This story published today about Blake Lively and her legal battle with the actor/director of her latest movie is a real eye-opener. There is a gossip element here but it’s really about how the business of Hollywood intersects with people who have a lot of money and power, enough to shape the media landscape into whatever they want it to be.
For those of you who don’t know, Blake Lively is an actress who recently starred in a pretty successful film called It Ends With Us.
In addition to being a movie star, she is married to Ryan Reynolds, an even bigger movie star who recently appeared in Deadpool & Wolverine, one of the biggest hits of the year (It came in 2nd in total box office behind Inside Out 2). She’s also apparently good friends with Taylor Swift who is currently the biggest pop star in the world.
But it turns out those rumors didn’t arise on their own. Lively has now sued her co-star and his production company claiming they ran a media campaign to badmouth her, harming her reputation in order to downplay news about how she was treated on set. It seems that mean girls isn’t just a film in Hollywood, it’s a profession.