Molly McPhersonCrisis and Reputation Strategist | Creator of Mollyfi | Host of The PR Breakdown

Who I think is the real villain in the Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni story.

21 Jan 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:22

This content was created by Molly McPherson. This content was uploaded by Molly McPherson. This is a YouTube commentary (title: "Who I think is the real villain in the Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni story.") uploaded/created on 2026-01-21. The excerpt is a single-speaker monologue in which the speaker critiques media coverage and PR tactics around a celebrity story, referencing Taylor Swift, NPR strategic public relations, TMZ/Harvey Levin, and the Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni narrative. The speaker states they previously wrote about and identified the real "villain" in August 2024 when they were a Forbes contributor and insists their view has not changed; the tone is analytical and opinionated about who shapes headlines and red herrings in the coverage.

Chapters

The algo fed me this headline this morning. I am only spending five minutes on Taylor Swift. I. I have client work to do. Crises never rest. There are two, two stories in here. One is the headline about the text. Okay, fine. That's not what we're paying attention to. I want you to pay attention to two other through lines in here. One is Taylor Swift, NPR strategic public relations and what Tre Pain is doing behind the scenes. I watched part of the Harvey Levin when he's sitting there, you know, gabbing with the, with the editorial team there and saying we were told, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So who tells TMZ what to tell them? Taylor's team. This is going off script from what TMZ was told. So that's 1, 2. Scroll down the story. I cast my roles in this story in August 2024. I was, I was a contributor for Forbes back then. And I wrote the story because I sensed, I sensed who. Who was who in this story. And I cast the villain role back then. And I haven't shifted from that. I have not shifted. Blake and Justin and Taylor, red herrings. The real villain in the story. I stand by him.