Ryan Reynolds' Reportedly Aggressive Role In Protecting Blake Lively's Reputation, Revealed

Spooky season is in full effect this October, especially for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, who have yet to escape the hauntings of the "It Ends With Us" drama. Ghosts of lawsuits past have reemerged as a series of text messages have been released despite a settlement announcement this past May (the same day Lively proudly walked the Met Gala carpet). Lively sued director and co-star of the film, Justin Baldoni, with claims of sexual harassment and a smear campaign against her. The texts, obtained by the Daily Mail, detailed Reynolds fight on Lively's behalf as he attempted to shift reason for the backlash onto Sony's marketing campaign for the film.

"They (Sony) have to start advocating for her," Reynolds said in a text to talent agent Warren Zavala. At the time these texts were sent, Lively was in the throes of the film's promotional tour, with rumors of on-set drama and controversy coming to a boil. Reynolds continued, "They need to frame it the right way. This isn't hard." He then added a draft introduction for what a statement from Sony would look like: "'Sony would like to acknowledge the predominant narrative around IEWU [It Ends With Us]. This is incredibly wrong. And untrue. This is part of a systematic and coordinated campaign by a crisis PR team.'" Reynolds didn't hold back, hinting that Baldoni was behind the negative press, saying Sony "[has] to stop bullsh***ing us and get in front. Not just because it's the right thing to do but because these guys are doing this with ZERO repercussions. Baldoni needs to see that an entire studio knows what he's doing."

During the promotional tour for "It Ends With Us," Lively was under a particularly awkward spotlight. Lively's character in the film, Lily Bloom, experiences domestic violence at the hands of Justin Baldoni's character, Ryle Kincaid. It appeared, however, that Lively didn't quite get the memo when it came to her junket interviews. From poor outfit choices to choosing the worst time to promote her new hair care line, it seemed there was always a reason behind the scrutiny. One of her biggest controversies developed when reporter Jake Hamilton asked Lively about how she would respond if a victim of domestic violence wanted to talk to her after seeing the film. "Maybe asking for, like, my address, or my phone number," she answered sarcastically. "Or, like, location share?! I could just location-share you..." Lively added (via Mandatory).

Per Lively's lawsuit, she recalled the shady detail that Justin Baldoni hired crisis publicist Melissa Nathan for the smear campaign against her. A source connected to Ryan Reynolds told the Daily Mail, "It is no secret that Ryan believed his wife was being targeted by a crisis PR team hired by Baldoni... This is the same crisis team who has been accused of these smear tactics in at least 5 other lawsuits according to the NYT." 

Earlier this week, The New York Times broke down five lawsuits filed by women claiming to be victims of nefarious smear campaigns backed by Nathan and others — the same people Lively alleged worked with Baldoni to ruin her image. While the case has been dismissed and settled, it cannot be denied that Lively's reputation has plummeted in the years following the "It Ends With Us" drama. Lively and Reynolds may believe the backlash was planned, but it's clear that Lively had her fair share of messy moments to clean up. With this drama resurfacing, it seems that now's the time for Lively to cosplay Queen Khaleesi once more, only this time, we'll have to see just how many "dragons" she'll have by her side.