Why Justin Baldoni’s War Against Blake Lively Worked So Well

Justin Baldoni led a “smear campaign” against Blake Lively that took advantage of digital creators and spaces, public relations experts tell the Daily Beast.

The alleged campaign has dominated talk online since Lively accused her It Ends With Us co-star of sexually harassing her on set, and later hiring a crisis PR firm to damage her reputation.

Sara Fruman, a publicist in Los Angeles, told the Beast that Baldoni got the initial upper hand on Lively by hiring a crisis management team that went on the offensive.

“Justin’s team got ahead of the story to damage her reputation despite his reprehensible behavior on set,” she said. “The public typically believes the first person who speaks. Plus, women are naturally hateful of women who they feel have everything, like Blake.”

Fruman said the campaign against Lively was run “extremely well,” with stories pushed about her appearing to be insensitive to victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault—subjects about which It Ends With Us hoped to raise awareness.

Fruman said the amplification of negative stories about Lively during promotion for It Ends With Us—which Lively and Baldoni notably never promoted together—“was the perfect storm to make her look like a monster” while “Justin focused on content centered around victims, making him appear the hero.” Also helping Baldoni win over public opinion was an alleged “astroturfing” campaign on Reddit that propped him up further, Fruman added.

The PR specialist speculates that Baldoni’s “smear” campaign, headed by Melissa Nathan, likely cost $100,000 at a minimum—a hefty chunk of his estimated $4 million net worth. However, while Fruman admits Baldoni’s early start “immediately shifted public perception in his favor,” other experts tell the Daily Beast that his efforts have clearly fallen short.

Among those who share that opinion is Mike Paul, the CEO of Reputation Doctor in New York City. The crisis manager said bluntly that the truth almost always wins and that “short term gains” mean nothing in the world of reputation.

“So if someone believes you for half a second when you first put out lies and smear—and then, within weeks, it comes back, you’re the boy who cried wolf,” he said. “Now why would I believe anything else that comes out of your mouth?”

Paul said Baldoni’s “so-called crisis PR campaign” didn’t win “hearts and minds” in the long game.

“The question that people ask is, ‘Do I believe you?’” Paul said. “As a top professional, I can clearly say she’s winning hearts and minds 10 times more than him today.”

Paul said Lively has turned the tables on Baldoni. That seemingly came after she made eye-popping allegations against him in a complaint in California, which included claims that he and another producer would walk into her trailer uninvited while she was undressed or breastfeeding, and that he would talk about inappropriate things topics like her weight and sex life.

Paul told the Beast he would have gone about representing Baldoni differently had he been hired, starting with a fact-finding campaign to find out all that he’d potentially done wrong.

“In the court of public opinion, you don’t have to wait for a judge or a jury to get a verdict,” he said. “You have the opportunity of a verdict every single day, in any single minute... The goal in the court of public opinion is to own a piece of someone’s mind based on that new truth—and a negative campaign against a client, or a negative campaign against the opposition, is twice as sticky as a good campaign.”

Paul pointed out that even effective negative advertising is based on truth—not smears—and that Baldoni’s crisis team may have done more to hurt his brand than save it.

Perhaps also working in Lively’s favor is her immense wealth. Not because she’ll necessarily use it to outspend Baldoni in a court battle, but because her net worth—inflated by having a movie star husband in Ryan Reynolds—means it will be easier for her to convince the public that her allegations against Baldoni are not rooted in making money, but are because she believes she’s been wronged.

There’s a growing amount of evidence that appears to support Lively’s claims. Her complaint included messages where Baldoni’s publicist communicated with Nathan about how the latter can “bury anyone” with a PR blitz.

Sophie Rhone, of Cupid PR, told the Daily Beast that “the barriers to entry are lower than ever” for those seeking to launch a smear campaign in 2024. That’s because, with easy access to social media, any individual can begin spreading—and amplifying—lies online without the need to have connections inside the traditional media.

“Now, anyone with a Twitter account can start a rumor, and if it catches the right momentum, it can spiral quickly,” she said. “Social media has removed a lot of the checks and balances, making campaigns both easier and faster to execute.”

Rhone said the campaign against Lively reminded her of those faced by Britney Spears or Meghan Markle, “where media narratives are manipulated to suit a particular agenda.” That agenda can quickly snowball and people make up their mind about someone based on what they’ve been repeatedly told and not necessarily the truth.

Rhone said this is why the most important factor in a smear campaign is repetition.

“If the message is shared enough times in enough places, people start to believe it, even if it’s exaggerated or outright false,” she said. “The emotional angle is also crucial whether it’s outrage, sympathy, or betrayal, triggering feelings helps the narrative stick.”

Juda Engelmayer, president and CEO at HeraldPR, concurs that it’s easier than ever to stir up controversy about prominent figures.

Helping drive this epidemic is how many hours people spend scouring the internet for juicy bits of drama, he said.

“Many individuals, with ample idle time, scour the internet for gossip and negativity to consume and share,” he said. “It’s no wonder platforms like Bravo and figures such as Andy Cohen have capitalized on the public’s fascination with real-time drama, as seen in franchises like The Real Housewives and Watch What Happens Live. This same appetite for spectacle fuels the virality of incendiary social media posts, perpetuating cycles of outrage and public shaming.”

Engelmayer also noted it’s much easier to smear someone than it is to protect a reputation, which he says is a “resource-intensive endeavor.” He says this can again be attributed to people being more drawn to outrage and controversy than they are stories of redemption.

He said maintaining a positive effort “demands constant vigilance.”

“Any positive developments are often met with renewed attempts to undermine them,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s an uphill battle—negativity tends to attract more fervent advocates than positivity, making the path to redemption both costly and challenging.”