The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson

297: From Voicemails to PR Moves: The Battle Between Lively, Baldoni, and Reynolds

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In this explosive episode, we delve into a Hollywood controversy grabbing headlines after a simple voicemail reignited the full-blown power struggle between Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively, and Ryan Reynolds. Molly reveals how Reynolds' carefully crafted public image might be cracking under the pressure of mounting allegations and legal battles between his wife and Justin Baldoni.

Listen to several key developments in this unfolding drama:

  • Reynolds' strategic public appearances and speeches suggest a calculated effort to maintain narrative control despite growing controversy
  • Blake Lively's position within her high-profile marriage comes under scrutiny as allegations of control and influence surface
  • Justin Baldoni emerges as an unlikely hero in this David vs. Goliath narrative, potentially transforming his career through the controversy
  • Parallels emerge between this real-world drama and themes from Colleen Hoover's fictional works, particularly regarding domestic dynamics
  • The implications of this scandal promise to reshape Hollywood's power structure and how celebrity PR crises are managed going forward

Join Molly on Substack for even deeper dives into celebrity PR strategies and exclusive weekly live sessions!

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© 2025 The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson

Molly McPherson:

Oh, who's ready to chat voicemails and recent PR moves. I received a lot of reach-outs today from the press from television to documentary to celebrity magazine to network news to talk about the voicemail drop by Justin Baldoni, and to all of them I said no. Welcome to the PR Breakdown where I dive deep into the strategies behind the headlines and uncover the power plays Did I say power play Shaping public perception? In this episode let's unpack a Hollywood power struggle that has spiraled into legal battles, pr chaos and some truly fascinating revelations. This episode focuses on the latest twist in the saga between Blake Lively, justin Baldoni and Ryan Reynolds that seems to be unraveling someone in particular's carefully curated public image.

Molly McPherson:

Let's break it all down.

Molly McPherson:

The alt title for this week's podcast is you Get what you Give. This Hollywood drama is playing out in two arenas the courts and I hate using it, but it's such a cliche, but it works the court public opinion, as many of you know by now if you're listening to this podcast, clearly you know, because you're in this lane with me Justin Baldoni's latest move. His team released a voicemail where he is apologizing to Lively, acknowledging her concerns that happened on set. If you haven't heard the email or if you're not into this drama now, let me jump in here right now. If you've listened to this point and you're thinking, do I really care about this? I'm going to urge you to stick it out.

Molly McPherson:

If you're someone like me, who likes the PR intrigue of it all, I'm not going to go too deep on the facts, because the facts are flooding the content space right now. It doesn't matter if you watch news, television news, if you're reading news, if you're reading celebrity or tabloid or you're on social media. Everyone is breaking down the court papers, the voicemail itself and putting all the evidence out there. I'm not one of those creators, because there are plenty of creators out there who do a much better job than I do. There's a lot of media outlets that have the resources to do that. I don't. As a full-time crisis management strategist, I don't have the time to give you the evidence. That's not what I do. I want to pull the information from the evidence. I want to talk about what the evidence reveals. Now let me give you just a brief sense of the Justin Baldoni voicemail if you haven't heard it.

Molly McPherson:

I won't go too deep, but I'm going to give you just enough to get you an idea of what went down.

Justin Baldoni:

Hey Blake, it is two in the morning, hopefully this does not wake you up. Two in the morning, hopefully this does not wake you up. Wow, there's so much I want to say to you and I hope that we can FaceTime or see each other in person soon and get to talk more. But I'm just going to send you a few thoughts and hopefully it's not going to be more than a few minutes, but that I don't have the best track record. I don't think either one of us have the best track record for voice memos. I want to start with an apology.

Molly McPherson:

You can tell by his tone. It was calm, it was reflective. Now that is in stark contrast to the aggressive accusations that we've seen in the lawsuits and the complaint against him from Blake Lively and also you know some of the media coverage as well. Also, you've seen perhaps in the headlines that this nice pool problem for Ryan Reynolds is coming back to hurt him. Pool problem for Ryan Reynolds is coming back to hurt him. Baldoni's legal team claimed that Reynolds used his influence to mock Baldoni through the Deadpool and Wolverine movie, which came out at the same time, same weekend as just a Baldoni and Blake Lively's movie. It ends with us, his character. Nice Pool, they're claiming Justin's team is a thinly veiled jab at Justin and Justin's relationship with Ryan Reynolds' wife, blake Lively. In Justin Baldoni's legal filings he's also accusing Lively of leveraging her alliances, including Reynolds and Taylor Swift, to pressure him into compliance during the film's production. So I'll get into more of those details in the podcast, but I really want to get to the heart of the matter. What's at the center of all of this? And I'll give you the bluff right now. The bottom line up front it's Ryan Reynolds. That's who I've said from the very beginning. It's Ryan Reynolds that's who I've said from the very beginning. His overreach, pushing his wife to escalate the lawsuit and using his Hollywood influence to intimidate Baldoni, is now backfiring, and it is backfiring in a huge way and it's threatening to tarnish the likable, relatable persona that he has built over the years.

Molly McPherson:

Now, first let's talk about why the press has been calling me really for weeks on end. It ends with the press calling me about this story. Last week I was in New York City visiting ABC News near Columbus Circle. They're actually moving their building to Tribeca, so that was probably the last time I'll ever be at that ABC location. But I sat down for an interview with Juju Chang. She is one of the co-hosts of Nightline and the program also airs on Impact, which runs on Hulu, so you should be able to see this piece come out in the next week or so. I'll definitely let you know about it. I sat down for an interview to talk about the case and they wanted to ask me about the PR perspective.

Molly McPherson:

Now, when a news organization comes at it, they're typically looking at it from both sides. That's what they want to do. They want to show both sides of it, and Juju's questions were very balanced and also leaning slightly more towards Blake Lively, and that doesn't show any type of bias from the ABC perspective. But I think the reason why they did it, along with so many other reporters who I've spoken to recently about this they look at the overwhelming public sentiment against Blake Lively and, by extension, ryan Reynolds, and they want to counter it. I think they don't want to necessarily feed into the controlling theory that really this is turning into a Blake Lively problem. They don't want to feed that negativity and it's so interesting. But they'll do the complete opposite when it comes to Taylor Swift, like no media outlet will ever say anything negative about Taylor Swift ever. I don't have a problem with Taylor Swift, I don't come out negative against Taylor Swift. But one thing I don't like about the Taylor Swift aura, if you will, is that people ever look at it critically and if anyone says anything that has a hint of criticism, you know the Swifties come out and they just attack and the media falls along with it. It really kind of bothers me. So I'm noticing this pendulum swing that instead of siding with the public, they are siding with this idea that there was PR chicanery happening behind the scenes.

Molly McPherson:

In the interview I did with ABC. I'd say, of all the interviews I've done, that was the least present in there. I'd have to say Juju Chang really looked at it from a straightforward point of view, but I told the producer, rachel, ahead of time. We talked about it on the phone. I said I'll tell you what I'll answer on camera. But this is my real opinion about what I absolutely think is happening and I'm going to share that with all of you now on this podcast.

Molly McPherson:

This PR battle is control versus strategy, stated from the very beginning that public relations is that red herring in the story, that Blake Lively's team is using it as a distraction and a blame technique to distract from what their side is actually doing. And it's a very hypocritical stance because they're calling Justin Baldoni's side for publicity moves that were retaliatory against Blake Lively. They are claiming that Justin Baldoni manufactured a lot of this negative press against Blake Lively. And in fact, Juju had this great prop in the interview. She brought out this placard that showed a graph of the publicity in the weeks around the premiere and it shows this big red dip, blake Lively's negative mention. So it shows the negative sentiment. And she asked me about this and she was saying well, doesn't this look like? There's a lot of concentrated negative commentary, which I agreed. It absolutely looked at that, I said. But that's what it looks like when the public organically decides that they don't like a person at that moment and likely supported by the algorithm. That's what happens. It's the algorithm catches up with public sentiment and then it kind of steamrolls and I for one think it is organic.

Molly McPherson:

Now, disclaimer I'm not saying that there wasn't any type of let's call it transactional PR happening. When I say transactional PR, that's just my term. I've never heard it before. I use it to explain when money is exchanged for PR, because PR is not a money game. That's advertising. Advertising is when you pay for persuasion. Marketing is the sales arm. It's when you use PR and advertising to market a product. It's really more sales related. But public relations is persuasion, whether it's through issues management, crisis management or promotion. It is a publicist calling a media outlet and persuading them to run a story. It's a PR person persuading the New York Times to run a story about their client. You know whoever it is. Money is not supposed to come into play.

Molly McPherson:

But with the Amber Heard versus Johnny Depp case, we hear a lot about how bots were purchased and it's very, very heavy leaning against Johnny Depp that there is evidence out there that out of Saudi Arabia, bots were purchased on his behalf, either through Johnny Depp or someone close to Johnny Depp, were purchased on his behalf, either through Johnny Depp or someone close to Johnny Depp, to really infiltrate the campaign you know, to hurt Amber Heard and to, you know, boost Johnny Depp. And when you purchase bots, that worked very well in a Twitter environment, but now more people are in the TikTok realm and Instagram and YouTube. Youtube is still pretty strong, so you can't buy that misogyny as easily as you could with the Twitter. I mean you certainly can on X, but X doesn't have the same reach that Twitter once had and bots can really be pushed with hashtags. So you might find bot-like behavior in the comment section in TikTok, but that's not the same as someone putting out video content. So you can't really have a bot. You know create a video. People follow authentic content creators who have a following and they have influence. Bots can't have a lot of influence unless they're strong in numbers, have a lot of influence unless they're strong in numbers.

Molly McPherson:

So that's why I don't buy into this claim that Justin Baldoni's side has waged this manufactured campaign against Blake Lively as a retaliatory act to bring down her name. I think she did it all on her own with the support of her husband. Justin Baldoni's side did hire a contractor, someone who's kind of known in those dark arts. But I was assured by someone close to Justin Baldoni who told me that was not the case, that that person was only hired to boost positive posts about Justin. But that's kind of murky and like if you're boosting positive, how hard is it to boost negative? So that one, you know we'll hold off on that one. That one has yet to be proven, but I don't know. But if Justin Baldoni is doing it, there's other celebrities who do it as well and Blake Lively would also have to prove that she didn't do it. Now that contractor who they dropped from the lawsuit Blake Lively dropped him Jed Wallace was his name from the lawsuit because it was not just Justin Baldoni but it's Justin Baldoni's PR team, publicist and people from the agency group who Justin Baldoni only hired temporarily, just for two months, to do publicity for him around this time because everything was going sour so quickly. And I think the reason why this Jed Wallace got dropped from Blake Lively's lawsuit. It's not because he didn't do anything. It's because her side probably did the same thing and that's why they had to drop him.

Molly McPherson:

I haven't heard anything other than that. No one's ever told me that. I've never heard any creator or anyone say that and no one from the insides told me that. That's just my take. But we will see, because it will all come out in the wash. Now. The PR battle, control versus strategy.

Molly McPherson:

What stands out clearly in the past week is not what Justin's doing, it's what Ryan Reynolds is doing.

Molly McPherson:

Ryan Reynolds was the outlier, but he's the person I've been paying attention to from the very beginning, like the second. All of this was going down. I pinpointed Ryan Reynolds and if you go back to an article that I wrote for Forbescom back in August about the social media clues that hint to a rift between Justin and Blake Lively, I also strongly hint about Ryan Reynolds' involvement. I couldn't go too heavy because it was in Forbes, but I spotted it right from the beginning. I've been sus on this guy for a long time Now. If you've been paying attention to Ryan Reynolds over the past few weeks, you would have seen him and Blake at the Wicked premiere which released, so naturally they would be there Also. Ryan Reynolds made notable comments about women in the film industry at the National Board of Review Awards gala. This was on January 7th a few weeks ago, and while he was presenting the Best Film Award to Wicked, reynolds addressed the different standards women face in storytelling and life.

Ryan Reynolds:

Take a listen. Wicked is indeed wicked. It dares to center two powerful women. It examines a nuanced, complex relationship which has resonated with people for over two decades. On stage, stories about women seem to be held to a different set of standards, and that is to say that they're often held to the standards women are held to. In life, you must be perfect, you must hide your strength, you must shapeshift or placate.

Molly McPherson:

Now that was Reynolds in his first public appearance since Blake Lively filed that sexual harassment complaint against Justin Baldoni. Isn't that timing? Interesting, isn't the words? What he's saying? Quite interesting, highlighting unrealistic expectations placed on women, saying you must be perfect, you must hide your strength. It sounds like Ryan Reynolds is trying to be a feminist, that he thinks there's an unfairness to women, the pressure is being placed on them. Hmm, I'm going to come back to that next. Just in the last few days we saw Ryan and Blake together. They were photographed for the first time since this whole legal dispute, you know, blew up. So they were photographed with Lively's A Simple Favorite co-star, and that was an image that was shared on Instagram. So that just happened a couple of days ago. Then I saw on social media when my plane landed in Florida. I was working over the weekend, I traveled down to Jacksonville, florida I opened my cell phone, opened social media. Yeah, then I happened to see this.

Ryan Reynolds:

Get the lights on. Can we just get the house lights on, because I want to be able to Hello, I'm here, it's Ryan, hi, how's it going? Hi, and I have been lucky enough to have he's my gotcha for life right here. I mean it. Thank you, gus. I'm his second best friend. Alright, gus, jesus, I'm so sorry. This is just awful, and I just want to like I know we were supposed to finish this bit where they, this two security gentleman, come and they try to take the mic from me. It's like a struggle. And then they tase me and I go down and then they hog, tie me and then they put me in the radio sitting music garbage dump and then they just light it on fire.

Molly McPherson:

That is the sound of Ryan Reynolds at a show with Hugh Jackman. Oh my gosh, these two. You know we've also seen little pap shots of Hugh Jackman walking with his buddy, ryan Reynolds and co-star Deadpool Wolverine, and Hugh Jackman also in the middle of his PR campaign where he's trying to convince the world that he's actually dating Broadway starlet Sutton Foster, who has a show out on Netflix that I actually found horrible, but people in my life said that they absolutely loved it. That is a relationship that I am not believing, and the people in my community are not believing either, but both of them are trying to prop each other up at this time. But here's the issue Reynolds' silence on the legal allegations, paired with all these visible attempts to control the narrative, feels so disingenuous. So instead of addressing the real Ryan Reynolds right, we don't. It's pretty risky. It's really risky when you're known for being relatable and then all of a sudden, you're not relatable because no one can hear from you. It's tough. Now Justin Baldoni is running a full counter-narrative strategy here. He's not backing down With his legal team accusing Reynolds of rewriting scenes in. It Ends With Us, without authorization, pressuring his agent, wme, to drop Baldoni as a client. Did you know that they shared representation and Justin's the one who got dumped and he even, according to court papers, verbally attacked him during a meeting? And I actually heard this a couple weeks ago from someone close to Justin Baldoni that he was called to the Reynolds slash Lively penthouse and when Baldoni went there it was Ryan, taylor Swift and Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds absolutely dressed him down and Baldoni claimed that Reynolds forced him repeatedly to ask him to apologize. I was told that Justin was absolutely blindsided by it. And to have these powerful people I mean, come on, like Ryan and Blake together but then Taylor Swift, whose song was also in the movie, what was Justin Baldoni supposed to do?

Molly McPherson:

That is the incident that triggered the voicemail that everyone is talking about Now. I will admit, like that voicemail, when you listen to it it is a little cringy. I'll be the first to admit that when he talks about you, it it is a little cringy. I'll be the first to admit that when he talks about you, know you have a child like she was breastfeeding her child at that time and it was pretty close and felt I don't want to say intimate, but it felt that these two were close. So it was a little cringy, but the fact that Justa Baldoni is releasing that voicemail says something, because it doesn't give him 100% clearance but it really does frame him in the right way as a director and a co-star working with the producer, and a co-star who really cared about how she felt and at that time she was postpartum, she was worried about her weight.

Molly McPherson:

That was an actual issue that she was concerned about, which anyone would be concerned about that at that point and that's why Ryan Reynolds apparently was very, very upset about you know he had said to her. You know he had yelled at him and said why the F? Are you asking my wife, you know about her weight? You know how dare you? Because Justin Baldoni, in the legal filings you know there were at issues. You know, at issue in one of Blake Lively's complaint was the weight issue that Justin Baldoni was asking a trainer about it. But in his legal paperwork he was saying you know he has a bad back and it's injured and he just wanted to know how much she weighed for the sake of the scene working and his back working. I guess after it. A little clunky, yes, but even if it was a little bit murky, that doesn't make someone a sexual harasser, but this is what Ryan Reynolds teed off on. Was this point? It just reveals so much more. Now, before I move on to what I really, think is going on here.

Molly McPherson:

We have to talk about Blake Lively's role in all this, and it's a double edged sword. For this reason, blake Lively's involvement complicates the narrative. For one, you know there are a lot of defenders framing her as a strong woman standing up for her creative vision and demanding respect on this set. And anyone deserves that, and as a woman, I support that as well, and I also reflected on my content around this story. I don't like going against women and that is a bias. It's a bias that I'm admitting that I don't want to go against women. I don't like it because I'm a woman. I only want to come in with the facts and that's what I always try to do. But when the facts lead me against a woman, I'll admit it bothers me. But it doesn't change my mind Whether I'm critical of what Blake Lively's doing or even if I see something that Taylor Swift's doing or Meghan Markle or any female right, but I always want to put it into context. Now I've had a few content creators one bigger one, you know kind of reach out in comments and telling me I'm off, that I'm not seeing the truth here and I should be defending Blake Lively because of all the horrible things Justin Baldoni did to her. And I've also had reporters push heavily on this PR narrative that Justin Baldoni's team was up to no good and they were doing something negative towards Blake Lively. And I push back every single time. I push back not with the other content creator, I just kind of let that stuff go, but with the reporters. I 100 percent stand my ground on it and I tell them I think you got the story wrong. I said I respect the research that you're doing. This is my take and I have not wavered. There are two very important milestones in this story and I have hit both of them. I have commented when both of these milestones happened and I have not wavered and so far I think I nailed it from the very beginning. It from the very beginning. One in August, during the it Ends With Us premiere, I spotted, along with plenty of other people, the rift happening between the cast and Justin Baldoni. But I immediately cast my eye towards Ryan Reynolds back in August. And my second milestone is the Saturday that the New York Times dropped their story about Blake Lively's complaint civil complaint against Justin Baldoni. That came out 24 hours earlier. I smelled a rat and I said it then and I pointed to my TikTok that I recorded on that Saturday. The minute my daughter, quinn, told me about it, I said, quinn, please come to this TikTok with me. And she was like what. But you know, a million views later. There's a reason why a million people watched it because I think I was onto something. And here's the reason why.

Molly McPherson:

At the beginning of the production of it Ends With Us and this is based on the legal papers and what we now know Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni got along. They got along really, really well. Ryan Reynolds, her husband, was away filming Deadpool. If you look at text messages between Ryan and Blake, they're close, they're buddies, some might even say close buddies. There was definitely a comfort there. Some might even say close buddies. There was definitely a comfort there.

Molly McPherson:

Blake, a mom to four young kids still in the postpartum stage. She chose to do this film. She did not feel comfortable with her body. She said so. Justin Baldoni in the text, validated that and told her he was going to do whatever he could to make her feel comfortable. And if you read a lot of those texts or follow the creators who are breaking down those texts, or if you read any of the legal papers. He goes out of his way to make sure that she feels comfortable and everything that Justin Baldoni, prior to all this blowing up on him, professed. His persona of being someone who hears the woman's story, who listens to women, who understands what women are going through. It matches who he is and Justin Baldoni. I mentioned in my previous podcast about this his relationship with Colleen Hoover.

Molly McPherson:

Colleen Hoover, the author of it, ends With Us. A story about domestic violence was written from the perspective of Colleen Hoover, writing about her mother. They were both abused by a father. There is physical abuse and then there is emotional abuse, but abuse is abuse. So she watched her mother abused by her father. That book spoke to a lot of people out there and that's why it was such a highly anticipated book and that's why so many people were waiting for this story. Colleen Hoover trusted Justin Baldoni with her story. That means a lot, a lot.

Molly McPherson:

Something drew Justin Baldoni to the story as well because I genuinely think he cares about women and that voicemail, though somewhat cringy, also supports that women. And that voicemail, though somewhat cringy, also supports that. And I think he was bending over backwards because he was just excoriated by her husband, ryan Reynolds, so he was bending over as far as he could go to apologize. It probably wasn't typical of him to do it like that, but he really, really, really wanted to mend that fence with Blake Lively. He didn't do it with Blake and Ryan, he just did it with Blake. And when you listen to the voicemail in that context, I think you can see Justin Baldoni in a different way. But now back to Blake for a moment.

Molly McPherson:

At this time when Blake started filming the movie, ryan Reynolds was away filming Deadpool. He was in, I think he was in Vancouver, so he was away. Blake Lively was staying at their apartment in Tribeca. They also have a house in Pound Ridge, like an hour outside of the city, near Westchester, new York. But she was in the city and she was filming and if you think about this from the perspective of a mother of four with four young kids, she was probably having a very, very good time and she was excited to get out of the house.

Molly McPherson:

Now I do not have direct evidence of what I'm going to tell you now in my theory, but how I support it is from two sources plus everything that I've read. And you look at the legal cases. That, to me, is evidence that you've read and you look at the legal cases. That, to me, is evidence that you can compile and put together. A couple weeks ago, I had a live. That's on my Patreon and I'll probably put the link into my new sub stack as well, because I'm switching from Patreon to sub stack, so people who are members of my sub stack you will have access to this interview that I did with Dr Abby Metcalf.

Molly McPherson:

If you follow me, you know that I've spoken to her many times, but she did a live about with me about Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, and we talked about how controlling Ryan Reynolds is and broke down what was likely going on in that marriage. Based on what we know about Ryan Reynolds, he has admitted that he had a very, very challenging relationship with his father and when his father passed away I think in 2017, there was a lot of unresolved issues between the two of them. During the it Ends With Us promotion, run up and run off. After all the negative publicity, right at the peak of it, ryan Reynolds sits down for an interview with People magazine to talk about his father. Now his father passed away from Parkinson's and the framing of the article was supposed to be about Parkinson's, but the subtext was really that Ryan Reynolds did not get along with his father because his father was very controlling. He was a police officer, did not have a good relationship with Ryan at all at all. So Ryan Reynolds is very, very controlling.

Molly McPherson:

Now my other source is me. I was a mother that had four young kids. I had four kids. My oldest was two, rory was two, kate was one. I mean, I didn't just have Irish twins, I had Irish quadruplets and then I had twins. So I had four kids in three years and my spouse at the time was in the military and I all alone and we had just moved and we were. I was living in Cape Cod, it was just me. So when I say I can get into the headspace of a Blake Lively, I can get into the headspace of a Blake Lively.

Molly McPherson:

Now, no one was coming and asking me if I wanted to film a movie, a highly anticipated book. But my goodness, if anybody came out and said, could you work at our ice cream truck like an hour a day, you know, for a week, I would have run out of the house, I would have done anything. I would have been the best of friends with whoever saved me from that situation, and it's not that we don't want to be with our kids, but it's really, really difficult for a mother to be with young kids all on her own, especially postpartum. It is tough. So I think that Blake Lively is married to a very, very controlling man and she really bonded with Justin Baldoni when they initially started filming, but then we had the writer's strike, the SAG-AFTRA strike. So when that happened that shut down filming. Ford ends with us and with Deadpool, that shut down filming, for it Ends With Us and with Deadpool. That meant Ryan came back home and all of a sudden you know they're both sitting there. It's kind of like the pandemic, you know, for Hollywood actors. In a way, they have nothing they could do because no one could work.

Molly McPherson:

Now Ryan Reynolds has been called controlling. In the past. If you read between the lines from his past partners, his former wife, scarlett Johansson, described him as jealous and controlling. Though she doesn't talk about him a lot, johansson was expected to prioritize him over her career. Other sources have said that Ryan Reynolds is an overbearing control freak. And Alanis Morissette my fave. She was engaged to Ryan Reynolds. They broke up, got back together, but she's hinted that he was not supportive of her career at all. When they dated the one who had the big career, she was A-list. He was barely C-list when they were together, but he was very controlling Scarlett Johansson. When they got married she was 23 years old and he was well into his 30s. Then he started dating Blake Lively, though people claim it was during his marriage to Scarlett Johansson. They started dating when she was 22. Ryan is the problem. He is a jealous, controlling husband to his much younger wife of four kids.

Molly McPherson:

I could bring in my past life. I'm not going to, but I will say that there are definitely parallels there. I see the parallel in Blake Lively being a wife who is geographically isolated, who is financially isolated, likely professionally isolated. She had a chance to go back into her world. I'm telling you I live that life, though I was far, far from glamorous of a Blake Lively. But when I say I see what's happening with Blake Lively, I see what's happening In court papers. We can see the change.

Molly McPherson:

And when it happened, it's when Ryan Reynolds got back on the scene, Because all of the interactions between Blake and Justin were buddy-buddy, Because all of the interactions between Blake and Justin were buddy-buddy, tight-tight. Then all of a sudden she's sending requests to Justin and his company, the production company, asking for the dailies, which is all of the footage from that day and not just the footage that they use. It's just like all the footage from beginning to end. All of a sudden she wants to see everything. Even though she was there, she wants to see everything. And in those texts I was looking at those texts, one text when Blake explains that she wants the dailies.

Molly McPherson:

It's written in Hollywoodese, in the lexicon of someone who would be like a director level or producer level, even though Blake Lively is a producer on here. But it's very inside language. And also I noticed there was a period and then a double space. Only a select group of people in the world still use period double space. That is our, that's our typewriter generation. Now, this is not to say that only older people do it, but older people who were trained in school on typewriters sometimes default to that. And Ryan Reynolds he's cuspy on that age. He's still a computer kid. He shouldn't be a double-spaced guy.

Molly McPherson:

So I'm not saying it's necessarily Ryan Reynolds, but maybe someone else wrote it, gave it to Ryan Reynolds and then Ryan Reynolds gave it to Blake Lively, because did I look for other writings of Ryan Reynolds to see if he does period double space? Yes, and I didn't see any evidence of it. But it could come, maybe, from a lawyer who's Gen X or older baby boomer and they wrote it, or a producer or someone upper level like that, and they wrote it. And then Ryan gave it to Blake to send to Justin. All right, I've said it right there. All right, I think Ryan is the one who's behind all of this. Also, you've seen in in social media. I'm sure that Ryan Reynolds quips in his in the last few months. It's like a trending term all of a sudden. Yet Ryan Reynolds back then was using intimacy coordinator and that you know, and so the timing of this all tracks.

Molly McPherson:

When Ryan Reynolds blew up at Justin Baldoni, he was likely blowing up at the guy who he perceived as a threat, because weak people who are controlling people need to feel powerful, and how they do that is by bullying and intimidation. They isolate their spouses or the weaker of the partnership. So, blake Lively, younger, isolate them financially, geographically, friends, any way that you can. You isolate them Also by having lots of kids too, and they have no choice to have a career. They can't have a career. They can't do anything on their own, so you become dependent on the man. Ryan Reynolds felt that Justin Baldoni was a threat and he looked down on him. Probably from his perspective, from a Hollywood level he wasn't A-level, but maybe he was like B-list Maybe we'll give him B-list he still probably felt very threatened by him.

Molly McPherson:

Justin Baldoni is a very handsome man. He is very, very good looking and this persona of being in touch with the women's side ooh, ryan doesn't like that because that makes him look bad, because Ryan Reynolds is definitely not in touch with the female side. So Justin Baldoni was like the bizarro Ryan Reynolds. In a way, he's like the opposite. So here he's paired with Blake Lively, but in a whole different persona. Now, speaking of bizarro, when we think of bizarro we think of Bizarro Superman. But this leads us into the Deadpool-Nicepool.

Molly McPherson:

In Deadpool, when Ryan Reynolds went back to start filming, that's when we get the clip that Justin Baldoni's lawyers are now bringing into evidence to say proof that Ryan Reynolds is cooking up this power play. Nicepool is supposedly about Justin Baldoni, at least that's what he thinks. So when power plays backfire, it's a story of an overreach. So Ryan Reynolds, accustomed to controlling his public image and dominating Hollywood narratives, underestimated Baldoni's willingness to fight back back. He escalated the conflict with the Deadpool jabs and all these legal threats. By pushing his wife, blake Lively, to push these legal threats, reynolds inadvertently handed Baldoni a stronger narrative, that of being the underdog fighting against Hollywood power players.

Molly McPherson:

I think I've said this in almost every one of my interviews and I did say it on the ABC interview as well. This is a David and Goliath story. It is not about two co-stars going at it, it's David and Goliath. Goliath would be Ryan Reynolds and that guy, I think, is coming down because of all of it. So what's at stake for Blake Lively? Her reputation as a strong, talented actress for the most part is totally on the line. This is more of a narrative, of an intimidation factor, and if it sticks it will be harder for her to position herself as an advocate for respect in the workplace because she's part of a team that bullied Justin Baldoni. I think in the beginning she was acting independently and acting in a very friendly way towards her co-star and she was very comfortable with him, and she's probably very happy being outside of Ryan Reynolds' control. But then, when her husband, ryan Reynolds, got back into town and he got his claws into it his Wolverine claws and Hugh Jackman into it as well, I think he's the one who ruined it for her.

Molly McPherson:

The reason why all the negativity happened in the August premiere is because those two worked overtime to take over that premiere Justin Baldoni, as we now find out through photographs and through claims and legal filings, he was literally sent to the basement of the premiere. That's where he had to watch it While Blake Lively and Colleen Hoover, the author, introduced the movie. He wasn't even there. It was his movie and he was sent to the basement by that powerful team and all those other people buddying up to Blake and Ryan. And even then, back in August, I called it.

Molly McPherson:

I was like that's a mistake for all of them to do that. They're just going with the stronger side. Oh, she's friends with Taylor Swift, nope, and that is going to fall back on so many people. They sided with the wrong people. That's why Colleen Hoover which Juju Chang didn't even know this in the interview that Colleen Hoover deleted her Instagram, and I think the reason why she did this because she doesn't want to be in this fight anymore. I think she probably feels bad that she let down Justin Baldoni, who she trusted, and she feels horrible about it and she realizes she sided with the wrong team, the wrong duo. Now Blake Lively, I do think, has been overcontrolled by Ryan Reynolds and that's why she went on the other side and is kind of doubling down to support him, because now she has to see it through. But I bet people who know her well know she's probably sick to her stomach, she's probably sick about all of this and she's probably miserable with Ryan Reynolds. I do not think that that marriage is going to last. So that's just what's at stake there. I think down the road it may not be soon, but I'm calling it right now Blake Lively will not be married to Ryan Reynolds 20 years from now.

Molly McPherson:

What's at stake for Justin Baldoni? This is a fight for his reputation and career. If he successfully positions himself as the victim of this Hollywood power dynamic, he could come out stronger on the other side, which I think he will. I really do. He'll get an agent and people will line up to work with him again. I believe that 100%. And for Ryan Reynolds, this is about preserving his carefully crafted public image, because now the cracks are showing. If audiences perceive him as a bully rather than the relatable funny quippy everyman, his brand and his bankability could suffer long-term damage. He was a big, big money guy making money, ads, brand deals, football teams in the UK Speaker gets so much money to speak, same as another guy who kind of followed that same path. That'd be Ashton Kutcher. And look where he is now. So my final thoughts. And look where he is now. So my final thoughts.

Molly McPherson:

This is a battle that is far from over, but it's also, folks for you, a masterclass in how public perception can shape and reshape a narrative. Did Ryan Reynolds overplay his hand? Yes, can Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni reclaim their stories? Yes, I think so, but Justin Baldoni is going to do it a lot quicker than Blake Lively and Blake Lively will do it a lot quicker when she's no longer with Ryan Reynolds. And will audiences see through the PR moves to the power dynamics underneath? Well, if you've listened to this entire podcast to this point, then yes, you have as well. One thing's for sure and Hollywood controls everything, and Reynolds may have just lost his grip.

Molly McPherson:

Thanks for listening to the PR Breakdown. What's your take on the voicemail and Reynolds' role in all this drama. If you found this episode insightful, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with anyone who's as obsessed with PR strategies and crisis communication as we are. You can also follow me on social media and on my new sub stack. You can find me there at Molly McPherson. Or look for the PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson, where I will be updating you on the latest PR moves and celebrity stunts. Thanks for listening. Come back for next week's big story. Bye for now.

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