Good morning! Netflix acquires the FIFA Women’s World Cup broadcast rights, Paramount Global and Skydance Media's merger is challenged, and Blake Lively is the latest victim of tactics long used to discredit women.
- Hollywood drama. If you spend any time on TikTok or Instagram, you probably saw lots of talk about Blake Lively a few months ago. Around the time of her film It Ends With Us's release in August, a conversation started on social media: people noticed that Lively and her costar and director Justin Baldoni avoided each other during the film's press tour and began speculating about who was at fault for the rift. From Lively's upbeat tone during interviews (the film is about domestic violence) to her new haircare brand, many found things to object to about the actress and were quick to jump on the hate bandwagon.
Turns out, they may have had some help. New reporting from the New York Times finds that Lively was likely the victim of a coordinated online smear campaign executed by a crisis PR firm hired by Baldoni. The pair indeed had issues on the set of the movie; she had accused him and his film studio Wayfarer's CEO Jamey Heath of misconduct, from improvising intimate kissing and dialogue out of character, to entering her trailer while she was nude, to discussing their sex lives in front of her, to hiring a friend for a role as an OB/GYN who would be close to a nude Lively during a birth scene. Baldoni, who hosted a podcast about gender equity and toxic masculinity, allegedly hired a crisis PR firm because he worried she would bring these allegations to light during the film's release.
Lively filed a legal complaint alleging all of this on Friday. A lawyer for Baldoni and Heath's studio Wayfarer called the claims "completely false" and the complaint an attempt by Lively to mend her reputation.
Hollywood drama aside, the alleged smear campaign serves as an illustrative example of the tools that can now be deployed against women and victims of abuse. Crisis management expert Melissa Nathan had also worked for Johnny Depp; Amber Heard, who accused Depp of abuse, was suspected to be the victim of a similar online campaign that decimated her reputation.
The extent to which these tactics work is scary—especially the fact that so few seem to realize that the content they're mindlessly consuming has an ulterior motive. TikTok videos and Instagram comments add up to have real consequences. In one message uncovered as part of the complaint, Nathan acknowledged the societal factors that allows these campaigns to succeed: "It’s actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women," the PR strategist wrote. Even she was surprised at the extent of social media outrage toward Lively.
In many people's eyes, Lively was not a "perfect victim"—not that there is such a thing. Compared to Baldoni, she was the bigger star, with an A-list husband in actor Ryan Reynolds. And still her 20-year career took a real hit after a few months of coordinated online reputational damage. Sales of her new brand were affected, reportedly dropping as much as 87% a month after its debut.
Even for one of Hollywood's biggest stars, this effort came close to taking her down. A woman with fewer resources would have been "buried," to use the crisis PR firm's term, by this—just look at the state of Heard's reputation today. The episode is a reminder to consume social media content with skepticism. New platforms can be part of an age-old desire: to see powerful women fall.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
MPW Daily will return to your inbox Friday, Dec. 27. Happy Holidays!
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.
