"We Can Bury Anyone": Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine
Last summer, as the release of "It Ends With Us" approached, director and star Justin Baldoni and lead producer Jamey Heath hired a crisis public relations expert to handle potential controversies surrounding the film. But instead of addressing concerns about complaints of misconduct by Blake Lively, the co-star, the team allegedly launched a smear campaign to damage her reputation.
According to a legal complaint filed by Lively, Baldoni and Heath repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made inappropriate comments to her during filming, and the studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator and an outside producer to address these issues. However, the men’s publicist, Melissa Nathan, and the digital strategy expert, Jed Wallace, who was hired to manage the film’s social media presence, allegedly worked to sabotage Lively’s reputation and reinforce negative stories about her.
The complaint claims that the P.R. effort was explicitly designed to harm Lively’s reputation, and that messages and emails show that Nathan, Wallace, and other team members worked to remove negative content about Baldoni and reinforce positive stories about him. The goal, according to the complaint, was to "bury" Lively’s reputation.
The effort appears to have been successful, with online criticism of Lively skyrocketing and sales of her new hair-care line plummeting. Meanwhile, Baldoni emerged largely unscathed, and even received an award for his work on the film, which has been praised for its portrayal of domestic violence.
The complaint alleges that the smear campaign included boosting negative posts about Lively on social media, planting "dirt" on her with media outlets, and using fake social media accounts to create a false narrative. The team also allegedly used a "hired gun" to lead the digital strategy, which included creating "threads of theories" and "social account take-downs" to change the narrative.
Lively’s complaint also claims that Nathan and Wallace worked to plant negative stories about her with media outlets and to create the appearance of a rift between her and Baldoni. The complaint claims that the men’s behavior improved somewhat with the introduction of safeguards, but that their P.R. team continued to work against her.
The case is part of a larger trend of complaints about the use of smear tactics in Hollywood, where celebrities, publicists, and media outlets can wield significant power to shape public opinion. The case has sparked concerns about the ability of powerful interests to manipulate the media and silence critics, and the impact on the lives of those targeted by these campaigns.