rewrite this title Blake Lively Admitted Justin Baldoni’s ‘Misconduct’ Was ‘Not The Worst’?! – Perez Hilton

As the legal battle over what really happened during and after the filming of It Ends With Us heats up, we’re getting new updates every day. But this little wrinkle is actually from way early on. And no one clocked it!

The New York Times was the first to break the news of Blake Lively‘s allegations against Justin Baldoni. Drawing from her legal complaint and statement, they published an exposé about the alleged sexual harassment she endured at the hands of her co-star/director, as well as the alleged smear campaign he led against her in retaliation for speaking up about it.

He responded by filing his own suit — a defamation claim against the Times. He alleged they had colluded with Blake on this piece rather than investigate independently. As evidence he released text and email chains they had published excerpts from. His complete texts seemed to show the opposite of what the Times was trying to say. So right away people began questioning the validity of their reporting.

Related: Justin Granted Access To Blake Lively & Taylor Swift’s Private Texts! 

Well, it turns out there may have been some evidence right away that he was right. NPR interviewed the Times article’s co-author Megan Twohey on December 23, 2024, just two days after ‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine was published. That’s before either party’s full lawsuits dropped. And in discussing the story, she told them something verrry inneresting Blake told her while she was working on it.

Interviewer Ari Shapiro tried to steer the conversation from the smear campaign to the sexual harassment, and she responded:

“And she told me, like, listen. This was actually not the worst that I have experienced in Hollywood. I’ve actually experienced far worse misconduct. You know, I spoke up because I wanted to address it, and I thought that I had, and I never had any intentions of discussing this or going public with my accusations.”

Wait, WHAT?!

“Not the worst that I have experienced in Hollywood”??? Blake actually told her that? She said this wasn’t as bad as it’s been?

Why only call out Justin Baldoni then? Why not out “the worst”?? Why wouldn’t Blake put names to this terrible behavior she suffered at the hands of other men in Hollywood? What about during the early years of #MeToo? We don’t remember her coming forward with horror stories like so many brave women did. Of course, her silence back then doesn’t mean nothing happened. Plenty of women stay silent for personal reasons that are nobody’s business. It just seems strange to admit there was actually worse misconduct at the hands of people other than Baldoni while trying to crush him in court, no?

It begs the question… what makes Baldoni so worthy of legal action? Well, Twohey kind of answers that. She goes on to say Blake told her the smear campaign was worse than any sexual misconduct Baldoni had engaged in:

“And so to watch what happened next and to experience what she now is alleging was this complete campaign of retaliation felt, in many ways, much more sinister than the underlying misconduct.”

Hmm. The bad PR was worse than anything she went through on set? If we’re reading this right, that’s what she told the Times journalist publishing her story.

We guess we can see that argument? If there really was a smear campaign, and it really was in retaliation for her speaking up about sexual harassment… It wouldn’t be just a smear campaign but an intimidation tool against her and other women who felt like speaking up.

That said, if the alleged sexual harassment wasn’t what has been claimed … Or really anything at all, as Baldoni has tried to show in the evidence he’s published… And that’s proven in a court of law… Then instead Blake’s legal filing will have become its own tool to silence women. Because after that, if anyone ever speaks up, people online might point to it and use it against other women who speak out.

Well, we guess we’ll see what happens…

[Image via MEGA/WENN/Elle UK/YouTube.]