Hollywood’s Villains of the Year Are the ‘It Ends With Us’ Publicists

Blake Lively’s legal complaint against co-star Justin Baldoni and his team of operators exposes the sinister subset of the crisis communications industry that seeks to attack and misinform, even as Lively’s own tactics, and the role of notorious publicist Stephanie Jones, come further into focus.

The publicists leading this fight—mostly the team allegedly smearing star Blake Lively on behalf of her co-star and producer-director Justin Baldoni, but also many others involved here, both directly and tangentially—are Hollywood’s Villains of the Year. Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures

Matthew Belloni

December 24, 2024

Among the many ways that the internet has destroyed traditional Hollywood: What used to constitute public relations doesn’t really work anymore. The notion of a celebrity persona crafted solely via occasional media appearances seems about as quaint and outdated as a black-and-white movie or a print magazine. What matters now, in many circles, is the conversation, the constant churn of a carefully curated digital profile: media hits, social chatter and comments, video clips, and searchable content—both seeded and unseeded—that together comprise an evolving perception of a public person.