout his public fallout with Blake Lively. For his defense, he chose the A-List team in the fiery entertainment lawyer Bryan Freedman and Johnny Depp’s crisis manager, Melissa Nathan.
Speaking to the Megyn Kelly show on January 8th, Bryan Freedman, who also represented Kelly in her $30 million win over NBC, promised to sue Blake Lively into oblivion (just like Amber Heard).
Freedman challenged two key incidents, starting with the alleged showing of female genitalia to Lively which he described as a still image of a live birth that was part of the script. Lively also accused the film’s producer Jamey Heath of entering her trailer while she was undressed. Freedman described it as an accidental walk-in while she was breastfeeding.
Freedman also blasted the New York Times for cherry-picking pieces of texts and other evidence and publishing them out of context to make Baldoni look bad. The most noteworthy one is a conversation by Baldoni’s team where they deny leaking a story to The Mail, but a satire emoji and the whole denial statement are excluded from the story, making it appear as if they admitted to doing it.
With these many holes in Lively’s victim statement, Freedman is actively painting her as someone who cannot be trusted just like Depp’s lawyers did with Amber Heard.
A week after the Megyn Kelly expose, Freedman filed the now explosive $400M lawsuit in New York beside the $250M one he brought against the New York Times. While Baldoni has a different legal team from Depp’s, their strategy is starkly similar, which could have something to do with their shared crisis manager.
In Baldoni’s case, Nathan’s hiring formed part of Lively’s retaliation claims, which accused Baldoni of using her services to try and “bury her” after her sexual harassment complaints. Nathan’s text message saying “We can bury anyone” made the headline of the now-controversial NYT article.
Kjersti Flaa, a Norwegian journalist, also fueled the flames against Lively with her video titled “The interview with Blake Lively that made me want to quit my job” – portraying her as rude and generally obnoxious. Her story painted Lively as a difficult person to work with like Baldoni’s team claims.
Over the summer, a big chunk of Google Searches of Blake Lively also brought up Baldoni, a nightmare that Lively’s team has attributed to “an army” hired by Baldoni’s PR team to throw the public off from her claims.
However, it is not clear whether this was Melissa Nathan’s doing, but if it was, then her job was amazing from Baldoni’s perspective. According to Freedman, Nathan’s hiring was Lively’s fault after she made “false claims” on the film set and excluded him from the marketing of his own film.
In his interview, Freedman accused Lively of plotting to take over the film from the moment she got on set. According to the lawyer, Lively never read the book and even had to Google her character’s hair color on set. After being named an executive producer, Lively fought for more creative control, changing the scripts and overshadowing Baldoni, who was directing.
Baldoni said he had given more control to Lively and the women on the set because they understood the film’s female perspective better. However, according to Freedman, Lively used her star power to steal the film from Baldoni. Lively later used the editors of Deadpool & Wolverine to create her own cut of the film that Baldoni and the rest of Wayfarer Studios never got to see, which led to a huge rift as the premiere approached.
The feud then became public after Lively had Baldoni uninvited from the film’s premiere, leading to him, his friends, and family getting secluded in a secondary theatre away from the main proceedings when they attended the event anyway. The humiliation proceeded to the red carpet, where Baldoni and his team were dragged off and confined to a basement full of theatre supplies so they wouldn’t meet Lively and her entourage, according to E! Online.
Despite the humiliation, Baldoni still extended an olive branch to Lively by saying via Deadline he believed she was the right person to direct if a sequel to the film is ever made. Baldoni also kept following Lively and the rest of the IEWU cast on Instagram even after they unfollowed him.
He then wore a brave face in his lonely red carpet appearances as everyone else took group photos while he had to do it alone or with his wife. By this time, most cast members had unfollowed him, leading to the impression that he was the villain in the story until Freedman told Baldoni’s side of the case.
According to Freedman, Lively and Reynolds planned to hijack the film. These claims could be attributed to the London Premiere, which Lively and Reynolds used to advertise their brands while Baldoni was totally sidelined. The BBC reported Lively’s PR team strictly warned journalists against asking any questions about Baldoni or domestic violence.
However, her approach to the marketing campaign soon turned into a PR nightmare as she appeared detached from the film’s message. Baldoni, on the other hand, has since maintained the social image of a fine gentleman and family man discriminated against by Hollywood Elites and mainstream media. The underdog persona immensely benefitted Johnny Depp in his case and Baldoni might just be as lucky.
His lawsuit against Lively is still an uphill battle. However, as Depp’s lawsuit proved, American justice still listens to both sides, and whether you use DARVO or you don’t a win is still a win. The last Hollywood star to be “sued into oblivion” was Amber Heard, who abandoned her celebrity lifestyle in Hollywood for a quiet life in Spain after 2022.
The same will likely happen to whoever loses the Baldoni vs. Lively lawsuit and fans are eager to see how it plays out. Freedman, however, seems serious about burying Blake Lively and, by extension, her husband Ryan Reynolds.
His main employer, Disney/Marvel, was dragged into the lawsuit after Reynolds got dragged into the saga when Lively said in an interview it was him who wrote an infamous rooftop scene in IEWU.
This was strange because Reynolds had no mandate in the film. He was also part of the team of celebrities that stood with Lively in a heated meeting where they forced Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios to sign a list of 17 demands before she would return to set after the SAG-AFTRA strikes.
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