Publicity tours are usually boring. They’re a grind of fluorescent hotel rooms, lukewarm coffee, and actors answering the same question about their "process" for the four-hundredth time. But the summer of 2024 was different. Blake Lively, usually the golden girl of the Met Gala and the undisputed queen of the "perfectly relatable" celebrity brand, hit a wall. Hard.
What started as a standard press run for It Ends With Us spiraled into a masterclass on how to lose the room. It wasn’t just one awkward moment. It was a pile-on of Blake Lively bad interviews that felt, to many fans, like the mask finally slipped.
People were genuinely confused. How did the girl next door from Gossip Girl suddenly become the poster child for "mean girl" energy?
The Interview That Nearly Ended a Career
It’s wild how a video from eight years ago can suddenly reappear and wreck someone’s week. While the world was already side-eyeing the It Ends With Us promo, Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa dropped a bomb. She uploaded a 2016 clip titled "The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job."
It was painful. Truly.
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The setup: Flaa starts the interview by congratulating Lively on her pregnancy. "Congrats on your little bump," she says. Lively, instead of a simple "thank you," fires back with a sarcastic, "Congrats on your little bump."
The kicker? The journalist wasn't pregnant.
Flaa later revealed she was actually struggling with infertility at the time. Watching that clip in 2024, the internet didn't see "witty Blake." They saw a wealthy superstar being unnecessarily cruel to a person just trying to do their job. It felt like punching down. The interview continued with Lively and her co-star Parker Posey basically ignoring Flaa, chatting with each other as if the interviewer wasn't even in the room.
Tone-Deafness and the "Grab Your Florals" Fiasco
The real trouble, honestly, was the way It Ends With Us was marketed. If you haven’t read the book, it’s a heavy, often devastating look at domestic violence. It is not a rom-com. It is not a summer fashion flick.
Yet, Lively’s promotional vibe was... weirdly upbeat.
She was telling fans to "grab your friends, wear your florals" and come see the movie. It felt like she was pitching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 3 rather than a story about a woman being abused by her partner. Critics and survivors were baffled. How do you promote a film about trauma by pivoting to your new hair care line and floral outfits?
One specific interview on Access Hollywood became a lightning rod for this frustration. When asked what she would say to survivors who relate to the movie's themes, Lively gave a response that many felt minimized the gravity of their experience. She said, "You are so much more than just a survivor or just a victim... you are a person of multitudes."
While the sentiment of not being defined by trauma is fine in a vacuum, survivors felt it missed the mark. They wanted acknowledgement of the pain, not a "girl boss" pivot.
The Justin Baldoni Feud: Fact vs. Fiction
You can't talk about these Blake Lively bad interviews without mentioning the elephant in the room: Justin Baldoni.
The internet sleuths noticed it first—the cast wasn't doing press with the director. Baldoni, who also starred as the abuser Ryle, was doing solo interviews that focused heavily on domestic violence resources. Meanwhile, Lively was doing press with the rest of the cast and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.
The rumors were everywhere:
- Lively allegedly felt "fat-shamed" by Baldoni on set.
- Baldoni allegedly lingered too long during a kissing scene.
- There were "two different cuts" of the movie, with Lively commissioning her own edit.
Then things got legal. In late 2024 and early 2025, the drama moved from TikTok to the courtroom. Lively filed complaints alleging a hostile workplace, while Baldoni's camp suggested the backlash against her was a result of her own "tone-deaf" choices rather than a coordinated smear campaign. By the time 2026 rolled around, the lawsuits were still messy, with a trial set for May.
Honestly, the whole thing felt like a high-stakes version of Gossip Girl, but without the fun outfits.
Why the Backlash Stuck
Celebrities have bad days. We get that. But the reason these interviews became such a "moment" is because of the perceived lack of accountability.
There was no "I'm sorry I was rude in 2016." There was no "I realize the floral marketing was insensitive." Instead, there was a pivot to lawsuits and PR maneuvering. According to some reports, Lively's brands—Blake Brown hair care and her Betty Buzz mixers—saw a massive dip in sales during the height of the controversy. Some estimates put the loss at nearly 78%.
People aren't just buying a product anymore; they're buying into the person. And for a few months, people weren't sure they liked the person Blake Lively was presenting.
Lessons from the PR Firestorm
Looking back, there are a few things that could have changed the narrative:
- Read the Room: If your movie is about domestic violence, maybe don't use it to sell hair masks and cocktails named after characters who commit abuse.
- The Power of a Real Apology: Acknowledge the awkwardness. If a video of you being rude goes viral, just say, "Yeah, I was having a bad day and I shouldn't have said that." It humanizes you.
- Consistency Matters: You can't be "relatable" one day and "untouchable superstar" the next without people noticing the friction.
The controversy has cooled off a bit as we head into 2026, but the digital footprint is permanent. For anyone in the public eye, it’s a reminder that authenticity isn't just a marketing buzzword—it's something people can smell a mile away if it's faked.
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If you're following the legal fallout of the It Ends With Us production, keep an eye on the court filings from the California Civil Rights Department. The upcoming trial in May 2026 is expected to reveal more about the actual on-set environment, which might finally clarify whether these bad interviews were the cause of the reputation shift or just a symptom of a much larger problem behind the scenes.
Actionable Insight: For fans or creators, the best way to handle a PR crisis isn't to ignore it or sue your way out. It's to lean into transparency. Watching how celebrities navigate these "fall from grace" moments provides a fascinating look at the mechanics of modern fame and the limits of traditional PR.