A journalist who went viral after sharing her “rude” interview with Blake Lively has publicly commented following the recent bombshell lawsuit filed by the actress.
As widely reported, the 37-year-old star has taken legal action against Jason Baldoni for sexual harassment and alleged he tried to destroy her reputation with a smear campaign.
When It Ends With Us was released in theatres in August, the film was marred by rumors of a feud between its two leading stars.
The feud speculations started after social media sleuths noticed that Lively doesn’t follow Baldoni, 40, on Instagram, nor does anyone else in the cast.
This was then intensified after the two stars failed to make any joint public appearances, and the actor alluded to "friction" between him and Lively on set in an interview cited by PEOPLE.
The alleged rift between co-stars brought renewed attention to past controversies involving Lively, including an uncomfortable 2016 interview she did with Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa.
Watch the interview below:The 51-year-old reporter sat down with Lively and then-co-star Parker Posey at the time for Cafe Society, opening the conversation by congratulating the then-28-year-old on her "little bump".
The Age of Adaline star, who just announced her second pregnancy with husband Ryan Reynolds, sarcastically responded: "Congrats on your little bump."
The viral interview, largely forgotten, resurfaced in August when the journalist unexpectedly uploaded it to YouTube eight years after the initial encounter.
She titled the clip "The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job," and told Daily Mail at the time that she released it so "that people behaving badly in Hollywood, or anywhere else for that matter, get called out for it".
There is new speculation about why the journalist uploaded the video years later after it was alleged in Lively's lawsuit that Baldoni orchestrated what was described as a "social manipulation" campaign to tarnish the actress' reputation.
This was documented through emails and text messages - reportedly obtained via subpoena - allegedly between Baldoni, his publicist, and his crisis management team.
The New York Times shared a report that suggested a possible connection between Flaa's release of the interview and the alleged campaign.
“It wasn’t the first time she had posted a video aligned with a client of Ms. Nathan. In 2022, in the midst of Mr. Depp’s legal battle with Ms. Heard, Ms. Flaa posted clips of her interviews with the actor, tagged #JusticeForJohnnyDepp,” the article read.
But the reporter is fighting back against these theories in a video posted on Instagram, which was captioned: "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 also shared in the clip that she was just as "shocked and appalled" as everyone when she read the lawsuit. "I would never take part in anything like that. That’s such an insult to me," she added.
The reporter said in another video uploaded on YouTube that she had "never met" Baldoni and "actually didn’t know he existed" before this film.
Lively also filed a complaint against Baldoni's production company, Wayfarer Studios, its co-founder Steve Sarowitz, and the film’s lead producer, Jamey Heath.
She also filed against Jed Wallace, Melissa Nathan, and Jennifer Abel, all accused of being involved in a smear campaign.
The mom-of-four said in a statement to The New York Times that she hopes her legal action "helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted".
Meanwhile, Bryan Freedman, Baldoni's lawyer, hit back and told PEOPLE that the actress' lawsuit was to "fix her negative reputation," and blasted her allegations as "false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt".
The attorney added that Lively caused problems on the set of the film, which is currently streaming, "threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release".
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