A recent legal complaint filed by actress Blake Lively sheds light on the indirect and underhanded tactics that Hollywood stars and high net worth individuals allegedly use to damage reputations and discredit individuals. Here, we explore what these tactics are, when they cross the line, and why a ‘good cop, bad cop’ approach to reputation management provides the best defence.
Smear campaigns are nothing new. Powerful individuals, organisations, and businesses have, for over a century, used various means at their disposal to ‘dig up dirt’ on the competition before revealing it to the world via different channels and media, such as ‘attack ads’ or interviews.
In the UK, defamation law has usually provided some protection against this, with the victim of such campaigns able to seek legal recourse for comments and claims that are demonstrably untrue.
A recent legal complaint filed by Hollywood actress Blake Lively, however, is concerning to both reputation management professionals and their clients, as it highlights the potential use of far more underhanded, and potentially untraceable, smear tactics that harness both the speed and proliferation of social media content to often devastating effect.
Why did Blake Lively file a legal complaint?
It all started with the announcement that actor and director Justin Baldoni was to make the popular novel It Ends With Us into a film. Starring Ms Lively as the film’s heroine, It Ends With Us tackled the sensitive and complex issue of domestic abuse, with Mr Baldoni portraying Ms Lively’s onscreen, abusive partner.
The film’s release, however, was beset with issues. Critics and viewers alike criticised the “tone deaf” press tour for making light of, and even romanticising, the serious issues of the film.
Ms Lively was subject to particular criticism, with press coverage of her glib remarks such as “grab your friends, wear your florals and go see it”, as well as her laughter and jokes during interviews, sparking indignation from fans and commentators.
At the same time, awkward interviews with Ms Lively from nearly ten years’ ago also began to resurface, with one journalist sharing a video of an exchange that she claimed nearly made her quit her job.
Put together, this activity turned the previously “inoffensive” Ms Lively into a subject of fierce criticism, leading to an article in which the Daily Mail questioned whether the actress was about to be “cancelled”.
What does Blake Lively allege in her complaint?
At the time, many saw this as a natural and organic response to Ms Lively’s mishandling of the film’s complex issues. A legal complaint filed by the actress in December 2024, however, casts into doubt just how organic and natural this response was.
According to her complaint, Ms Lively was the subject of “a sophisticated, co-ordinated, and well-financed retaliation plan” aimed at discrediting the actress before she went public with allegations of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment against Mr Baldoni and his studio Wayfarer.
The retaliation plan, which was developed by crisis communications specialist Melissa Nathan alongside Mr Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel, allegedly “proposed strategies to advance misleading counternarratives, including pushing Nathan’s narrative that Ms Lively had ‘less than favorable [sic] reputation’, proposing to ‘explore planting stories about the weaponization [sic] of feminism…’, and misleadingly blaming Ms. Lively for production members’ job losses.”
These strategies “relied on more than just publicists and crisis managers spinning stories”, involving “a weaponized [sic] digital army […] to create, seed, and promote content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums”. This content was then given to “unwitting reporters, making content go viral in order to influence public opinion and thereby cause an organic pile-on”. The same techniques were also allegedly employed to “bolster Mr. Baldoni’s credibility and suppress any negative content”.
Such was the success of this campaign, that Ms Nathan commented in a text to Ms Abel (made public in the complaint) that “the majority of socials are so pro Justin [Baldoni] and I don’t even agree with half of them lol”.
Why are these allegations concerning?
PR and crisis professionals who ‘spin’ stories in a way that positively reflects their clients are nothing new. As one anonymous PR executive commented, however, the tactics allegedly employed by Mr Baldoni and his team are “more reminiscent of Russian interference in an election than defending a client”.
Underhanded tactics to create and artificially inflate a story, whether by exploiting digital users, planting misinformation through anonymous comments, or resurfacing old content out of context, are all concerning not least because the source is much harder to trace. Even media professionals are finding it more difficult to distinguish between a genuine story and a molehill artificially inflated into a mountain, with the New York Times stating that it was “impossible to know how much of the negative publicity” was created by Baldoni’s team, and how much was “noticed and amplified”.
The power of social media also means that reputationally damaging content can spread quickly and profusely before the other side has had a chance to react to, or counter, the accusations against them.
How can individuals protect themselves?
Whilst Ms Lively’s complaint may help to raise awareness of these tactics, the scope and capability of social media make it a powerful medium on which to harm reputations and discredit individuals.
As such, it is important that reputation management strategies contain both proactive measures that can prevent social media ‘pile-ons’ from taking root, and reactive ones to minimise the damage of any that are already bearing fruit.
The proactive measures can be seen as the ‘good cop’, who maintains business-as-usual public and press relations activity, whilst also thoroughly reviewing existing available content to ensure it will not create a reputational headache later on.
The reactive measures are the ‘bad cop’, who employs a mixture of digital forensics and legal skills to find the source of malicious, defamatory material and respond accordingly, whether by demanding correction or clarification, sending cease-and-desist letters, issuing take-down notices, or filing a claim for defamation.
“Now our eyes are open, will we be harder to fool?” Such was the question posed by one journalist in the wake of Blake Lively’s legal complaint. Given the increasing sophistication of technologies such as deep fakes and ‘bots’, it seems unlikely that distinguishing the real from the artificial will get easier.
By raising awareness of these tactics, however, Ms Lively’s complaint does provide an opportunity for everyone to reevaluate how they consume media. In particular, it serves as a reminder of the importance of a proactive and a reactive approach to reputation management.