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VERY QUICKLY23 Dec 2024
Astroturfing and the It Ends With Us drama
- You know the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni falling out? There's a word for it.
- On Friday, Lively sued her It Ends With Us director and co-star, Baldoni, for sexual harassment and retaliation. An NYT piece also detailed private messages among a group including Baldoni, his producer James Heath, and crisis PR expert Melissa Nathan. These messages exposed their plans to mount a smear campaign against Lively in case she went public with her allegations.
- Which brings us to the word of the week: astroturfing. According to Merriam Webster, this is the practice of disguising an orchestrated campaign as a spontaneous upwelling of public opinion.
- Nathan allegedly planted stories about Lively being difficult to work with, quashed social posts that questioned Baldoni’s behaviour, and created a narrative of Baldoni being creatively bullied by Lively.
- Back then, their plan performed better than the film, but now, with talent agency WME choosing to stand by Lively instead of Baldoni, it seems the truth will finally be out there.
