By Variety | Created at 2024-12-23 23:05:41 | Updated at 2024-12-26 20:39:22
2 days ago
Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa has denied involvement in a smear campaign that was allegedly orchestrated by “It Ends With Us” director and actor Justin Baldoni against his co-star Blake Lively.
Over the summer, Flaa reposted an old interview to her YouTube channel with the title “The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job.” The video, which went viral and has amassed nearly 6 million views since August, was filmed in 2016 while Lively was doing press for Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society.” Flaa said Lively’s “dismissive” behavior during their sit-down contributed to “the most uncomfortable interview situation I have ever experienced.”
“I have nothing to do with Justin Baldoni and his smear campaign against Blake Lively that was reported on by The New York Times today,” Flaa captioned a video that was posted on Sunday to her Instagram page. “There are conspiracy theories out there accusing me of being paid by his PR team to help with their smear campaign. None of this is true.”
In the video, she added that she’d been “reading through the lawsuit and I see there’s been so much dirty work going on behind the scenes. And I just wanted to say I have nothing to do with it. When I read the text messages that was going back and forth between Justin Baldoni’s PR team, I was as shocked and appalled like everyone else. I would never take part in anything like that. That’s such an insult to me.”
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Lively was suing Baldoni for sexual harassment and accused him and his crisis public relations team of planning a smear campaign to tarnish her reputation and credibility out of concern that she’d go public with her allegations. As part of the exposé, the Times published alleged text messages between Baldoni and his PR team, in which they promise they could “bury anyone.”
Bryan Freedman, a lawyer for Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios, called Lively’s complaint “shameful” and full of “categorically false accusations.”
Flaa’s name is mentioned in the New York Times story in reference to online backlash about Lively. The article didn’t allege that Flaa was part of Baldoni’s team’s efforts to stoke negative press but noted her interview with Lively wasn’t the first time she posted a video that was aligned with a client of Baldoni’s same PR firm. Flaa also posted clips with Johnny Depp in 2022, amid his legal battle with his ex-wife Amber Heard, with the hashtag #JusticeForJohnny Depp.
“I was shocked that the New York Times insinuated that I had been working for Baldoni’s team. It made me sick to my stomach to read that,” Flaa told Variety. “I contacted the New York Times and asked them how they could print such a wild conspiracy theory, and they did add an update to the story yesterday. I still believe that it was terrible that the journalists never contacted me to confirm or deny such serious claims.”
The New York Times didn’t immediately respond to Variety’s request for comment but updated its article with Flaa’s response after publication.
Flaa addressed her support of Depp, saying in a separate video posted to her YouTube channel titled “How I feel about being dragged into Blake Lively’s lawsuit and Justin Baldoni’s smear campaign” that it nothing to do with the PR company he hired to drum up bad press against Heard. “I like Johnny Depp, I had great experiences with him, and I thought Amber Heard was lying in court,” she said. “I posted it to have sympathy with him and the fans that love him.”
During the “It Ends With Us” press tour, rumors were rampant that Lively and Baldoni didn’t get along as the film’s two leads didn’t do any press together and online sleuths discovered that most of the cast had unfollowed Baldoni on Instagram. Lively faced criticism in the lead-up to the film’s release for downplaying the domestic violence storyline and using the media coverage to promote her new haircare line. In the film, based on Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel, Lively plays a florist who finds herself in an abusive relationship with a charming surgeon (Baldoni). “It Ends With Us” became a huge box office hit for Sony, earning $350 million at the worldwide box office against a $25 million budget. Despite the commercial success, a source told Variety that a sequel was unlikely to take place because “there’s probably no world where these two will work together again.”
In the video posted to her YouTube channel, Flaa shared that she wasn’t aware of the backlash against Lively when she recirculated her video interview, and she did so because she “had enough of Hollywood and wasn’t afraid of being canceled.”
Flaa told Variety she has no regrets about recirculating the prior conversation with Lively, in which she says the actor was “very dismissive of me and ignored me during most of my interview. People in the comment section described it as ‘mean girl’ behavior.”
“The suit is no excuse for her behavior in my interview from 2016. I also believe that two things can be true at the same time. Blake behaved poorly in my interview. Justin allegedly behaved terrible towards her during shooting of the movie,” Flaa said in a follow-up interview. “One has nothing to do with the other.”
Flaa clarified that she was not — and has never been — in contact with Baldoni’s public relations team. “I know nothing about Justin Baldoni. I know nothing about his PR team, and I definitely would never work with a PR team under any circumstances to put hate out there on the internet against someone or to smear someone,” she said. “I would never ever do that.”
In her video, Flaa concluded that she “has no idea where the truth is here” — referring to the allegations against Baldoni — but added that she “would never accept money to jeopardize my integrity as a journalist.”
