Megyn Kelly isn’t buying actor Blake Lively’s legal claims against her “It Ends with Us” costar and director Justin Baldoni.
The former Fox News host unleashed a lengthy rant against Lively, whom she deemed a “serial fraudster” on Thursday’s episode of her SiriusXM radio show.
“My own position is she’s absolutely ruined her brand. She has started a fight she cannot win,” Kelly said. “I have yet to see one of her complaints borne out. In fact, all of the ones I’ve seen have been undermined by [Baldoni’s] hardcore proof in text messaging and so on. That puts a totally different light on her horrific allegations. Then you see what she actually said and wrote. It’s very different.”
Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni and then a lawsuit alleging that the director had sexually harassed her while on the set of “It Ends with Us” and had orchestrated a smear campaign to damage her reputation following the film’s release in August of last year.
Baldoni has denied any wrongdoing and retaliated with a $250 million libel lawsuit against The New York Times over its coverage of Lively’s allegations. He also filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, alleging defamation.
Watch a clip of Megyn Kelly discussing Blake Lively below.
Though the trial over Baldoni and Lively’s dispute isn’t slated to take place until next year, the case resurfaced in the headlines this week after a video interview in which Lively acknowledged her interest in securing more creative control and “authorship” over her film and TV projects went viral.
Kelly claimed Lively’s comments in the interview, shot at the 2022 Forbes Power Women’s Summit, suggested that she’d had “secret plans” to take control of the movie.
“That’s called fraud when you pretend … you’ll do the thing they’re hiring you for, but all along, you have secret plans to do something very, very different that’s above your pay grade,” she said. “And she finally bumped into someone who was weak enough and not famous enough to stop her.”
“This Justin Baldoni, most people had never even heard of him. He’d been in like one series,” Kelly continued. “He certainly wasn’t at Ryan Reynolds-level fame, never mind Blake Lively, and she bullied him into giving her the movie, where she did her own cut.”
Kelly’s assessment aside, the “It Ends with Us” drama doesn’t appear to have had a lasting impact on Lively’s Hollywood career ― at least not yet.
Last month, director Paul Feig quashed reports that Amazon had shelved Lively’s next film, “Another Simple Favor,” amid the legal turmoil.
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In an Instagram post confirming the movie’s South by Southwest premiere next month, Feig called Lively “a dream to work with” and “an amazing collaborator.”
