Justin Baldoni’s team recently released a 6-minute, 30-second voice note he sent to Blake Lively at 2 AM, and it’s raising eyebrows for all the wrong reasons. The context? This was his response to a heartfelt message from Lively about feeling overlooked and undervalued in the industry, with support from her advocates—her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and Taylor Swift. Instead of addressing her concerns with clarity and respect, Baldoni’s rambling, overly apologetic, and boundary-crossing voice note reveals a lot about his inability to handle criticism and his lack of genuine understanding of the issues at hand.

In her original message, Lively opened up about her struggles in the industry, where her contributions are often taken without credit or recognition. She shared how Ryan and Taylor have been by her side, empowering her to advocate for herself after years of being dismissed or treated as a “yes man.” She expressed disappointment in Baldoni’s vague feedback, which praised her “passion” but failed to address her specific contributions.

Instead of responding with actionable feedback or a clear acknowledgment of her concerns, Baldoni’s voice note is a meandering mix of nonspecific platitudes, faux-spiritual guru talk, and uncomfortable praise. He says things like, “I’m really sorry,” “I’m a flawed man,” and “I will always apologize,” but never actually specifies what he’s apologizing for. He also veers into deeply inappropriate territory, saying things like, “There’s nothing more exciting to me than to get to work with Blake Lively and have her all of her,” which comes off as unsettling, especially at 2 AM.

What’s even more damaging is how this voice note completely undermines his own lawsuit narrative. Baldoni has claimed that Lively, Reynolds, and Swift were threatening him and trying to take control of the project. But in this voice note, he’s practically begging for her creative input, saying, “I want all of her.” He even acknowledges her past experiences with other filmmakers, saying, “I’m so sorry you’ve been through what you’ve been through,” showing he understood her message was about her struggles in the industry—not some veiled threat to him.

The most troubling part? Baldoni’s response highlights his lack of authentic growth and understanding, despite his public persona as a “woke” man doing “deconstruction work.” His voice note is a masterclass in performative allyship, filled with empty apologies and no real accountability. It’s clear he has no one in his inner circle to call him out or guide him, which is why he keeps releasing tone-deaf statements that make women deeply uncomfortable.

Until Baldoni accepts that he needs real guidance and does the hard work of genuine self-reflection, he’s unlikely to change. And in an industry where women like Blake Lively are already fighting to be heard, that’s a problem we can’t afford to ignore.

Transcript of the Video Analysis:

“It’s gonna be special, and you’re the secret sauce, and we’re the secret sauce, and anyways I have so much more to say. I’m gonna stop rambling because Jesus Christ, it’s been 6 minutes and 30 seconds. So I’m sorry, you probably have kids all over you and a baby on your **** and you’re listening to me ramble at 2:00 in the morning.”

I cannot believe Baldoni’s team released this voice note thinking it makes him look good. If you’re Blake Lively, then getting a rambling 6-minute voice note at 2:00 AM from Baldoni where he talks about your * and how he wants ‘all of you’ is genuinely disturbing, and once again we see Justin has no appropriate sense of boundaries with a coworker.

The context of this voice note is as a response to the infamous Khaleesi text messages where, after having made changes to the rooftop scene, Lively conveyed to Justin that his feedback didn’t feel great to hear. Talking about her advocates, her husband Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift, she says: ‘When they loaded and signed off on the pages, I felt good to send them to you. They asked what you thought specifically after I told them you laughed a bunch and said it’s probably a blend but you appreciate my passion so much’ – which of course didn’t feel great for me or them to hear my passion be praised instead of any specific contribution, or just that you didn’t like the pages, which was fine also.

So I think they wanted you and me to see how they felt about the work because they have been by my side for far too many experiences where I have been overlooked. They have watched me handwrite scripts because the director is too afraid to send the final draft file, and yet he scans and has someone hand-type all the 120 pages. They’ve watched me be hired as a writer and paid a significant fee for it on the condition that I never asked for credit – which I could care about, it’s more the principle of the dynamics at play. They’ve watched the other side of it too, where I’m told it’s signing on, I’m wanted as a true collaborator, but once we get to work, I’m really just wanted as a yes-man audience and actor.

There is a heartfelt message about how she struggles to advocate for herself and that she’s grateful for Ryan and Taylor who helped her to have more confidence, that throughout her career her contributions and input are taken without credit and recognition, allowing others to profit off of her labor, and that she often doesn’t speak up because of fear of the fragile egos of others in the industry.

How does this male ally respond to her friends empowering a woman and advocating for her? By seeing it as an unspoken threat to his own power and control. And in his own complaint, he says the message could not have been any clearer – Baldoni was not just dealing with Lively, he was also dealing with Lively’s ‘Dragons,’ two of the most influential and wealthy celebrities in the world. You were not afraid of making things difficult for him – which is a bold claim to make given that Taylor Swift had to take time out of her schedule to issue a statement in response, and that statement was ‘I have no idea who this man is.’

Not only that, but this voice note response to that message which he claims is a threat – he is deeply apologetic and praises her contributions: ‘Reading the second part of your message, my heart sank, and I’m really sorry. I for sure fell short, and you worked really hard on that, and… and the way you framed it, and… and… and how that made you feel. And I just wanted to say thank you for sharing that with me. That takes a lot of trust and vulnerability, and it just… I feel really grateful that you feel safe enough to tell me that that’s how you feel and share that with me, and I… I’m really sorry. That is a fail on my part.’

“‘One thing you should know about me is I will admit and apologize when I fail. I am a very flawed man, as my wife will attest, and… and I’m going to… I’m going to say the wrong thing, I’m going to put my foot in my mouth, I’m going to **** you off probably, but I will always apologize and then find my…’ – that is one thing I can assure you of.”

His response to Lively saying she felt disappointed about getting nonspecific platitudes instead of actionable, specific, and direct feedback was to leave a 6-minute apology full of nonspecific platitudes. Not only does he sound like every fake spiritual guru – ‘I’m not perfect, I apologize but I return to center’ – but he never actually specifies what he’s apologizing for, highlighting how he struggles to build authentic connection.

His voicemail also utterly destroys his own lawsuit – he’s not being threatened or extorted, he is literally begging for her creative empire: ‘We should all have friends like that, and the fact that they’re two of the most creative people on the planet… the three of you guys together, it’s unbelievable, talk about energy, just force… all three of you. But I just wanted you to know that I didn’t need that because it’s really good and it’s going to make the movie sing like you said, and… and I’m excited to go through the whole movie with you. There’s nothing more exciting to me – get to work with Blake Lively and have her, all of her, that’s what I want.’ And so there’s been no hesitancy with me sending you the final draft file, I am totally fine with that.

But outside of the very creepy way he’s talking about his coworker at 2:00 AM, the damaging part of this voicemail is his word-for-word predictable response to her experience with other filmmakers: ‘I am so sorry you have been through what you’ve been through with these other filmmakers and producers or whoever the people were that you worked with, and just… it pisses me off. I’m just still kind of blown away that this is the industry that we’re in and that you’ve experienced that as a woman, and I know I don’t need to say it, but that’s not at all gonna be or will be… hopefully it’s not been the experience with me.

Oh, that aged like milk. It shows he absolutely understood the context of her message to be about her past working relationships with other filmmakers and needing to advocate more for herself, and not as an implicit threat or an attempted extortion to take control of this movie. It shows that his entire complaint and narrative about being threatened by Lively is a complete fabrication.

But what continues to confuse me is that for a man who has supposedly been very publicly doing this deconstruction work all the last seven years, there is not a single person in his circle on his creative team to lean into his ear and tell him how bad this looks – showing that not only has Baldoni very clearly never gone beyond surface level in his deconstruction, but all the people he’s hired in his inner circle haven’t either. There is no one around him to offer advice and educate him, no one that he leans on or goes to for wisdom. He is costing lives, meaning not only did he and his team keep putting out these incredibly damaging releases that show behavior that would make any woman deeply uncomfortable, but until he accepts that he needs that guidance, he is very unlikely to ever change.