I’ve been sitting on this post for a long time, struggling to express a nagging feeling that popped up early on during the legal back and forth between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively.

Go through documents about the case here.

I strongly believe that strong initial emotions need to be tempered with the wisdom that time and distance provide.  As I have written before, my first impulse was to defend Justin, because as the star of one of my favourite shows and a fellow Bahá’í, I couldn’t imagine him doing such a thing.  I sat with the discomfort that my reaction is the reason why so many oppressors get away with oppressing.  And then, I put Justin on trial, pouring over the evidence and being very hard on him, quite honestly (he’ll never read this, but in case he does, sorry about that, nothing personal!)

Holding Myself Accountable

Read about my initial thoughts on this case here.

Choosing to believe Blake Lively was an interesting exercise.  I looked at each piece of evidence presented by Justin, read through the legal documents, and followed public commentary.  I attacked (privately) every single thing that seemed to show Justin was innocent and whittled down all critics of Blake’s behavior to core problematic ones.  But again and again, I found that this was very difficult.  Most people had already made their opinions and were not willing to have any sort of conversation focused on figuring out the truth.  If people were pro-Justin, they tended to ignore some of the things that could make someone like Blake Lively uncomfortable.  If people were pro-Blake, they ignored the fact that when Blake addressed the behaviours that were making her uncomfortable, they were addressed immediately.

As the months advanced and I poured over the evidence that was shared, the more it became clear to me that Blake Lively hadn’t been honest in that infamous New York Times article published in December 2024, and, most importantly, the more it became clear that we need to have a conversation about the difference between holding her accountable and tearing her down.

You can’t make up your mind during the first hours, days, or even weeks

The most problematic behavior that I encountered is that people made up their minds early on.  It seems like they went with their initial gut reaction and stuck to it.  This encouraged people to make mountains out of molehills and ignore other mountains completely.  And it created conversations that were tearing down either Blake Lively or Justin Baldoni.  As a woman, though, there was a lot of hatred for women in general that seemed to find another outlet, and many couldn’t resist the opportunity to tear down a rich, beautiful woman.  The fact that she looked increasingly guilty with each legal filing didn’t help.  And if solid, credible proof comes out showing that Justin is guilty, I’ll definitely change my opinion accordingly.

Holding someone accountable never means tearing them down.

Let’s be clear: Blake Lively’s false accusations about sexual harassment are wrong, to put it mildly.  Not only did she accuse an innocent man and potentially ruin his career – or, at the very least, seriously curb it – but she continuously used (and is still using) her wealth and power to try to manipulate public perception to maintain the illusion of her innocence.

Blake Lively needs to be held accountable for the sake of women who are actual victims of sexual harassment.  However, because of these same victims, we need to be very careful how we hold Blake accountable.

We don’t need to call Blake ugly to show how ugly her actions were.  In fact, I think she’s beautiful, but I stand by the belief that what she did was ugly.

We don’t need to judge everything Blake Lively does as ugly because we understand that she is trying to manipulate public perception.  Blake posted a picture of a rabbit-shaped cake she made for her kids; we don’t need to insult her baking skills to make the point that she is trying to escape accountability by distracting us.

We don’t need to call Blake’s style ugly to show how out of touch she was with the source material when she bullied her way into taking over the wardrobe department.  Blake took over the wardrobe of her character in the In Ends With Us movie and the choices she made didn’t align with the character’s reality (think Louboutin shoes on a Walmart budget.)  But insulting all the outfits she has ever worn isn’t necessary to show how ugly this takeover was. In fact, I think a lot of her outfits are gorgeous, but I stand by the belief that what she did was ugly.

The problem with reporting in an attention economy

The challenge of holding a carefully nuanced conversation is further exacerbated by the attention economy.  Content creators and mainstream media both need to churn out content at an insane pace.  Because of the sheer amount of content being churned out, the content and titles need to be catchy, and the more incendiary the title, the catchier it’ll be.

I don’t think I need to explain why this makes it so much harder to hold someone accountable without tearing them down, do I?

The consequences of not being able to have an in-depth, nuanced conversation about this case

It is especially sad, in my opinion, that we can’t have in-depth, nuanced conversations about this case.  The dynamic between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni is so complex and brings about so many of the issues plaguing our society today.  We need to have conversations about the harassment of women.  But we also need to talk about class oppression, about wealth and the power it unfairly gives, about race perception and the way it affects our perception and can be used against someone, about celebrity culture and worship, about the way mainstream media tries to manipulate an increasingly media illiterate readership (including myself!), about the importance of content creators but the effect of the attention economy on the quality of their work – there is so much to unpack, and so much to learn.

But most of all, I feel really bad for Justin Baldoni.  He went through hell and back and yet he still has to be so careful to share his truth in a way that doesn’t fan the flames of hatred against Blake Lively.  I don’t know him and have never spoken with him, but I am also a Bahá’í, and I can tell you that the tension between not backbiting or creating disunity and the search for truth of justice is hard to navigate.  The public discourse around the case isn’t helping, and I do feel we have a collective responsibility to learn how to have these conversations in a way that holds guilty people accountable without tearing them down.