Is actress Blake Lively the next Amber Heard?

The last six months have been a reputational roller coaster for American actress Blake Lively.

And now, her actor husband Ryan Reynolds and pop star pal Taylor Swift have been dragged along for the ride.

The sexual harassment lawsuit Lively recently initiated against her It Ends With Us (2024) co-star and director Justin Baldoni has prompted not one but

two vigorous lawsuits by Baldoni

.

And the result may do far more damage to her image than his, not unlike what happened with American actress Amber Heard when she made abuse claims against American actor and former husband Johnny Depp.

If

Depp winning his 2022 defamation case

against Heard marked the beginning of the end for the #MeToo era – where the catchphrase was “believe all women” – Baldoni and Lively’s “he said, she said” saga might be the last nail in the coffin.

It begins with It Ends With Us, a romantic film in which Lively and Baldoni’s characters fall in love, then fall apart because he grows abusive.

When it opened in North American cinemas in August 2024, the 37-year-old actress – star of the teen drama Gossip Girl (2007 to 2012) – went viral for all the wrong reasons.

Many thought

her flippant approach to the press tour

– and decision to use it to tout her haircare and alcohol brands – was in poor taste, given the film’s domestic violence theme.

Old interviews where she had been rude to journalists resurfaced, and suddenly Lively seemed more Mean Girl than It Girl.

But the narrative flipped when The New York Times ran a December 2024 expose, titled “We Can Bury Anyone”: Inside A Hollywood Smear Machine.

The piece detailed Lively’s claims – the basis of her subsequent lawsuit – that

she had been sexually harassed by American actor Baldoni, 40

.

It said Baldoni and his team, fearing the impact of her allegations, staged a secret campaign to smear her image by planting negative stories in the press and on social media.

Suddenly, there was

a groundswell of support for Lively

, who in a statement said she hoped the suit would help protect others “who speak up about misconduct”.

But the pendulum has swung the other way as Baldoni responded to these claims.

On Dec 31, he filed a US$250 million (S$340 million) defamation lawsuit against The Times, and on Jan 16, a US$400 million lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds and their publicists.

And juicy excerpts from those lengthy filings – obtained by Variety and People magazines as well as news website DailyMail.com – have many social media users defecting to Team Justin.

For instance, Lively claims Baldoni barged into her make-up trailer uninvited, including when she was breastfeeding.

Yet, a friendly text exchange between the two Baldoni shared implies otherwise, with Lively saying: “I’m just pumping in my trailer if you wanna work out our lines.”

Her suit claims he objectified her by describing her character’s outfits as sexy, but in a text, the actress argues for a certain wardrobe choice because it is “much sexier”.

Lively contends that Baldoni – who starred in comedy drama Jane The Virgin (2014 to 2019) – also found “backchannel ways of criticising her body and weight”, even asking her fitness trainer what she weighed.

But the actor points to his history of debilitating back problems and says he was just making sure he could safely lift her in a scene.

The biggest bombshells in these filings, however, relate to how Lively used her and Reynolds’ star power to wrest control of the movie from Baldoni and disrupt production.

Without the latter’s knowledge, she had Reynolds – the 48-year-old Canadian-American star of the Deadpool superhero films (2016 to present) – rewrite part of the script.

She then hired her own editor to make a different cut of the film – and even though Baldoni’s version did better with test audiences, hers was the one released, the director claims.

She also insisted on rewriting a critical scene.

When he hesitated, Lively allegedly invited him to her New York penthouse, where Reynolds and the couple’s “mega-celebrity friend” – referred to by Baldoni as “Taylor” and believed to be American singer-songwriter Swift, 35 – pressured him into acquiescing.

The actress then allegedly compared herself with Khaleesi – the dragon-queen character from fantasy series Game Of Thrones (2011 to 2019) – and said Reynolds and Swift were the “dragons”, or “gorgeous monsters”, who protect her.

The clear message, Baldoni’s filing says, was that “two of the most influential and wealthy celebrities in the world... were not afraid to make things very difficult for him”.

So, who to believe? If you can imagine a director abusing his position and harassing an actress, it is not that hard to picture a Hollywood power couple flexing their muscles with someone much lower on the totem pole.

Online sleuths – the same crowd who figured out that Lively and Baldoni do not follow each other on Instagram when It Ends With Us was released – are also forensically going through the actors’ entire online presence.

Lively’s biggest problem here is her old interviews. Every few days, another unflattering clip surfaces, and Baldoni’s lawyer has also hinted at damning footage of her behaviour on set.

But, whatever the veracity or legal merits of these claims, the reputational damage has been done.