Get the latest gossip
Crisis PR on the Hot Seat After Blake Lively Alleges ‘Smear Campaign’: Hollywood Insiders Say ‘There’s a Code You Don’t Breach’
Blake Lively's sexual harassment complaint against Justin Baldoni offers a rare peak behind the curtain at high-stakes crisis public relations.
On top of the laundry list of accused misconduct on the set of the film “ It Ends with Us,” Lively’s surprise weekend filing against her director and costar Baldoni lays bare a show business process that’s meant to operate in the shadows – the hiring of expensive crisis communications experts to sway opinion and uplift clients. The exchanges reveal candid – or “cringeworthy,” as one competing crisis expert told Variety – efforts to counter Lively by enlisting friendly journalists and allegedly hiring a digital whiz to fabricate and amplify unflattering content about her. Nathan pitched a four-month battle plan with a $175,000 price tag to “start threads of theories” on platforms like Reddit and TikTok in Baldoni’s favor, and to create “social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts, helping to change [sic] narrative and stay on track,” Lively’s complaint said.
Or read this on Variety
