In this YouTube commentary, Molly McPherson argues that the true story of the Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Justin Baldoni controversy lies not in the legal filings but in the public relations (PR) handling. She critiques the Lively team for conflating the roles of a publicist—focused on visibility—with a crisis manager—focused on reputation protection—resulting in a disastrous media cycle. McPherson presents data from Muck Rack, citing over 22,000 tracked articles, sentiment-weighted coverage, and word clouds that show divergent media narratives for Lively, Reynolds, and Baldoni, highlighting that the plaintiff (Lively) suffered the worst sentiment despite being the suing party. She points to specific PR figures (Leslie Sloan, Brian Friedman) and strategies, and proposes a theory about who drove the saga from the start. The commentary serves both as media criticism and a promotion for a paid six‑segment Substack deep‑dive that includes full data, receipts, and her conclusions about the prime mover and recommended next steps for Lively. The broader lesson emphasized is that many public figures and business leaders confuse publicity with crisis management, leading to reputational damage despite high visibility.
Chapters
Many people are talking about the Blake Lively case in the wrong way. The lawyers are talking to the lawyers. The content creators are talking to the lawyers. Everybody is parsing the filings, debating the settlement, dissecting the depositions. I think they are missing the actual story because the real story of what happened between Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Justin Baldoni is not in the court documents. It is in the PR. And once you look at it that way, the whole picture changes. I just finished a 6-segment deep dive on this case for my Substack members. 6 segments, all the receipts, the word clouds, the sentiment data, and my full theory on who I actually think drove this entire thing. From the beginning. I'm going to give you a piece of it here, enough that you understand why I think the PR story matters more than the legal one. But the full breakdown, the numbers, and frankly, the part where I name who I think the prime mover is, that lives on Substack. Here is what you need to know to follow along. In August of 2024, Blake Lively went on the press tour for It Ends with Us, a film about domestic violence. And the press tour was a disaster from the first week. Quote, grab your friends, wear your florals for a movie about a woman being abused by her husband. Cross-promotion of Betty Buzz, her alcohol mixer brand, during a film tied to a topic statistically connected to alcohol abuse. A resurfaced 2016 interview going viral in the middle of a slow August news cycle. A premiere where Justin Baldoni, the director and co-star, was reportedly sent to the basement with his family because, in his words, he was not allowed to be seen. Grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it. But if you saw the photos or the video, you know that that's the case. He was in the basement. Now, I was writing for Forbes at the time as a contributor, and I noticed all of this Immediately, the PR machinations were too visible. People magazine said one thing, Deadline said another, Variety said a third. All the strings were showing. That is when I started paying attention. And what I have watched unfold since has been honestly one of the worst managed celebrity crises I've ever covered. Here is the hill I will die on, and I want you to sit with this because it applies to a lot more than celebrity drama. There is no such thing as a crisis publicist. The two functions cancel each other out. A publicist's job is visibility. They pitch stories, they plant stories. They measure success by how much coverage they get. A crisis manager's job is the opposite. We, as in me and the other we's, we reduce the surface area. We stop stories from running. We absorb hits and we redirect them. We measure success by damage avoided. When you hire a publicist to manage a crisis, you get a lot of news coverage, which is great if your goal is visibility, but it's catastrophic if your goal is reputation. And that's what happened to Blake Lively's team. They confused publicity with crisis management. And it is the same mistake I see business owners and public figures making all the time. You call your publicist when the story breaks because that's the relationship you have. And some people will call their lawyers. And trust me when I tell you, lawyers only care about legal liability. They do not care about reputational liabilities. So here is where I'm going to leave you wanting more. I pulled the data from Muck Rack, over 22,000 articles tracked across the case. Sentiment-weighted coverage on Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Justin Baldoni from the start of the press tour through the Met Gala this month. The plaintiff in this case, the person who filed the lawsuit, has the worst coverage of all three parties. Now let that sit for a second. The person who sued has worse sentiment numbers than the person she sued. That is not PR strategy working. That is strategy collapsing in real time. When you pull each person's word cloud, the largest, most mentioned terms in their press coverage, the story tells itself. I will give you one preview. Ryan Reynolds' word cloud has almost none of the legal case in it. His dominant terms are Deadpool, Wrexham, Hugh Jackman, Premier League, sports, friendships. His hit movies. Same crisis, same marriage, completely different press coverage. One person is absorbing every reputational hit. The other one is not. And I have a theory about why. The Met Gala this month was, in my view, one of the most revealing moments in the entire 18-month saga for Blake Lively. The settlement of the lawsuit was announced that same day. No money. Most of Blake Lively's claims were dismissed because that was a part of the PR. She was also talking to Vogue about standing up for women, and her attorney went straight to People with the framing that it was a strategic move and she was refusing to be silenced. Ryan Reynolds? Not there. Her husband. On the day she settled the case, she said she filed for women everywhere. He did not show up. You can call it a coincidence, you could call it scheduling, but I think it tells you everything you need to know about who is being protected and who is being left to absorb the hits. That is the question I dig into in the full deep dive— who is actually being protected here and who I believe drove this entire thing from the beginning. Here's why this matters, even if you do not care about Blake Lively or Ryan Reynolds or any of these people. The team that wins the news cycle often loses the reputation. That is true for celebrities. It is true for CEOs. It is true for anyone in your life who finds themself under the microscope. If your strategy is generating coverage, you are doing publicity. If your strategy is protecting how you are remembered when all of it is over, then you're doing crisis management. They are not the same thing. And the people advising you might not know the difference. That is the lesson sitting underneath all of this. The Lively team is not the first to confuse the two, and they will not be the last. The video of the full deep dive is now up on my Substack for members. 6 segments, the full data, every word cloud, the Leslie Sloan backstory— that's Blake's PR person, and also she happens to be at the PR firm that is also handling Ryan Reynolds' PR. Also the Brian Friedman algorithm strategy. That's Justin Baldoni's attorney. And my theory on who I think actually drove all of this from the beginning, plus what I think Blake Lively should do next. And I assume this is not what her lawyers are telling her. Link is in the show notes. If you are not a member yet, this is a good month to fix it. Next month on the Deep Dive, we are doing creator clapbacks. Bring me the takedowns you want analyzed, and I will tell you what I am actually seeing when I look at them. Thanks everyone for listening. I will see you on Substack. Bye for now.
