Justin Baldoni Fights Back Against Blake Lively and the Times

Is everyone lying to you?

When I first posted about all the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni drama last week (was it really only last week??) I had a tsunami of messages in my inbox, many of them asking whether this means they need to be fully Team Blake Lively now.

My answer whenever it comes to Hollywood bad behavior is always you don’t have to do or think anything. It’s OK to hate the behavior of Baldoni and his team while also not loving the way Lively promoted This is Us, or to even like her very much as an actress. It’s OK to feel manipulated by social media and multi-million dollar publicity and crisis management campaigns while not canonizing Lively.

The Hollywood Industrial Complex has a lot of purposes. It is there to entertain us which is hugely important. HUGELY! (Also big news coming soon about what is happening with The Sicilian Inheritance on screen). But it also exists to make money. And protecting a star’s reputation helps build capital for a lot of people. It’s always a good thing to keep in mind when we are reading about things like this.

I also like to remember that there are real human beings behind every headline. Real human beings with families and feelings. That often gets lost in the reporting of this world.

We’ve been watching the Percy Jackson TV series in our house over break (it’s not too bad) and I can’t stop thinking about what happens when you cut off the head of the hydra, how two more heads grow out of its severed neck.

It’s how I often think about celebrity lawsuits and Hollywood mudslinging. You file one complaint or lawsuit and then three more magically appear to counter it.

Thank god Hollywood lawyers and publicists will bill enough in the next few months to buy a third or fourth vacation home this year. Isn’t it nice when lawyers make a shit ton of money?

Here is ALL the latest.