Scandals That Led To Blake Lively's Massive Downfall From Fame

Ever since the release of "It Ends with Us" in 2024, Blake Lively's name has been on everyone's lips. Unfortunately, it's been for all the wrong reasons. After she initiated a legal battle with her co-star and the film's director, Justin Baldoni, things haven't exactly been going Lively's way. The internet chose sides, and, as a result, some of Lively's old scandals resurfaced, only adding to the negative press surrounding her. Old interviews and quotes from the actor have been coming back to bite her, and Lively's list of controversial moments seem to be ever-growing. 

Unnamed sources have been hinting that Lively is worried her legal battle with Baldoni will cause professional repercussions. "She's fearing no one will want to work with her after this," a source disclosed to the Daily Mail. Sources that spoke to NewsNation made similar claims. "No one wants to work with Blake," one said. "She cost (producer) Wayfarer and Sony (the distributor of 'It Ends With Us') millions and blew past budgets with her demands and actions." 

Aside from the legal drama, Lively is also reportedly facing exile from her best friend, Taylor Swift, who got pulled into Lively and Baldoni's explosive legal battle when text exchanges between the two friends discussing the film were made public. Sources who spoke to gossip columnist Rob Shuter for his "Naughty But Nice" Substack claimed Lively has landed on the list of celebrities who likely won't get an invite to Swift's wedding. An insider told Shuter, "They [Lively and Ryan Reynolds] are not invited. Period. Taylor wants a drama-free day, and she no longer trusts Blake or Ryan." It seems Lively's beef with Baldoni has been one scandal too many. 

As Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's beef made headlines, so did the "A Simple Favor" actor's past behavior in some interviews. Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa posted a clip of her interviewing Lively and her "Café Society" co-star, Parker Posey, in 2016, to YouTube, titling the video, "The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job." 

In the clip, Flaa congratulates Lively on her pregnancy, telling her, "First of all, congrats on your little bump." Lively shot back, "Congrats on your little bump." She then seemed hellbent on making Flaa pay for mentioning her pregnancy. When the reporter asked about the clothes in the film, Lively turned to Posey and questioned, "But I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes." Lively then proceeded to speak only to Posey, completely ignoring Flaa. It was, to put it mildly, a bad look. 

Flaa later told TMZ she didn't release the video in an attempt to make Lively look bad amid the drama with Baldoni, claiming she had no idea about their feud prior to posting the clip. "Considering how she was acting in front of me, I'm thinking, okay, maybe she wasn't the easiest person to work with," Flaa surmised. She added that an apology would be great, but that she wasn't holding her breath. The clip couldn't have come at a worse time for Lively, and the comment section was filled with criticism, with one person writing, "If these two women can do this to a professional reporter, [in front] of a camera that is filming them, imagine how they treat other professional staff and 'ordinary' people without cameras!"

Along with that cringe-worthy interview, Blake Lively's former behavior towards her "Gossip Girl" co-star, Leighton Meester, also made a comeback as the drama between her and Justin Baldoni intensified. A viral TikTok of Lively and Meester at a panel discussion years ago hinted that the "It Ends with Us" star has no qualms about directing barbs at her co-star. In the clip, she told the audience, "Well, some of us started in a cage," while indicating Meester, whose mother gave birth to her while incarcerated.

It didn't help that rumors of a feud between Lively and Meester have been swirling for years. In 2017, "Gossip Girl" executive producer, Joshua Safran, told Vanity Fair that Lively and Meester never became besties, even though their characters were BFFs. "Blake and Leighton were not friends. They were friendly, but they were not friends like Serena and Blair. Yet the second they'd be on set together, it's as if they were," Safran told the outlet. He ascribed it to their vastly different personalities. Whereas Lively was an extrovert, Meester was an introvert who preferred to keep to herself, so the two didn't really gel in real life. Lively's unsavory jokes during panel discussions probably didn't help matters, and a 2008 New York Magazine piece reported that while filming, the two "avoid each other like the plague."

While Blake Lively managed to mostly breeze through the "Gossip Girl" drama, she wasn't so lucky with "It End with Us." The controversy started with Lively facing an onslaught of criticism for the way in which she promoted the film. In a Reel posted by the film's Instagram page, Lively encouraged fans to "grab your friends [and] wear your florals" to go watch the movie. Given that the storyline centers around domestic abuse, this message irked many people, and the clip went viral for all the wrong reasons. "Grab your friends wear your florals?? Sooo disrespectful to real survivors. Stop romanticizing violence," one disgruntled netizen penned. This reaction was shared by many.

It didn't help that Lively's haircare line, Blake Brown, was released at around the same time as "It Ends With Us." This evoked widespread criticism, but an insider disclosed to Entertainment Weekly that the timing wasn't deliberate, with the movie's initial release planned for Valentine's Day 2024, not August 2024. Lively did, however, use the film to promote Betty Buzz and Betty Booze, her beverage brands. The drinks were available at a pop-up store in New York promoting "It Ends with Us," and, of course, this only fueled the fire. 

Blake Lively's beef with her "It Ends with Us" co-star, Justin Baldoni, has perhaps been the biggest and most all-encompassing scandal of her career. To put it into perspective, the drama started prior to the film's release in August 2024, and as of this writing, it's still ongoing.

Fans first suspected something was off when Lively and Baldoni didn't appear together to promote the film. It was odd, given that they were the leading stars. Eagle-eyed netizens did some digging, and discovered that Lively also wasn't following Baldoni's social media accounts. Something was fishy, but neither of the two addressed the rumors during the press tour. It was during this time that Lively faced widespread backlash on the internet for the way in which she was promoting the film. She would later claim that the negative press was set in motion by Baldoni and his team. The actor-director has denied any wrongdoing and retaliated by filing an unsuccessful countersuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, in January 2025. In the suit, he accused Lively and her team of trying to ruin his reputation. Court documents claimed the "Green Lantern" star shared "grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media," per the BBC.

Needless to say, the "It Ends with Us" drama has been neverending, with the legal battle continuing into 2026. What happens next is anyone's guess, but we have a feeling the drama is far from over.