Crisis PR on the hot seat after Blake Lively claims ‘smear campaign’

In Blake Lively’s bombshell sexual harassment accusation against Justin Baldoni, the fixers are now part of the problem.

On top of the laundry list of alleged wrongdoing on the set of the movie “It Ends with Us,” Lively’s surprise weekend filing against her director and costar Baldoni reveals a show business process designed to operate in the shadows — the hiring of expensive crisis communications experts to to influence opinion and lift customers.

Lawyers for Lively obtained several text messages between Baldoni’s personal rep Jennifer Abel and the crisis team he retained this summer, led by Melissa Nathan. Documents and texts said Baldoni did so to prepare for a scenario in which Lively would come forward with allegations from the set, as well as tales of key members distancing themselves from Baldoni during the promotion of the Sony Pictures release. The exchanges are frankly revealing – or “cringe-worthy”, as one competing crisis expert put it Black – efforts to counter Lively by recruiting friendly reporters and allegedly hiring a digital goblin to manufacture and amplify unflattering content about her.

Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman called the allegations and supporting documents, such as text messages and a multi-page strategy, “cherry-picked” to build a narrative that forgoes crucial context and, in what would be important to Baldoni in this case, passivity in comes after Lively. While the complaint is under investigation by Freedman, the attorney said he is confident the full picture will reveal that “nothing untoward happened” when it comes to Lively and Baldoni’s team — and that “reputational management,” as it commonly mentioned in the digital life of celebrities, is routine for countless public figures.

Over the weekend, Abel addressed the Lively complaint in a private Facebook group for PR and marketing professionals. The post, verified by Blacksaid the obtained texts and documents were not intended to smear the actress. “No negative press was ever facilitated, no social battle plan, although we were prepared for it, as it is our job to be ready for any scenario, but we did not have to implement anything because the Internet did the work for us”, Abel wrote.

In a statement, Freedman added that Nathan “acted as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client who experienced threats from two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources,” referring to Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds. “The standard scenario planning prepared by TAG PR proved unnecessary as the audience found Lively’s own actions, interviews and marketing during the campaign distasteful and reacted organically to what the media themselves picked up.”

Some power players were shocked by the heavy-handed tactics that Abel and Nathan brought to “tarnish” Lively. Nathan laid out a four-month battle plan with a $175,000 price tag to “start theory threads” on platforms like Reddit and TikTok in Baldoni’s favor and to create “social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts that help change (sic) narrative and stay on track,” said Lively’s complaint. Also contracted was Jed Wallace, operator of a company called Street Relations. One source described him as a “Ray Donovan” type of employee of powerful people. Freedman, who knows Wallace well, said he would not describe him as a fixer, but rather someone with deep resources for unusual circumstances (he knows how to get a helicopter for medical evacuation in remote parts of Italy , for example).

Lively’s complaint filed with the California Civil Rights Department said Wallace armed “a digital army around the country from New York to Los Angeles to create, view and promote content that appeared to be authentic.” While the suit doesn’t specify which stories might have targeted Lively, several unflattering pieces about the actress resurfaced during the press tour for “It Ends with Us.” They included problematic ones previous comments about the trans community (using the term “trannies”) and an attempted lifestyle brand launch in which Lively promoted the “allure” of an Antebellum South aesthetic.

Most importantly, Nathan emphasized in the early days, these efforts would be “untraceable.” Not anymore.

“It’s quite common for crisis people to be reactive, monitoring and responding to situations,” said a veteran media broker who has hired crisis firms on behalf of clients. “But to stage this whole campaign? To write this?”

The source added that “fix-it shops usually employ some cyberwarriors who come in to manage the chat, but it’s an unwritten code that you don’t want to hire companies or social media agitators to go out and write a new narrative .”

Crisis PR is common in many sectors for individuals, companies and political parties. What has industry insiders appalled by this conflict is the nature of the correspondence.

“You know we can bury anybody,” Nathan wrote to Abel in an August text cited in the complaint, ironically in an exchange about how she couldn’t put such things in writing to Baldoni. The quote ended up in a headline in the New York Times. In an early Monday statement, Freedman said it was “ironic that the New York Times, in its efforts to ‘uncover’ a stealth PR effort, played right into the hands of Lively’s own questionable PR tactics by publishing leaked personal text exchanges , which lacks critical context – the same tactics she accuses the company of implementing.”

Some public relations professionals were sympathetic to Abel and Nathan, given the unusual publication of private texts and documents, which were likely subject to confidentiality agreements.

“There are two smear campaigns going on here,” said a top studio executive. “One against Lively and one against the PR people. It’s not that Jen Abel and Melissa Nathan did nothing wrong, but who sold them out? There’s a code you don’t break.” Another industry figure, often involved in high-profile conflicts, said: “It’s crisis PR talk, isn’t it? Everybody talks like that. Everybody loves to talk a big game.”

The seriousness of the proposed campaign against Lively has led to some questions about how viable these kinds of services could be in court.

“I think people can see what Baldoni did as at least unfair, if not harmful or possibly illegal in terms of further harassment or retaliation,” said Ryan Baker, co-founder of the law firm Waymaker LLP. “It puts this under a little more scrutiny because all of these things obviously happened in a dynamic where Lively and Baldoni go back and forth.”

Another in-demand PR guru, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the sensational nature of the complaint distracts from an industry reality.

“These days all PR is crisis PR,” they said.

Updated 23 Dec: This post was updated to reflect that Nathan sent a message to Abel in August 2024, not February. The former’s SMS messages were delivered and stamped in European date format.