Justin Baldoni continues to reveal the documentation he kept from his communications with Blake Lively, before, during and after they filmed It Ends With Us. This is all part of Baldoni’s lawsuit against Blake, Ryan Reynolds and their publicist Leslie Sloane, which came several weeks after he sued the New York Times, which came after Blake filed the complaint and sued Baldoni and his team. This is a web of lawsuits and yet it’s been playing out in the court of public opinion for more than a month. Blake and Ryan want Baldoni and his lawyer under a gag order, one of the biggest “let’s put the genie back in the bottle” attempts in recent memory. In recent days, I’ve seen some interesting attack pieces on Baldoni. If Blake and Ryan are behind some of those pieces, they’re doing a better job hiding their fingerprints.
As for Baldoni’s latest release, it’s a voice memo he sent to Blake at 2 am. The backstory (as you can hear somewhat in the recording) is that Baldoni had just met with Blake at her Tribeca penthouse hours earlier. This was the infamous meeting where Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift were also present, and Blake gave Justin some pages – scenes which she claimed to have rewritten, although it’s likely Ryan did the rewrites, scabbing in the middle of the writers’ strike. After Baldoni wasn’t wild about “Blake’s rewrites” in the meeting and clearly didn’t appreciate Blake using her A-list husband and BFF to pressure him, Blake sent him that text about how she’s the Khaleesi and Taylor and Ryan are her dragons, basically an implied threat that they needed to use the rewrites. So, this was the message Baldoni sent to Blake after the Khaleesi text:
Here’s TMZ’s coverage:
Justin Baldoni is following through on his vow to release all his communications with Blake Lively … revealing a nearly 7-minute apology he sent her at 2 AM while they were working on the “It Ends With Us” script.
Justin’s voice note was clearly recorded shortly after the costars’ now infamous meeting to discuss the movie’s rooftop scene — which Blake had rewritten — and he’s apologizing for his less than warm reaction to the changes … saying, “I’m really sorry. I f***ed up. I will admit and apologize when I fail. I’m a very flawed man, as my wife will attest.”
He continued, “I’m gonna piss you off, probably, but I will always apologize and find my way back to center. I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I will, for sure, do better.”
This was the meeting where Blake had her husband Ryan Reynolds and BFF Taylor Swift cheerleading for her script changes, and Justin acknowledges their input, telling Blake … “Damn right, you’ve got great friends. We should all have friends like that, aside from the fact that they’re 2 of the most creative people on the planet.”
Remember, in a text message to Justin, Blake referred to herself as Khaleesi from “Game of Thrones,” and called Taylor and Ryan her protective dragons. In his voice message, Justin says the 3 of them together are an incredibly powerful force, and he gushes about wanting to spend time with her crafting the movie. As we previously reported, Justin has said in legal docs, after that meeting, he felt like he needed to get on board with Blake’s changes or else.
Now, there are portions of the message folks who are Team Blake might find creepy — for instance, toward the end, Justin’s telling Blake how sorry he is that she’s had previous bad experiences with other filmmakers. He calls them “f***heads” and, ironically, tells her, “That’s not at all gonna be, or will be, and hopefully it’s not been the experience with me. There’s nothing more exciting to me that I get to work with Blake Lively and have all of her. I mean, that’s what I want!”
Justin goes on to say he and Blake are the “secret sauce” to making a great movie, and then finally, around 6 minutes and 30 seconds into the message, he cuts himself off and says, “I’m sorry. You probably have kids all over you, and a baby on your boob and you’re listening to me ramble.”
I know people are going to interpret the voice memo however they want, and obviously, people have really strong feelings about this situation. In my opinion, this memo sounds too personal and a bit creepy if you’re considering it in a siloed situation, without the backstory of the Khaleesi text and the fact that Taylor Swift was apparently trying to convince the director of a film to use “Blake’s rewrites.” I also think it’s clear that Baldoni was trying to just keep the show on the road, you know? He was trying to “manage” his leading actress and tell her what (he thought) she needed to hear.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.