Who the hell would wake up so early to wait for a court session? I thought, as I waited in line for the same court session. We were in the New York court building for the latest installment of the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni legal saga over alleged sexual harassment and retaliation, stemming from the production of It Ends With Us. Maybe you’ve heard of it. There were certainly fans in attendance — and none of them seemed to be there to support Lively.
Now, Justin Baldoni might seem like an odd person to be a ride-or-die fan of. He’s arguably best known for his role in Jane the Virgin, his content on toxic masculinity, and this legal case. Not a career comparable to Johnny Depp, another famous man who went through a high-profile court case with a litany of rabid fans. Baldoni, too, is far from a perfect hero in the case of feminism: Newly unsealed court documents allege that he gave an interview that had to be pulled after he said that his character raped Lively’s character out of love. But hey, maybe none of that matters!
In the bathroom before we went up to the courtroom, a woman asked if I was “excited” for things to get going. I’m sure I responded with something banal. The general itinerary was that Baldoni’s team would try to argue that the case should be tossed out of court, while Lively’s team argued that Baldoni’s team had destroyed evidence. Neither Baldoni nor Lively were there, and this is still all pre-trial.
Not all of the hours that ensued were the stuff of high-octane courtroom dramas — much focused on the specifics of contract law. In the break, I asked the women sitting next to me what had brought them there. They mentioned their obsession with the case, and their thinking that Lively’s arguments were “weak.” They pointed out two content creators in the gallery with us who they followed: lawyers @lilgirlattorney and @notactuallygolden.
But much of the content focused on sexual harassment, such as when Baldoni’s team called the allegations of sexual harassment “trivial and petty grievances,” did garner a response from the crowd. A woman sitting by me, who told me she was on “Team Truth,” often shook her head and tutted whenever allegations were brought up against Baldoni. People smirked or laughed, seemingly only whenever the judge brought up criticisms of Lively’s case. A man in front of me nodded and shook his head like we were at a tennis match.
Once the proceedings were done and we were all reunited with our phones, the real debriefing began. Content creators went live outside the court, posed for photos, and chatted with followers.
One of the creators was @katyinkc, who has over 63k followers on TikTok and traveled to New York to attend. She’s a dietician who makes social media content about the case. She livestreamed from the street outside the court this morning, saying that she thought it would be the “end of the road” for the case after Baldoni’s team argued the case should be tossed. At one point, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, approached her mid-livestream. He described himself as a “fan” of hers and says, “We are following each other.”
“It was some juicy tea to be honest, and that’s how it kind of started,” she told me of her initial interest in the case after the proceedings were done. “Who’s gonna want to work with Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively after this? I have no idea.”
Lively’s evidence isn’t up to Katy’s muster. “I try to remain neutral and unbiased,” she told me. “If it comes out and there’s evidence that supports her allegations and her claims that she has brought to court against Justin Baldoni, I will eat my words.”
I asked her about some of the pro-Baldoni content creators around this trial who have gone as far as to denounce #MeToo as a hoax, or suggest that Harvey Weinstein is innocent (Candace Owens, who covers the case, hopes to exonerate Weinstein). “I’m very much more leaning on the Justin Baldoni side, but that’s just because of all the evidence,” she said. “I genuinely have no skin in the game on either. I don’t care about them as people. I’ve never watched Jane the Virgin. I [didn’t] know who he was prior to this, to be honest.”
One person who did know Baldoni from his career beforehand was the woman behind “Docket Updates,” a website dedicated to updates on the case. She saw him on Jane the Virgin and some of his podcast content, describing him as a “transparent” and “authentic” person. She flew in from Louisiana the night before and woke up at 5.30 a.m. just to attend court.
I brought up the numerous women, such as Liz Plank, who had negative things to say about working with Baldoni. Sigrid McCawley, a member of Lively’s legal team, said in a prior statement, “The newly unsealed damning evidence reveals the experiences numerous women had working with Baldoni. Blake is not alone.” However, to the woman behind Docket Updates, she thought that the women had changed their tune to get on the good side of Lively and Reynolds. She thought most instances were cases of “contamination”: “It was like, ‘Oh, I don’t like him. Oh, wait, let me revisit everything… Now, I don’t like him because I want to be your friend.’”
Then there was Irma, who also attended as a fan. She described Blake as an “average looking woman” and “not that great of an actress,” who did not have a good reputation even prior to the legal case. “She’s been the harasser. In fact, she’s the predator. So is her husband. Unfortunately, those claims were dismissed too quickly by the judge.” I asked her about the very fact that Baldoni’s suit was tossed out of court. She called the judge “definitely biased.”
If there’s any indication of how Baldoni’s supporters will take the trial, which is scheduled for May, it’s this. Conspiratorial, sure. But isn’t that the American way right now?