Bethenny Frankel admitted that she sense something was ‘off’ at the It Ends With Us premiere, which occurred months before Blake Lively sued her costar Justin Baldoni.
In a new TikTok video, uploaded to her account on Wednesday, the Skinnygirl mogul reflected on some of the things that she found peculiar at the premiere, held in New York City in August 2024.
‘I have the craziest It Ends With Us premiere story that I totally forgot about and I’m putting the pieces together now,’ Frankel said in the video, before noting that she previously refrained from sharing the story to prevent herself from getting ‘canceled.’
The former Real Housewives of New York City proceeded to recall arriving to the event in a ‘cute’ pink dress with her colleague, Danielle.
After walking the red carpet, she learned that they were waiting ‘an hour between the carpet and the premiere.’
The mom-of-one claims that in her more than ’20 years of going to movie premieres that this has never happened to her.
Bethenny Frankel admitted that she sense something was ‘off’ at the It Ends With Us premiere, which occurred months before Blake Lively sued her costar Justin Baldoni
‘Now maybe that happens. I’ve never seen that happen,’ she explained.
The awkward delay caused Frankel to struggle on what to do next because it was ‘too short to go to dinner’ but ‘too long to stand there in stilettos’
Ultimately, she and Danielle decided to get margaritas together to kill the time.
While on their way to get drinks, the reality star stated that she bumped into one of Lively’s team members, who she described as ‘little distant and a little icy’ toward her.
‘Just, there’s something that I’m like, ‘Wow, OK,’ and in other circumstances, this person is not this way and it just, it was slightly off-putting to Danielle and I. We both noted it,’ she told her followers.
Once they returned to watch the movie, she and Danielle, who were both a little buzzed, saw Anna Wintour and said hello to Baldoni.
What stood out to Frankel at this premiere was how everyone was ‘separated.’
‘Usually, not usually, always, unless it’s a weird different screening, the premiere is in one giant theater,’ she pointed out. ‘But here, he’s in one theater, [and] something’s going on somewhere else.’
She continued: ‘The vibe was off … I didn’t tell anybody because I thought I would be canceled if we left. Because the vibes were not vibing.’
In a new TikTok video, uploaded to her account on Wednesday, the Skinnygirl mogul reflected on some of the things that she found peculiar at the premiere, held in New York City in August 2024
Frankel also joked leaving would have been a waste of hair, makeup, outfit and trip to the city.
She went on to insist that ‘something was definitely awry from the jump and it was palpable.’
Still, she said she had to go early because the ‘vibes were not vibing.’
‘It felt like I was doing something wrong, but it felt like I was also doing something right,’ she said of her decision to slip out prematurely. ‘Something was f**cked.’
Lively and Baldoni, 40, are currently embroiled in a legal dispute. She starred in It Ends With Us opposite Baldoni, who also directed the film, which was released in theaters this past August and is currently streaming on Netflix.
She first sued on December 20, accusing Baldoni of sexually harassing her and fostering a toxic work environment on the set of their film. He has staunchly denied the allegations.
In the first complaint, she also claimed Baldoni worked to tarnish her reputation with a team including his publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis PR Melissa Nathan, who previously worked with Johnny Depp. Abel has denied waging a ‘smear campaign.’
Lively then launched more formal complaint on New Year’s Eve, doubling down on her accusations. She filed her first complaint with the California Civil Rights Commission, but is now suing Baldoni in federal court in New York.
Her December 31 filing came on the same day Baldoni initiated a $250M libel action against the New York Times for its bombshell report on Lively’s first complaint.
On Tuesday, a new voice note from Baldoni has been released in which the actor claims Lively ordered him and his loved ones to ‘go to a basement’ during a premiere of It Ends With Us.
Lively and Baldoni, 40, are currently embroiled in a legal dispute; she is pictured in 2024
Lively starred in It Ends With Us opposite Baldoni, who also directed the film, which was released in theaters this past August and is currently streaming on Netflix
In the clip, released on Tuesday’s The Megyn Kelly Show, Baldoni, addressing his ‘dream team’ who edited the film, said: ‘On what could have been one of the most beautiful nights of my life career wise, I literally was sent to the basement with all my friends and family for over an hour because I wasn’t allowed to be seen, she didn’t want me anywhere near her or the rest of the cast.
‘So they ushered me off the carpet and sent us down to the basement, we were down there together, my friends and family, the people that love me the most.
‘We start laughing because of the ridiculousness of this whole thing and I realize like on a night that was supposed to be so materialistically joyful, I was in the basement with the people that love me the most and we were all joyful and laughing cos none of that s**t matters, none of it.
‘That’s not why we’re in the business, to attend a premiere and be celebrated like that, we’re in it because we’re artists and we believe in what we do and we want to create art that touches people’s souls and can move people.
‘And that’s what we did, that’s what you both did and I believe that will follow us, the truth will prevail and light and love will win.’
She first sued on December 20, accusing Baldoni of sexually harassing her and fostering a toxic work environment on the set of their film. He has staunchly denied the allegations; the two seen in a still
Elsewhere in the chat, Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman responded to Lively’s claim she had been harassed by Baldoni, leading to his removal from the premiere.
He said: ‘If she [Lively] was sexually harassed to such a degree in this film and in this situation… she wouldn’t have returned to the film. They had sat down and they had talked about what her complaints were.
‘The unfortunate thing is she actually didn’t read the book and didn’t understand what the book was about and as a result of that the complaints are are things like, you know he had gone into her trailer when she was breastfeeding to which there are text messages that address that there were complaints.
‘That Jamey Heath, Justin’s partner had shown pornography, if you look at the actual complaint that they filed it says that that’s pornography but what Jamey Heath showed her was a still video of a home birth because they were discussing a scene about birthing and and you know that’s not pornography.
‘If you get down to the specific allegations I mean what this film was about, was about domestic violence. this film was about sex scenes that involved rough behavior and domestic violence and serious issues like that. At every turn, to the extent that anybody felt uncomfortable in any way on the film Justin took responsibility for it.’
He added that his team are ‘going to put every single document on a website for the public to read and come to their own conclusions.
‘And they can determine whether or not there was sexual harassment, whether there there was a smear campaign or there was retaliation because we have proof and receipts that absolutely and unequivocally show this is not true.’
This comes after Freedman claimed he has evidence of Lively’s alleged ‘pattern of bullying’ on It Ends With Us amid the pair’s vicious lawsuits against each other.
Freedman says he has ‘receipts’ showing Lively’s alleged ‘threats to take over the movie’ in a new statement issued to People on Tuesday, January 7.
He said: ‘It is painfully ironic that Blake Lively is accusing Justin Baldoni of weaponizing the media when her own team orchestrated this vicious attack by sending The New York Times grossly edited documents prior to even filing the complaint.
‘We are releasing all of the evidence which will show a pattern of bullying and threats to take over the movie.
In the first complaint, she also claimed Baldoni worked to tarnish her reputation with a team including his publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis PR Melissa Nathan, who previously worked with Johnny Depp. Abel has denied waging a ‘smear campaign’ (he is pictured in 2023)
‘None of this will come as a surprise because consistent with her past behavior Blake Lively used other people to communicate those threats and bully her way to get whatever she wanted. We have all the receipts and more.’
DailyMail.com has contacted Blake Lively’s representatives for comment.
This comes after lawyers for Lively condemned Baldoni for launching even ‘more attacks’ against his client.
Lively’s legal team insists to People that Lively’s, ‘serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation’ are in fact, ‘backed by concrete facts.’
‘This is not a ‘feud’ arising from “creative differences” or a “he said/she said” situation,’ Lively’s lawyers’ statement began.
‘As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer [Studios] and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set,’ the attorneys added.
Lively then launched more formal complaint on New Year’s Eve, doubling down on her accusations. She filed her first complaint with the California Civil Rights Commission, but is now suing Baldoni in federal court in New York; he and Lively are pictured in the film
‘And their response to the lawsuit has been to launch more attacks against Ms. Lively since her filing,’ they continued.
‘Sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and in every industry,’ the lawyers added while breaking down some ‘classic tactics’ employed by abusers.
‘A classic tactic to distract from allegations of this type of misconduct is to “blame the victim” by suggesting that they invited the conduct, brought it on themselves, misunderstood the intentions, or even lied,’ the statement continued.
‘Another classic tactic is to reverse the victim and offender, and suggest that the offender is actually the victim. These concepts normalize and trivialize allegations of serious misconduct,’ they said.
‘Most importantly, media statements are not a defense to Ms. Lively’s legal claims. We will continue to prosecute her claims in federal court, where the rule of law determines who prevails, not hyperbole and threats,’ the statement concluded.
Lively claimed in her lawsuit that the smear campaign employed by Baldoni employed caused her to suffer ‘financial harms’ which ‘continue to the present’.
She states that her haircare brand, Blake Brown, and her two drinks ranges, Betty Buzz and Betty Booze, both suffered huge losses in sales due to the backlash she received.
The lawsuit states that Blake Brown sales plummeted by up to 78 per cent after the ‘social manipulation campaign started’.
It said: ‘Based on internal sales projections, the sudden and unexpected negative media campaign launched against Ms. Lively depressed retail sales of Blake Brown products by 56-78 per cent.’
The lawsuit added: ‘This dramatic drop was completely at odds with the high satisfaction scores that Blake Brown products received in the significant consumer testing performed before launch or its initial success after launch’.
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