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

Why I’m doing a PR deep dive #substack #shorts

8 May 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:20

In this YouTube short, Molly McPherson announces a members‑only deep‑dive event focused on public‑relations (PR) and reputation management surrounding recent text‑leak scandals involving high‑profile figures such as Blake Lively, Jenny Slate, and Justin Baldoni. She clarifies that the discussion will not cover legal analysis but will instead examine how lawyers, their PR teams, and the celebrities themselves handle crisis communication. McPherson highlights specific examples—Justin Baldoni’s lawyer Brian Friedman and the PR strategies employed by the lawyers and the celebrities’ own teams—to illustrate lessons on managing and wrangling reputation when a scandal “skids out.” The event will be available as a replay for members, and she promises actionable, professional takeaways for PR practitioners rather than personal commentary on the celebrities.

Chapters

I'm not talking about the legal aspects. There's a million content creators out there who do that. I will talk about what the lawyers are doing, like Justin Baldoni's lawyer, Brian Friedman. I'll talk about the PR of the lawyers. Uh, but I want to talk about the PR, Blake's PR, Justin's PR, also Justin's PR team. I have thoughts. Um, what we have learned from the texts that have come out, Blake Lively, Jenny Slate, like all these texts that are coming out, we are only going to look at the PR. So it's a members-only event. The replay will be on the members-only as well. But like everything I do, the takeaway that we're going to have there, there's going to be a takeaway professionally because I don't want to just sit and talk about Blake Lively. Who gives a crap about Blake Lively? I don't, okay? She doesn't deserve to rent any space in my head. As a person, I'm not a fan. I will say that. Um, but we have so much to learn from Blake Lively. Don't wait. So let's look at it from professionally, how you manage and wrangle reputation, especially when it's skidding out. Let's look at that relationship, the PR relationship aspect, because these are