Blake Lively and the Making of a Cancellation

“Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands,” Melissa Nathan—the crisis public relations expert who preserved alleged domestic abuser Johnny Depp’s public image—texted behind the scenes of her latest smear-campaign-for-hire. The New York Times called Nathan’s bluff. publishing the extent of her actor-director client Justin Baldoni’s alleged retaliatory social media operation to turn public sentiment against actress Blake Lively, the target of his alleged workplace sexual harassment on their film “It Ends with Us.”

This week, Katelyn and Christine discuss the coordinated campaign against Lively, perpetrated by our old enemies behind the Amber Heard defamation allegation. We highly recommend you check out the links in the show notes for the context that Cancel Me, Daddy has been providing since its beginnings with Oliver and Katelyn! Revisit the 2022 “Depp-ception” episode with guest and “Cancel Gunkle” Michael Hobbes, who returned in 2023 to cancel The New York Times over spurious and harmful reporting about trans kids. We’re still side-eyeing the paper and the byline.

Links:

• Megan Twohey, Mike McIntire, and Julie Tate for The New York Times: ‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine
• Cancel Me, Daddy, 05/26/2022: Deep Depp-ception (ft. Michael Hobbes)
• Cancel Me, Daddy, 06/09/2022: Fallout Of A Verdict (ft. Moira Donegan)
• Transgender Map by Andrea James: Megan Twohey vs. transgender people
• Cancel Me, Daddy, 01/26/2023: We're Back to Cancel the New York Times (ft. Michael Hobbes)
• Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein: Slain Healthcare CEO’s Life Airbrushed by Media
• Andrew Beaujon for Washingtonian: Felicia Sonmez’s Dismissal by the Washington Post Will Go Before the NLRB
• Porpentine for The New Inquiry: Hot Allostatic Load
• Emily St. James for Vox: How Twitter can ruin a life
• It’s Been a Minute, 06/16/2023: Are children a marginalized group?

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