Thanks to Blake Lively’s lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, the internet is revisiting last year’s so-called “feud” between Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber.
What could Hailey Bieber possibly have to do with all the It Ends With Us saga? Well, she was used as an example in Baldoni’s alleged press strategy to “bury” Lively if issues arose while promoting the film. (For more a more timeline of the evolving It Ends With Us discourse, click here.)
According to a New York Times report, Baldoni became nervous after Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds blocked him on Instagram in May—three months before the discourse began in August. “We should have a plan for IF she does the same when movie comes out,” Baldoni reportedly wrote to a publicist named Jennifer Abel. “Plans make me feel more at ease.”
Read moreJustin Baldoni, Blake Lively, and the It Ends With Us Controversies, Explained
Blake Lively is suing Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment.
In another alleged text exchange with crisis PR expert Melissa Nathan (who previously represented Johnny Depp) in early August, Abel suggested Baldoni “wants to feel like [Lively] can be buried.” Three days later, The New York Times reports he sent a negative X.com thread about another celebrity to his publicist. Per screenshots shared by People, that post was titled, “Hailey Bieber’s history of bullying many women.”
Along with the image, he allegedly wrote, “This is what we would need,” to which Abel replied, “Yes I literally just spoke to Melissa about this on the break about what we discussed last night for social and digital. Focus on Reddit, TikTok, [Instagram].”
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Per the NYT, Nathan eventually “floated” plans to hire contractors to “change narrative” online through “full social account take downs,” starting “threads of theories” that would be “untraceable.”
In a statement to the NYT, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman claims Lively planted “negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media” about Baldoni, which “was another reason why Wayfarer Studios made the decision to hire a crisis professional.” The lawyer claims reps for Wayfarer Studio “did nothing proactive nor retaliated” against Lively.
“These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media,” Freedman wrote, describing Lively’s lawsuit as “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation.” You can read the New York Times’ extensive report here or just read the actual lawsuit here.
Read moreThe Hailey Bieber ‘Drama’ Is Actually Just Cyberbullying, and We’re All Complicit
Let’s call it what it is.
By Lucy Morgan
All this is forcing celebrity gossip connoisseurs to reckon with the intricate nature of smear campaigns, particularly the one they now believe was levied against Hailey Bieber in 2023. For a brief refresher, the internet has long pitted Bieber and Gomez against one another due to their relationships with Bieber’s husband and Gomez’s ex, Justin Bieber. The drama reached a fever pitch in 2023 after fans accused Kylie Jenner of making fun of Gomez during a FaceTime with Bieber.
Fans were convinced Jenner and Bieber zoomed in on their eyebrows to bully Gomez, who had recently joked about accidentally over laminating her eyebrows on TikTok. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, the following internet pile-on was so rabid Bieber reached out to Gomez to ask her fans to stop sending her death threats. Over eyebrows!! Now, fans are recalling just how awful it really was.
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“Hailey Bieber’s hate train from last year is still some of the nastiest shit i’ve been forced to sit through why was it literally a global trend to bully the girl over conspiracy theories the world still owes her the biggest apology,” wrote one user on X.com on December 21.
Another wrote, “The level of vileness that Hailey Bieber has experienced from the internet is now being used as a fucking blueprint for other misogynistic hate trains against other women????? bro.”
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While plenty of people owe Bieber an apology, some believe Selena Gomez is one of them. When the drama first picked up in February 2023, Gomez called the negative response to Jenner’s post “unnecessary.” However, that very same day, she also commented on another post that described Bieber as a “mean girl” and “bully” based on a resurfaced video from 2017.
Now, some are even theorizing the pile-on against Bieber was “orchestrated” in a similar manner to Baldoni’s alleged social media strategy, though there is no proof of this suggestion. “Hailey Bieber’s hate train was orchestrated by someone from Hollywood (and we all know who) and y’all won’t ever change my mind,” one user wrote.
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While I would caution readers against using this moment to start an unsubstantiated hate campaign against yet another woman, Blake Lively would probably be happy to know so many people are clocking the way Bieber was treated in the past—and the ways we should all do better moving forward.
In a statement to the New York Times, Lively said, “I hope that my 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.”
The post The Blake Lively v. Justin Baldoni Lawsuit Is Making People Rethink the Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez ‘Feud’ appeared first on Glamour.
