S3 Ep266: Crime Weekly News: Justin Baldoni vs. Blake Lively

In this episode, we delve into the escalating legal dispute between actress Blake Lively and actor-director Justin Baldoni, stemming from their collaboration on the 2024 film It Ends With Us. Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS:1. WildGrain.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY and get $30 off your first box plus FREE croissants!2. NPADPodcast.com - Check out National Park After Dark, a podcast created for the morbid outdoor enthusiast, wherever you listen to podcasts!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:19Derrick Levasseur?

  And before we get into what we're going to be covering tonight, from the thumbnail, you can see there's a lot to unpack. I just wanted to mention, the hat I have on right now, the Stay Safe Out There hat, is back in stock on crime weekly podcast.com. A lot of you asked about it. We finally got him and it takes a little while to get him embroidered, but it looked great. If you haven't seen him before, they're on the site. We don't have a ton of them, so if you want one, make sure you go over and grab it. Okay, this case tonight, Justin Baldoni. Am I saying Baldoni right?

• 0:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 0:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, Blake Lively. I don't know the details of it, but obviously, if I, you know, I'm not living under a rock. I've definitely heard about it. I've, I've seen a different sway of emotions online. On one week, it's Team Justin, next week, it's Team Blake.

• 0:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's been crazy.

• 0:57Derrick Levasseur?

  It's back to Team Justin and it's, it's bringing up a lot of conversations, but we were talking about what we wanted to cover this week. This is something that people seem to care about. So, we wanted to talk about it as well, because although there's not a criminal element, there is possibly a civil element here that's going on, where lawsuits are flying left and right. So, we felt like it was in our, in our, our genre and we should give it a go. And apparently, Stephanie's an expert on it, because I asked her about it and she said, "Oh, I got this one." So, usually, I'll give you a little bit of an opening, but to be transparent, I don't think I'm qualified to. So, Stephanie, take it away.

• 1:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, listen, you know, I'm not an expert on this. I would never claim to be an expert in anything.

• 1:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, you're an expert. The pressure's on.

• 1:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because then, the comments would be like, "She's not an expert. She forgot to say what color Blake Lively was wearing." So, no, I'm not an expert, but I do hyper fixate. And I, I've been following it. I don't know how it came onto my radar, but I remember the drama that started during the premiere, during the press tour of It Ends With Us, which I'm going to explain in a minute. And I kind of watched it and I was like, is this like a publicity thing? You know, kind of like the Don't Worry Darling with Harry Styles? Like, is it a publicity? I don't even know if that was a publicity thing, but it obviously did create publicity. And so I kind of watched it for a little bit and and then everything went down, which we're going to talk about in a minute. And then I just hyper fixated and started watching

• 2:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  a lot of videos, watching lawyers talk about it. And so I know enough to know that it's insane. And it's one of those he said, she said things. And lawsuits are flying now, accusations are flying. And I think that the greater issue here, or the the more interesting point for me is how these celebrities, which I'm going to be honest with you, I'm over Hollywood. I'm completely over Hollywood. I don't care about these people anymore. I'm I think that the majority of of people in the world right now have their own burdens and their own problems. And to hear, you know, people in Hollywood complaining constantly and, you know, talking about how hard life is, we're kind of all sick of it. But this

• 3:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  kind of it speaks to a deeper issue of how these celebrities use the media to paint their narratives and attack each other and and kind of get their way. Because both of these people, Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, can't be right. One of them is is wrong and one of them is right. But we will never I don't think we'll ever really know, because they've both sort of gone and started their own smear campaigns against the other, allegedly. So it's very interesting. I'm going to kind of start from the beginning. It was early 2023 when it was announced that Colleen Hoover's novel It Ends With Us was going to be adapted into a film starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Blake Lively, I know her from Gossip

• 3:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  Girl as Serena. I was a Blair girl, I'm just gonna be honest with you, but she was Serena in Gossip Girl. Justin Baldoni was in the CW show Jane the Virgin. And honestly, outside of that, I'm not sure what else he does. But I know he has, I think, like a production studio. It's called Wayfair, things like that. So the book and the film, It Ends With Us, they're about domestic violence, breaking the cycle of domestic violence and trauma, which is undoubtedly a very serious subject. But during the press tour, people were confused when it seemed like the film's two stars, Justin and Blake, were promoting it very differently. So Baldoni took a More serious approach. He focused on the message while Lively promoted it almost like a chick flick. She was telling women like grab your girlfriends, wear your florals, go see this movie.

• 4:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  And it was kind of, you could sense that there was tension brewing, that there was like a division. Right? And then rumors of tension between the two leads grew as it reported that Blake Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and many other cast members had unfollowed Justin Baldoni on social media. And so from that point, rumor and conjecture has plagued this film for months with no one really knowing what caused the rift between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. But in December of 2024, we did get some answers and mainly these answers came from the New York Times. And the reason I'm saying that is because it's important to say where it came from at this point.

• 5:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  So in, um, in December, December 20th, I believe Blake Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against Justin Baldoni and some of his associates. And in this complaint, uh, Baldoni, his production company, which is Wayfair Studios, as well as the CEO Jamie Heath, its co-founder Steve Sarowitz, and Baldoni's publicist Jennifer Abel, along with Abel's company, RWA Communications, and crisis communication specialist Melissa Nathan, as well as her company, the agency group, PRLC. The complaint was sort of all encompassing.

• 5:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  And what Blake Lively said is that Justin and all of these other people embarked on a sophisticated press and digital plan in retaliation for her voicing her concerns about alleged misconduct on set. She said that she and other cast and crew members experienced invasive, unwelcome, unprofessional, and sexually inappropriate behavior specifically from Justin Baldoni and Jamie Heath, the CEO of Wayfair. Further than that, not only did, you know, she say that there was sexual harassment and really inappropriate things happening on set, but she said that once she made this known.

• 6:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  They then turned around and smeared her. Not them with their own faces and their own names, but using the media, using different publications, using social media as a way to sort of bring up old videos of Blake Lively where she was rude to people and different reporters and interviews where, you know, she kind of, basically, they tried to paint her to look like a bitch who just didn't care and she was being very laissez-faire about the whole domestic violence message and It Ends With Us. She wasn't taking it seriously. She was promoting her husband's movie Deadpool and Wolverine. While she was on the press tour for It Ends With Us, she was promoting her new hair care line. While she was on the

• 7:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  press tour, she was sort of not taking this film as seriously as the people who had experienced domestic violence and had used this book and were hoping to use this film as an outlet for that, as a way to feel heard and seen and things like that. So Blake Lively has alleged that this campaign against her caused her substantial harm. Even Ryan Reynolds came out and said, you know, she was a mess, that everything that was happening on the set and in the aftermath of being on the set in the smear campaign was causing her not only professional harm, but personal harm. She was bringing it home. It was affecting him, their children. And obviously, we don't want to hear that. But the accusations, basically,

• 8:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  she said things like she had wanted to hire an intimacy coordinator and there wasn't one. There were certain things that Justin Baldoni and his associates were doing to her on set, unprofessional things. For instance, there was a scene of her giving birth and she wanted to wear clothes. And then I guess Justin Baldoni and I believe Heath were like, "Oh, you don't wear clothes when you give birth. You should be naked from the waist down." And then they showed her an inappropriate video. So in the complaint, she says that they had a meeting about this while they were still filming. And in this meeting, there

• 8:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  was a list of things that she was asking them to stop doing, like, "Stop talking about your sex addiction. Stop talking about..." Pornography, stop talking about Blake Lively's dead father. And it was very kind of vague about what these things meant. But the way it was worded was to make you feel like these things were definitely happening. Otherwise, why would she say stop doing them?

• 9:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Also, all reasonable requests, if occurring.

• 9:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hundred percent.

• 9:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Like, they seem very commonsensical that they shouldn't be happening in any work environment. So just seeing those things, it's like, well, what she's asking for seems very reasonable and shouldn't have to be asked for.

• 9:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Agreed. Now, all of that, once again, this is all he said, she said.

• 9:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Exactly. I'm just saying on paper, like you're saying.

• 9:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 9:28Derrick Levasseur?

  You read that and you go, uh, why is this woman even having to ask for these things?

• 9:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  A hundred percent. I mean, it was very basic stuff. But then again, the context is missing. Like, in what context is Justin Baldoni talking about your dead father? You know, things like that. He was also not just starring in this film, but directing it, right? So that's going to cause some issues. Now, I want to talk about what the New York Times printed the day after this complaint was made. And that's really interesting, but we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

• 10:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay. So then the New York Times, the next day, they basically printed some stuff that had come out, private messages. And, and listen, we could talk about this for two hours. And Derek was like, oh, is it enough for Crime Weekly? I was like, dude, it's enough. We could talk about this for two, three hours. It's so complicated. But basically what happened is there is a Justin Baldoni's PR person, who's Jennifer Abel, and then Melissa Nathan, who's an expert in crisis PR management. They were both hired by Justin in the wake of all of this. And some people were like, why? What did he think was going to happen? What did he think he was going to have to, you know, kind of quell at this point? He sort of knew something was going to come.

• 10:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  And, and that made people feel like he was definitely, you know, guilty of doing something.

• 10:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Consciousness of guilt in the criminal sense, where because of his behavior after the fact, it kind of suggests that he knew he was guilty of something.

• 10:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Then the texts came out between them, okay? The texts came out between them. Basically, these texts were crazy because what Blake Lively was saying was Justin Baldoni and his team, they caused, you know, a smear campaign against her, that they intentionally planted stories, right? To, to make her look bad and to make, basically, you know, social media go crazy. And so there would be nothing but bad press about Blake Lively. And so that if she ever did come out with what she had experienced, she would be discredited. So Jennifer Abel, the publicist, says to Melissa Nathan on August 2nd, Melissa Nathan is the, the crisis PR person, he wants to feel like she can be buried.

• 11:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  And this is, apparently, Justin wants to feel that Blake can be buried. And then Melissa Nathan writes back, you know, we can bury anyone, right?

• 11:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Yikes.

• 11:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  And, yeah.

• 11:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Yikes.

• 11:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  And these texts kind of go on and on. And even to the point-

• 11:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Is anybody surprised by this, by the way? That this is going on in Hollywood? That when something-

• 11:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'm disgusted, yeah.

• 11:59Derrick Levasseur?

  Some type of controversy comes out, these athletes and these, you know, these famous celebrities, actors, actresses, whatever they are, they will hire these crisis teams. And what we're consuming, you know, whatever article or whatever tweet you're seeing, there's a really strong possibility that this was created by some type of think tank or PR team behind the scenes to disseminate this type of information. There was one thing that I didn't recall you mentioning right here, if you did, I apologize. But there was something I did see where they were, they were deciding what things to focus on, and they mentioned forums like Reddit.

• 12:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Like going, going in there, infiltrating Reddit and spreading this information in Reddit as well. So they're, they're covering all bases here. This isn't like they're just reporting to People Magazine. They know where people are getting their stories from, where they're getting their information from. And these teams have become experts at disseminating whatever they want and making it feel like it was organically spread. So it's really crazy and scary to think that this can happen.

• 13:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I mean, it's scary, but it's also like, listen, personally, in my opinion- Both of these people suck. Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively, they both suck, honestly. I'm, I'm sick of all of it. It's, it's, I'm over it. Like, and, and do you think that the complaint she made ended up going public accidentally? No, you know, they're both guilty of it. This should be something that should be settled between them. I don't care how, sue the crap out of each other, but honestly, why should we care at this point? Why should we care when because things like this happen? We're never gonna know the truth. We're never gonna know that. We can't even trust what we read. See, he said, she said. However, these texts are pretty inflammatory.

• 13:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  And it, it really bothered me when, um, I, I forget which one it was, whether it was, uh, Melissa Nathan or Jennifer Abel, but after they saw the bad publicity that Blake was getting, they were like, oh damn. One of them was like, wow, it's really kind of sad how everybody will just believe this about a woman and then turn on her, but it's what we wanted kind of thing. You know, it was very, it was very hard to read. Now, then Justin Baldoni turns around, right? He sues the New York Times and he's saying, listen, you guys took this complaint made by Blake Lively and you basically reported it as if it was true, but it wasn't, it's not necessarily all true. And, and so I'm suing you guys now.

• 14:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  And in his, and Justin Baldoni's lawyer has come out and he's been like, listen, there's gonna be more messages. And then there are more messages, right? So one of the things Blake Lively accused Justin Baldoni of doing was coming into her trailer unannounced when she was nursing or pumping, because she, she had just had a baby. And then he produces a text where she's saying, hey, I'm pumping in my trailer right now. If you want to come in and run our lines together. And he's like, all right, I'll be up in a little bit. So it seems like she kind of invited him in while she was pumping. I don't know. It sucks. Also, there's stuff with the intimacy coordinator. She said there wasn't one. And then Justin Baldoni released text messages where he's like, hey, I hired the intimacy coordinator. Do you want to meet her before we get started? And Blake was like, no, it's cool.

• 15:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  Just meet her when when we get started and you know, things like that. She doesn't seem super concerned. There's times where Blake Lively said that Justin Baldoni during certain scenes was talking to her as if she was Blake Lively, not her character, and he was talking as if he was Justin Baldoni and he was, um, you know, kind of improvising scenes and adding things to like kissing scenes and yeah, some of this stuff you can write off as like, oh, this guy's just like a weird director. He's kind of edgy. You know, if you look at somebody like who's the dude that, uh, that in Hollywood, the director who everybody's like, that guy's really creepy. Um, I don't know why I can't. I don't have a brain right now. You know, he, he did, I think it.

• 15:55Derrick Levasseur?

  Quentin Tarantino?

• 15:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 15:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly.

• 15:58Derrick Levasseur?

  The fact that I said that name first is kind of impressive.

• 16:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Uh, Quentin Tarantino, like, everybody's like, he's kind of weird. He gets really, you know, really close to you when he talks. He's very intense. Some of this can be written off as, as kind of that and some of it is like, yeah, this is kind of pushing the line if that's what happened. If that's what happened, right?

• 16:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Right, right.

• 16:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  That's kind of where we're at. So now Justin Baldoni is suing the New York Times. He's relieving, releasing stuff and now people are back on his side because they're kind of seeing that, you know, it wasn't exactly portrayed in, in Blake Lively's complaint, the way that things went down and it's just a mess, right? That's where I'm at. It's kind of just a mess because once again, I don't think either of these people has the moral high ground. You know what I mean? Like, I, I don't think that I can say one's more right than the other. I don't think anybody can at this point. It's going to turn into another Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard. It's going to turn into another media circus. It's going to turn into these people's

• 17:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  private lives and every single person that they've communicated to and talked to, their private communications being splashed all over the internet and all these people on the internet being able to speculate on it without any context, uh, or without actually the full story. And I, I don't, I don't think that that's productive and I don't think it's a productive. Use of our time, even though I did become hyper fixated on it and I watched a bunch of videos and I kind of gathered what was going on. But now at this point, I'm just kind of like, every time something new comes out and they're like, oh, new text messages, new this, new that. I'm just like, what can I even believe? I don't trust the media. I don't trust these actors. Yeah.

• 17:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. Let's take our last break. I have some observations just based on what you've told me already and then some old, you know, my own anecdotal experience, very limited in the quote unquote Hollywood space, but let's take our last break. We'll be right back.

• 17:58Derrick Levasseur?

  All right. So we're back and, and I agree with you entirely. At this point, it's almost, it reminds me a lot of the Johnny Depp case, Amber Heard case, where they both have high powered attorneys, they have PR teams and, and they're both kind of putting out information that they want to quote unquote, get out there, but it's been leaked, you know, and, and, you know, there are some things with Blake where I remember seeing a video that came out shortly after all these allegations started coming out where you see this video, if you haven't seen it, you can go watch it. It's online where Blake is pregnant. She's relatively not too far along.

• 18:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Early on.

• 18:33Derrick Levasseur?

  She has a little bit of a bump and she's doing this interview for a movie. I apologize. I don't know what it is. She's with another actress and the interviewer who's super nice seems just like super, you know, trying to be, trying to build a rapport.

• 18:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Conversational.

• 18:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, conversa- you know, you already know what video I'm talking about, right?

• 18:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:48Derrick Levasseur?

  And she says, oh, you know, when are you expecting? Or she says something along those lines.

• 18:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, she said, she said congratulations.

• 18:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Congratulations.

• 18:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Congratulations on your little bump.

• 18:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep. On your little bump. And then she turns to the interviewer who is clearly not pregnant and says, well, congratulations on yours.

• 19:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Congratulations on your little bump, right? Yeah.

• 19:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. It was, and listen, just me looking at it, she was definitely being an asshole for it. I mean, she wasn't saying it and like, she didn't mistakenly think she was pregnant. She was offended that, you know, she, she pointed it out, which clearly she was pregnant and the two actresses kind of like ignored her and had like a side conversation. So listen, am I surprised that these actors and actresses at this level treat people this way behind the camera? Of course not. It's in a sense of entitlement. I'm not saying every person is like that, but it's not a shock when you hear it, right? But as far as this particular situation. Who knows? I can tell you that when I was on a much smaller set, I had my own show for

• 19:44Derrick Levasseur?

  two years and we had a crew of about 20, 25 people. And there's a lot of people on there, including the network. The network will come out on certain days and they're monitoring things. And it would, I would think it would be a much bigger issue if it was to the level that Blake Lively's team is alleging. But on this, on the other side of that, I don't know what award show it was, but a voice memo note was released where you hear Justin Baldoni saying like, they basically sent me to the basement.

• 20:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  The premiere, yes.

• 20:14Derrick Levasseur?

  For to the premiere. And for me, from the outside looking in without having all the context, if, if Justin Baldoni was really completely innocent, I think more people would be coming out to defend him. I know that some have come out for both sides, but I feel like there would be a unified front behind him to say, listen, this guy did a great job. We all love him. He didn't make any of us uncomfortable. And they wouldn't have ostracized him at the premiere. And he would have been allowed to be with everyone else. That's his words, not ours. He was saying they basically relegated me to the basement. So.

• 20:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes. With his fan, with his friends and family and, well, some people are saying it's because she said, I'm not comfortable. She's the bigger, she's the bigger star.

• 20:52Derrick Levasseur?

  And she's, and let's be honest, Ryan Reynolds is huge right now.

• 20:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right. Exactly.

• 20:55Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, he's, he's, he's huge right now. And he has a, a, a ton of influence in this industry, which is, it's all about who you know. So I'm not saying that, you know, that says he's guilty of it. But I would think there would be someone who would go to him or her on the side and say, listen, we get it, but he, he's, he's done a great job. We're not going to do that to him. But.

• 21:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't think that's how Hollywood works.

• 21:19Derrick Levasseur?

  I know. You're right. Like I said, I've never been even close to that. Breaking homicide is nowhere near that. But.

• 21:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'm not defending anybody here, man. Trust. Yeah.

• 21:26Derrick Levasseur?

  What I was trying to say with that, there's a lot of people on set and you barely know them. There's makeup artists, there's craft services, there's, you know, you have the director of photography, you have all the camera operators, you have the showrunner, you have a lot of different people, PAs. They're not all going to defend you if you did something wrong. And I know that some people have come out. I know that there was a meeting on set, as you kind of mentioned, you know, when you were talking. Talking about it earlier. So I definitely think there's some truth to both sides. If I'm, if I'm just sitting here, I think there's some truth.

• 21:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, yes, I agree.

• 21:57Derrick Levasseur?

  I think at this point.

• 21:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  And there's some lies on both sides.

• 22:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely. Embellishments for sure. You know, if I'm going to just kind of give Blake a little bit here to balance it out. It seems like Justin's team, based on what we have seen behind closed doors, initially did try to smear her, no doubt about it. Maybe took something where she wasn't being very kind and wasn't being very cooperative.

• 22:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  They claim that they did not. Now they're, they coming back out. That's where, where Justin's suing the New York Times. He's saying, he's saying it was not a smear campaign. They were, they were saying, we can do this, but they didn't. And, and because certain text messages were not included in what was leaked to the New York Times. He's saying these other text messages that were not included, we'll give you the context because you'll hear them say things like, oh, wow, we didn't even do anything and this happened, you know, things like that. So that's what I'm saying. When you selectively decide which parts of the truth to tell and leave out other parts, that missing context can make a difference in what the part you saw means.

• 23:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  However, I will still say that these two women who were discussing Blake, who work for Justin, I understand they work for Justin. It was disgusting for me to see the way they were almost reveling, and I'm not a Blake Lively fan at all, but the way they were almost. I'm not. The way they were almost reveling in her downfall and seeing her and, and, you know, having been on the receiving end of that, and we both have, we're, you know, we're public figures. I know how harmful it is and how, how much it hurts, whether or not, you know, you, you contributed to it or not. To see them be so happy and gleeful that she was.

• 23:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Just being harassed and completely taken down online. That was, that was kind of disturbing.

• 23:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I completely agree because you know they've done it before. They've done it. Who else have they done it to?

• 23:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Everyone.

• 23:54Derrick Levasseur?

  I do have a question for you because.

• 23:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, wait, one more question. Did you see Deadpool Wolverine?

• 23:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course I did. It's one of my favorite movies of all time.

• 24:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  So now Justin's lawyer is making an allegation that.

• 24:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Nice Pool.

• 24:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 24:05Derrick Levasseur?

  You gotta go watch all the clips. It's so deep to get into.

• 24:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  I did. I did watch them.

• 24:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. When you, basically to summarize for you guys, there's a character called Nice Pool. He's got like a bun. You gotta go watch the lines.

• 24:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  He says he's a, he's like, oh, um, he says, you know.

• 24:18Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm gonna start a feminist podcast and, you know, hide behind this movement.

• 24:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Cause Justin Baldoni is a self-proclaimed feminist and in fact has a TED Talk that I forced myself to watch. Where he's talking about how to be a good feminist and you know, so it's like, is he actually a feminist? Or does he claim to be so that nobody looks at him? And, and they don't dare to say like, oh, this is inappropriate or oh, you're doing this, you know, because oh, he's a feminist. So how could he be doing this bad stuff if he believes in this and stands on this platform? Is he hiding behind the feminist movement or does he truly believe in it? Right?

• 24:52Derrick Levasseur?

  There's, there's a lot of, a lot of lines that this Nice Pool character makes and they, then they make the comparison to Justin Baldoni and his career and his life. And there's a moment, not to spoil it for you guys, it's been out a while, where Ryan Reynolds' character Deadpool holds Nice Pool. While Blake Lively's character, she's in the movie, uh, shoots this guy to death. And it's like, people are saying that at this point, this was like an inside thing that, you know, they'll never come out and admit that publicly. But if it's that, if it's true, that's some next level trolling.

• 25:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but then you had, you'd have to ask like, how serious was it? If, if you're trolling like this.

• 25:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  How, how traumatized was she if, if you can make a big joke out of it?

• 25:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and you know, Ryan is gonna defend his wife. Can't blame him for that. That's what he's supposed to do. So.

• 25:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Absolutely.

• 25:39Derrick Levasseur?

  It is what it is. We're gonna see how it plays out. We'll never fully know the truth. People are gonna, they're gonna fall where they fall on this one. It's unfortunate for everyone. And the biggest unfortunate element of this whole thing to me is this movie. I have not seen it, but apparently, as you were saying, it's about domestic violence. And, and there's a lot of women out there who have, can empathize with these characters and have been through something similar to this. I believe, like you said, it was a book first. And the whole point of this movie has kind of been hijacked by this alternate storyline, which nobody should care about, but it's, it's, it's what happened. So I feel for the victims of domestic violence out there that were really hoping that this platform and this conversation would actually enhance the amount of attention

• 26:23Derrick Levasseur?

  and the amount of exposure for domestic violence victims. And yet, here we are on Crime Weekly News, talking about something completely opposite to that. So that's, that's the real, that's the real loss here.

• 26:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, there's conversations to be had about all of it, right? Are we sick of Hollywood? Yes. I think I'm sick of Hollywood. Okay? I'm sick of them. Are we, are we?

• 26:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Am I still gonna watch the movies? Probably.

• 26:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Some of them. Are we understanding that things like this happen on set? Sexual harassment and, uh, you know, making people feel uncomfortable and people feeling like they don't have a voice? We do know that happens. Of course, that's happened as, as, as old as Hollywood is. These things have happened. Okay? We know that. Uh, do people launch smear campaigns against each other? In, in the media and on social media? Yes, we know. There's a lot of conversations to have here. But at the end of the day, I don't think that either of these people are coming from, like I said, any moral high ground. And honestly, I just don't, I don't know who to believe or what to believe.

• 27:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that is not a comfortable position to be in as a consumer of these movies, as a human being who lives on this earth and is supposed to be able to go to the news, like the New York Times, of all places, and trust what's printed. But we can't anymore. And I think that, you know, that that's why things like YouTube and podcasts and things have really taken over. Because you just got regular people and you might have an agenda, you might have a bias, but you're not, you're not sitting there like with Justin Baldoni or Blake Lively in your phone. Telling you what to say, right? You're not, you don't have a direct line to somebody and they're telling you what to say and because you are friends with them, or because they're powerful, or because they have influence, you do it because otherwise your editor will

• 28:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  be mad at you. Or otherwise, your friend Blake Lively or Ryan Reynolds will be mad at you. And you would see this in the text between Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, where she was like, oh, I have a friend over at this publication. Oh, I'm going to have lunch with them unofficially, blah, blah, blah. They're planting these stories. That's a tale as old as time. I just don't trust it anymore. What do you guys think?

• 28:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Can't blame you. Can't blame you. And I think, I think what this really could come down to, and again, they'll never admit it. You have this power struggle where this is Justin Baldoni's movie, and he's, he's passionate about it. He's trying to take the, the reins. Blake Lively comes in, she's a bigger figure. Her husband's a monster in the industry, and she might have tried to take over some creative control. And clearly, there was a personality conflict at minimum between the two. They were not getting along. And it got worse and worse when you're spending 12 hours on set together. And then whatever happened, even if it was something minor, it irritates you or makes you uncomfortable that much more because you already don't like that person. And that's on both sides. That's it. And so,

• 29:09Derrick Levasseur?

  but what this really comes down to is probably ego and, and just trying to flex your muscles as to who is in charge of this movie. Who's going to be in the position of authority? Who's going to control what happens here?

• 29:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Who's going to have the last word? And who's going to control the way that the public sees this?

• 29:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, there was two different versions of the movie almost, from what I understand, you know?

• 29:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, I think Ryan Reynolds came in and like paid to film a completely different uh, some mess.

• 29:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Different cut of it.

• 29:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  A different cut, a different ending, yeah.

• 29:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that's, it's crazy. Well, we'll keep up to date.

• 29:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  That happens a lot too, though, by the way. I don't know.

• 29:41Derrick Levasseur?

  No, yeah.

• 29:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 29:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, we'll, we'll keep updated on it. Obviously, it's not going to be a top priority for us. At the end of the day, it's between these two. It's not going to affect the people that this should really be about in a positive way. So we'll keep an eye on it. We wanted to cover it. Hope they can kind of hash it out behind closed doors. But based on what we've seen so far, I wouldn't count on it. Any final words, Stephanie?

• 30:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, I am interested to hear what everybody else thinks and where everybody else is landing on this and are you as sick of Hollywood as I am? Let us know in the comments.

• 30:10Derrick Levasseur?

  No, absolutely. Well, we're gonna have later this week, Jason Burgerson and Amy Shue, part two. It's the second and final part of our series. The first part went extremely well. We have some photos to share that we actually took the night when we were together in Rhode Island for the traders event. We're gonna have those in the episode if you're watching on video. If you're listening on audio, it'll be out on Friday. If you're watching on YouTube, it'll be out on Sunday. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you later this week.

• 30:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.