Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.In the long-running mud-slinging spectacle that is Blake Lively versus Justin Baldoni, Lively made a rare public appearance as a guest on the entertainment juggernaut Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary show last weekend. She turned up with her husband Ryan Reynolds, the suave Canadian actor best known for his role in Deadpool and for his co-ownership of Wrexham AFC. He made a joke, apparently about his wife’s lawsuit against Baldoni, in which she has accused her It Ends with Us co-star of sexual harassment and an attempt to mount a smear campaign. The moment provoked outrage: Baldoni’s lawyer pronounced that “I’m unaware of anybody frankly whose wife has been sexually harassed and has made jokes about that type of situation”. The outing was deemed a mis-step by the court of social media. The scorecard shifted once again.Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the most debasing PR battle of the modern era? Perhaps you don’t know who Blake Lively is? Unless you are a millennial, it’s possible you missed her career-making turn as Serena van der Woodsen in the hit 2007-12 TV drama about insufferable teen scions, Gossip Girl. Lively has occupied a plum position in alpha Hollywood without much in the way of hits: instead her fame has been largely sustained via entrepreneurial endeavours promoting haircare, her favourite recipes and covers for US Vogue. Fires have raged through California, the Israel-Hamas war hangs suspended on a fragile ceasefire, Nato is dissolving by the hour. And still Lively and Baldoni have kept on slugging out their various grievancesThis particular saga began in August, during promotion for It Ends with Us, a film adaptation of the bestselling book by Colleen Hoover about breaking a cycle of domestic abuse. Observers soon noticed a cooling of relations between Lively (the film’s star and one of its producers) and Baldoni, the director and actor who played her on-screen abuser and paramour.In December, Lively set out her case against Baldoni, accusing him of on-set harassment and a co-ordinated smear campaign. It was documented at length in the New York Times article “We Can Bury Anyone”, in which it was presented that Lively, an unusually outspoken and powerful female in the industry, had been victim of a strategy that manipulated decades-old misogynies. Baldoni sued the NYT for libel and filed a federal lawsuit in New York against Lively, Reynolds, the publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s agency Vision PR, in which he claimed $400mn. Baldoni says he has been used as a “scapegoat” for Lively’s negative press attention, and that he has done nothing wrong. He has since set up a website to support his lawsuit on which he has uploaded a screed of he-said-she-said documentary evidence, including notes, texts and voice memos.A trial has now been set to take place in New York in March 2026. Taylor Swift may be called to testify as having key insights into the dispute. Lively and Swift were once such good buddies that Swift name-checked Lively’s children in a song. Things have cooled since the revelation of a text, included in Baldoni’s lawsuit, in which Lively compares herself to Khaleesi in Game of Thrones: “Like her, I happen to have a few dragons,” it reads, in an allusion to her celebrity circle. “My dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine.” If Swift was indeed one of these “gorgeous monsters”, she has since reportedly exited the scene. According to Page Six of the New York Post, Swift “needs space” from their 10-year friendship and the pair no longer speak.The dispute is grim, unedifying and never-ending. It appears petty and embarrassing and, as has proven with so many he-said-she-said cases, its observers have split into opposing camps. No question, Baldoni seems like a douchebag: how else would you describe a man who lists among his “gifts” an ability to “listen to women”, and once sent Reynolds a cringe-inducing overture asking if they might “be friends”. Similarly, with each new revelation, Lively stands on ever shakier ground. Some of her accusations have been complicated by documentary evidence that appears to contradict her. She too has sent cringey messages about her “love language” and how she’s “spicy and playfully bold”. At this point, the duo appear to be caught in a death grip, a pact of mutual destruction in which neither party can claim victory. As a study of how not to be a modern celebrity, it’s a cautionary tale. Yet, with every week comes a new chapter; the story continues to roll on. Fires have raged through California, the Israel-Hamas war hangs suspended on a fragile ceasefire, the Nato alliance is dissolving by the hour. And still Lively and Baldoni have kept on slugging out their various grievances for all to hear. Last week, we learnt that the risk level of an asteroid hit, courtesy of the so-called space rock 2024 YR4, had reached the highest-ever alert. There’s a 3.1 per cent chance of impact on December 22 2032. Maybe the only thing that will stop Khaleesi is an extinction-level event. At a point when the news is endlessly scary, the Baldoni-Lively saga has been the perfect salve: it’s the ultimate distraction, a “good news” story, if you will. When the world is so unstable, there’s a strange comfort to be found in a sorry tale of Bad Hollywood, narcissism and self-delusion on an epic scale. I thank God for Lively and Baldoni, if only so that I can anaesthetise myself from the real news. As long as I can bury my head in this pop-culture battle, I don’t need to think about Putin’s increasing power. People ask why we “care” about celebrity spats and scandals. But that’s not the point at all. When the news agenda is so overwhelming, I want stories about which I need not care at all. [email protected] out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning
