Megyn Kelly isn’t the most obvious candidate to land a scoop about a Hollywood feud. But in January the right-leaning firebrand was joined on her SiriusXM program by Justin Baldoni’s lead attorney, Bryan Freedman. Kelly debuted a voice message from Baldoni to his “dream team” editing the movie in which he described being, in Kelly’s sympathetic paraphrasing, “put in the basement on the premiere of his own movie” to meet the alleged demands of his It Ends With Us costar, Blake Lively. Freedman then made a comprehensive case for his client for just under 10 minutes. The YouTube clip alone passed 1 million views. Hollywood trades picked up the story. And Freedman continued on his aggressive media tour.
Baldoni’s voice memo was part of the effort to soften his image. The director and star of It Ends With Us entered 2025 having just been sued by Lively for creating a hostile work environment, with specific allegations including sexual harassment. Baldoni called Lively’s claims “completely false,” filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and released more (selective) correspondence. Meanwhile, Freedman has depicted Lively as a waking Hollywood nightmare.
The ugly back-and-forth got play virtually everywhere after The New York Times reported the news of Lively’s suit, but right-wing media truly milked the narrative. For weeks, Kelly weighed in on seemingly any update that reflected well on Baldoni. (She has also been represented by Freedman.) The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro asked if Lively would ever recover. Candace Owens discussed the battle on her online show nearly every day, casting Lively’s misery as revenge for #MeToo.
Right-wing talking heads love stories about liberal hypocrisy, and Hollywood is a great hunting ground. Coverage of the Lively-Baldoni affair, in fact, has resembled another grim case contested as much in the court of public opinion as the court of law: Depp v. Heard. Johnny Depp was awarded more than $10 million in damages from Amber Heard after a jury found her references in a Washington Post op-ed to “sexual violence” and “domestic abuse” to be false and defamatory of Depp. You can guess which side of the political aisle cheered this verdict with the most enthusiasm. (Heard won one of her three countersuit claims and was awarded $2 million in damages.)
During the trial, you could tell the public was largely Team Depp, as gleefully sexist memes mocking Heard proliferated on TikTok and YouTube. The campaign was facilitated by Depp’s sophisticated crisis-PR operation—the same firm, notably, that Baldoni hired—and further boosted by the Republican Party. The House Judiciary GOP’s official Twitter account applauded the news of Depp’s court win. Donald Trump Jr. posted, “Believe all women…except Amber Heard.” The case presented the chance for a sweeping, collective #MeToo backlash, abruptly reversing a five-year trend of powerful men facing consequences. Who cares if Depp once joked about assassinating Trump? At least he’s a man.
Unlike Heard, Lively has a famous and wealthy husband in Reynolds, and the right wing’s narrative now is that the Hollywood machine will stomp all over justice in the interest of feminism. They’re clearly thinking that if the vilification of empathy can help elect a president, it can certainly boost ratings and clicks. Early this year Kelly gave her audience an update. “Poor little meek, powerless Blake had to deal with [Justin’s] aggressive advances—that’s just so obviously a lie at this point,” she said. “She’s made herself into Amber Heard.” And the conservative media did everything they could to help.
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