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Blake Lively is making headlines for an unexpected reason.
In recent court filings, the embattled actress asserts that being branded as a “mean girl” in her contentious legal dispute with Justin Baldoni has cost her close to $300 million.
Sure, and perhaps I deserve compensation for enduring her questionable attempt at a Boston accent in “The Town.”
I’m still recovering from that experience.
The former “Gossip Girl” icon, who is married to the immensely wealthy actor Ryan Reynolds, alleges that due to alleged reputational harm from a media-driven smear campaign, she’s missing out on about $40.5 million. The campaign purportedly painted her with terms like “tone-deaf,” “bully,” and “mean girl.”
Lively alleges she also missed out on past and future income — between $34.3 million and $87.8 million — from missed acting and endorsement opportunities.
And she claims to have lost $39.6 million to $143.5 million in profits from her haircare and booze brands that she hawked during the promotion of “It Ends With Us,” the movie that caused all this drama.
This smear campaign accusation is laughable. Lively shouldn’t blame Team Baldoni for those derisive labels. She can thank herself.
We learned who she is by watching her.
We saw her strange interactions with reporters during the promotion of “It Ends with Us,” discussing domestic violence like it was a sunny floral arrangement.
Then there is her damning sit-down with Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa while Lively was promoting Woody Allen’s 2016 period piece, “Cafe Society.” Flaa has called it “the Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job.”
In it, a pregnant Lively mocked Flaa after the journalist congratulated her on her “bump.” Then she and co-star Parker Posey really dug in when Flaa asked them about their wardrobe in the 1930s-set movie.
“But I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes?” Lively said condescendingly, her body and face shifted toward Posey and completely cutting off Flaa.
It was deeply uncomfortable to watch two fancy-pants celebrities deliberately make a working journalist feel like a piece of dust in the corner. The pair acted like rude little piggies feasting on the humiliation of someone they considered beneath them.
It is the kind of behavior associated with insecure tween girls trying to find their way in the middle-school ecosystem.
This is why people think Lively is a grade-A, 100% mean girl. Her team underestimates the intelligence of the general public.
Now Lively is living through a reputational nightmare, which could have been avoided if not for her ego and narcissism.
She could have wrapped “It Ends With Us” and simply moved on with her career and her life, leaving Baldoni in the review mirror — a footnote on her IMDB.
Instead, she filed the complaint in late 2024, alleging that she experienced sexual harassment on the set of the movie and lobbing some pretty terrible accusations at Baldoni.
The actress likely assumed Baldoni, who moonlighted as a male feminist influencer, would simply fold just as he had on key decisions in the movie, allowing her to wrest control of his project.
But the actor-director and his legal team has fought back like junkyard dogs.
And in the course of this ugly legal battle, troves of correspondence has been released exposing the truth about Lively’s seeming coordinated effort — with both her friend Taylor Swift and her husband Ryan Reynolds — to commandeer the movie. It also appeared to reveal her spouse’s heavy-handed interference on her behalf. It has not been a good look for the onetime golden power couple.
Lively clearly thought she was entitled to own the movie and to make a bundle by cross-promoting her hair care and booze lines.
She believed that she was owed success and adoration — and she was going to get her due by ruining an actor who barely anyone knew before this debacle. She allowed her ego to pull her right into the gutter.
A judge tossed 10 of Lively’s 13 allegations, including sexual harassment and defamation. It’s looking like the two will have an explosive showdown in court on May 18.
Even if the actress eventually wins, she has already lost the real battle. The world has seen the real her: an arsonist who burned down her own house.
Baldoni shouldn’t have to pay to rebuild it.