Why the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni feud keeps escalating — and how they can resolve it

If Blake Lively thought for a moment that donuts would help her gain a much-needed tactical victory, she sorely miscalculated. Deep in the throes of her ongoing war with her “It Ends With Us” costar and director Justin Baldoni, Lively recently stopped by a friend’s Connecticut bake shop to do some “baking with genius food friends” and hand out treats to customers. Online detractors swiftly accused her of pulling a “PR stunt” to seem more relatable, and trolls flooded the shop’s Yelp page, complaining that the haircare entrepreneur had failed to tie back her very long locks in the kitchen. Clearly, this is a battle that has escalated way beyond baked goods at this point. But this doesn’t have to become an endless quagmire. I have a degree in conflict resolution, and I know what I’d advise.

First, let’s briefly yet exhaustedly recap. The trouble began last summer during the decidedly chilly press blitz for the much-anticipated Colleen Hoover adaptation of her best-selling novel. At the time, a torrent of fan antipathy and hit pieces was mainly directed at Lively—in particular, for her seemingly tone-deaf approach to a story about domestic violence. 

Later, however, a New York Times investigation revealed an orchestrated smear strategy spearheaded by Baldoni’s publicist Melissa Nathan. In December, Lively filed suit against Baldoni and his team — alleging, among other complaints, sexual harassment and a campaign to destroy her reputation — seeking punitive damages at “an amount to be determined at trial.” Baldoni, not to be outdone, then unleashed his own wave of lawsuits: a $250 million libel suit against the New York Times and a $400 million suit against Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, and their team.

There have since been many more ancillary accusations and lawsuits between other players; there have been gag orders, leaked videos and voice memos, motions to dismiss, and a whole lot of fiery statements on all sides, but you get the gist. I’m going to stay out of speculating on what went down or the precise culpability of each party; I’ll just note that you don’t have to be likable to be wronged, and harm doesn’t always flow evenly or in one direction.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni star in “It Ends With Us” (Sony Pictures Entertainment/Nicole Rivelli). There are numerous approaches to conflict resolution, but it always needs to begin with getting clear on what the parties involved actually want. There are their identified positions, which, as in this case, tend to run toward the “I’m right, you’re wrong, now pay me” variety. But then underneath are the interests. Interests are the “Why?” of it all, the heart of what the parties truly hope to get in the outcome. And when you begin to dig in there, the lawsuits and the money often become largely symbolic. 

During a recent Zoom conversation with Robert Bordone, founder of the Cambridge Negotiation Institute, and behavioral neurologist Joel Salinas, MD, co-author of “Conflict Resilience: Negotiating Disagreement Without Giving Up or Giving In,” Bordone talked to me about the role of the three E’s in conflict: “ego, emotions and escalation.” With Blake and Baldoni, “All of these seem to be very powerfully in play for all the parties involved,” he said, noting, “Research has shown that when people are made to be embarrassed in public, their interests tend to shift. They move toward wanting retribution.” And punishment is not the same as justice. 

What can happen when that shift happens, as Salinas explained, are the lawsuits, which carry “a pretense of credibility, which can also raise emotions even more,” and, he said, “then make it so much more of an existential threat on either side.”

Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively are seen on the set of ‘It Ends with Us’ on January 12, 2024 in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)When you have two actors and their no doubt well-compensated teams of lawyers and publicists in what sure looks like an arms race to out-embarrass each other, the only real winners are going to be the lawyers and publicists. And the longer a conflict like this drags on, the more difficult it becomes to get out of it. A sunk-cost fallacy rears its head, with the parties increasingly feeling they’ve gone too far to change course. For one side to pivot to a different tack can be interpreted as a gesture of capitulation.

We are left now with two parties who seem bent on nothing short of mutually assured professional destruction, and if that’s their goal, Baldoni and Lively are doing great. In one corner, there’s Baldoni, who has become radioactive now in Hollywood, thanks not just to the alarming revelations about his behavior on the set of his film but also his subsequent scorched earth moves, from the early publicity campaign to his website of “evidence” to those big bucks lawsuits. 

Then there’s Lively. Independent of the legal intricacies here, a story involving a successful woman coming forward with allegations of being harassed and then smeared by her director/costar would seem a no-brainer in the court of public opinion. And it’s true that with the support of her A-list husband and her powerful industry friends, Lively now has an upper hand in the optics. But this is far from a slam dunk. Aside from the damage wrought by Baldoni and his team, Lively — as the donut incident shows — now has a big image problem and a cloud of drama attached to her name.

“If I just had a minute with them,” Bordone told me, “the most important thing that I would try to model for them is listening.” He’d encourage “getting them to think more long term in a way that invites them to pause, and creating some space for them to be more mindful about what’s most important to them.” 

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

The not-lost-on-anyone irony here is that this all started with a movie about abuse. To have both parties centering themselves so firmly in this dispute doesn’t achieve what either seems to want — to look like the good guy here, the one who is telling the truth. And the way to look good if you’re a Hollywood actor is probably not by demanding huge sums of money but by taking concrete steps to de-escalate. That means, however uncomfortable it may seem, shifting the public focus elsewhere — think of Martha Stewart famously focusing on her salad amid insider trading allegations. No matter how baited by the other side or the press one may be, what if either party just laid low about it all for a while? We live in a wildly reactive culture. Not reacting can be an incredible power move.

Another de-escalation tactic — one that always feels like a massive longshot to even broach — is direct and detailed accountability. If, for one example, Baldoni were to communicate to Lively some contrition for his part in this dispute, it could blunt a great deal of the ongoing fallout. I’m not talking about a letter from a lawyer or a post on Instagram, I mean a real, person-to-person gesture. Owning up to one’s mistakes is one of the hardest and scariest actions one can make in a dispute. It’s also frequently one of the most effective. It allows the other side to examine their own behavior and open up a less hostile dialogue.

The other more important and effective tactic here is to put money where mouths are and make the story about something bigger than the individuals involved. “You could mediate something with a resolution that might involve donations to advocacy groups, or advance a set of interests about the way women are treated in the entertainment industry,” said Bordone. Or just make the settlement sum irrelevant. Gwyneth Paltrow and Taylor Swift — two women just as polarizing as Lively — both masterfully made their points by winning lawsuits with awarded damages of just one dollar.

Of the two combatants in this fight, Lively now has the better opportunity to play a more effective game and win. She just needs to take a cue from her friend Swift and act in the interests of her reputation. It’s her move. And this either ends with someone doing something different, or this doesn’t end at all.