For a few weeks in August, it was bad for Blake Lively. While her big comeback film, It Ends With Us, was and is a big hit, Blake was heavily criticized for her moves around the film’s promotion. That criticism opened the door for wider analysis of Blake’s sh-tty character, her rudeness, her Mean Girl energy, her love of all things antebellum. It’s easy to forget, but in my mind, the backlash to Blake began because she was doing too much to “snub” Justin Baldoni and there was a clear effort afoot to make Baldoni into the bad guy. It all flipped on her though, because people were like “why are promoting your haircare and liquor lines during the promotion for a film about domestic violence?” Well, instead of just going away for a few months (her fans have the attention spans of gnats) and pretending like nothing happened, Blake and her team are trying to adjust the narrative. Blake felt vulnerable and upset at the backlash, you guys.
Blake Lively was caught off guard by the negative attention she faced while rolling out her hit movie It Ends With Us. The actress was “pretty surprised at the backlash and drama” that surrounded the romantic drama’s release last month, a source tells PEOPLE.
“She initially felt very vulnerable and upset,” adds the source. “During the promotion of the movie, not one day went by when she was not in the news in an unfavorable light. She’s just not used to this kind of drama.”
The source says the situation “felt out of control to her.” Still, Lively, 37, who next appears in A Simple Favor 2 with Anna Kendrick, “enjoys working and will continue to push forward projects that she’s excited about.”
Lively is also a producer behind the Colleen Hoover adaptation It Ends With Us, which has since become the highest-grossing box-office hit of the actress’ career so far. Reports of tension between Lively and the film’s director and male lead Justin Baldoni caused a firestorm of media attention after the two costars did not pose for photos together on the red carpet at the premiere. They also didn’t do any press together in the lead-up to the release.
Additionally, some people online took issue with the film’s marketing campaign, claiming it was misleading for a project that deals with themes of domestic violence and trauma. And brief clips from Lively’s interviews, recent and years-old, went viral on social media with criticisms.
Is it wrong or right in this situation to acknowledge the “online” conversations? For a celebrity like Blake… I don’t know. If I was working on her PR, I would have suggested going away for a few months (as I said) and then acknowledging the backlash in a lighter, funnier way on social media, like “lesson learned, you guys, I won’t promote cocktails alongside my DV movie again.” Running to People Magazine to position yourself in this way reeks of a white woman crying victim the second she gets (legitimately) called out for being an a–hole.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.