Celebrity Justice

I have no faith in finding justice within the American legal court system.

Nonetheless, seeing & hearing evidence and witness testimonies regarding those who are seeking justice intrigues me.

Moreso, I believe doing this when it pertains to well-known celebrities equips & empowers me to be more discerning and capable of offering something of value when discussion surrounding these very public figures are raised in my presence.

The following celebrities are some of the people regarding whom I have (to some degree) personally investigated certain matters of legal allegations.

Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni & Ryan Reynolds

I started paying a little attention to co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in 2024 after their movie It Ends with Us was released, which I watched at the time. However, I was kind of put off by the movie, given the unexpected sexual nature of the film. (And I didn’t realize it was a movie particularly about domestic violence.)

While I saw a bit of media buzz surrounding the film’s cast & director that summer (and unknowingly stepped into some of the soon-to-be real-life legal drama by watching the Blake Lively interview by Kjersti Flaa), I didn’t pay much attention to the buzz — that is, until late December 2024 & early January 2025 when everything blew up.

On December 21, 2024, The New York Times published a heavily slanted and largely unchecked hit piece online, revealing a confidential complaint filed the previous day with the California Civil Rights Department by Blake Lively against Wayfarer Studios (and naming Justin Baldoni & producer Jamey Heath in the complaint) alleging sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior having taken place on the film’s production set and claiming they were engaged in a smear campaign against Blake Lively.

In response to this, a lawsuit was filed by Wayfarer Studios and Justin Baldoni (and others) against The New York Times for libel on December 31, 2024.

On that same day, Blake Lively filed a lawsuit against Wayfarer Studios, Justin Baldoni, Jamey Heath and others, for the alleged sexual harassment and retaliation.

Then a suit was filed by Wayfarer Studios, Justin Baldoni & others against Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds (her husband), and Leslie Sloane & her public relations firm, primarily for civil extortion and defamation on January 16, 2025.

Both of these lawsuits made some startling allegations with Baldoni’s complaint providing a boatload of supporting documentation.

On January 21, 2025, raw film footage for a falling-in-love montage between the film’s lead characters, Lily Bloom (played by Blake) and Ryle (played by Justin), was released to the public by Justin Baldoni’s attorney in defense of Justin Baldoni to address some of the accusations that had been made against him in Blake Lively‘s complaint that was released & reported on in The New York Times.

This footage was widely circulated, and it portrayed a very different picture from the one alleged in Blake Lively‘s complaint & eventual lawsuit.

Later, evidence surrounding the timing of the formulation of The New York Times article surfaced online. So, on January 31st an amended complaint was filed by the Justin Baldoni party, incorporating The New York Times into the same suit with the Blake Lively parties (as co-defendants).

This amended complaint coupled with a timeline of events brought forth more evidence to support the plaintiffs’ positions and address some of the allegations being made against them. I found these documents to be very compelling.

Then on February 18th, Blake Lively also filed an amended complaint, changing her story surrounding a few details from her first complaint, apparently given the new evidence that came to light (namely, the released raw film footage and other documents presented in Justin Baldoni‘s amended complaint).

From what I saw or can recall, there was little to no other document evidence added to Blake Lively‘s complaint to significantly support any of her allegations. (You can learn more at my Celebrity Justice Substack.)

As of this writing, legal discovery is still yet to take place, to include depositions. The trial’s court date is set to happen in a New York federal court in March 2026.

You can find my personal commentary on this unfolding legal drama on my blog.

Johnny Depp & Amber Heard

Having paid no attention to any of the legal drama between once-wedded actors, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard at the time it was all happening, I was clueless on the matter.

But then in 2024, given all the public attention their legal battles had received, I began to look into the more recent court case that took place in Virginia in 2022.

At first, I watched the Netflix documentary series Depp v Heard. But then, wanting a more comprehensive and accurate telling of events, I sought out and watched most of the 2022 defamation trial recorded on YouTube. I found it to be very insightful.

Michael Jackson

While I heard a lot of negative buzz in the media surrounding Michael Jackson back in the early-to-mid 1990’s, I paid no attention to it.

But in 2024 I started wondering what the truth was regarding the terrible allegations made against the man when I kept hearing Andy Signore from Popcorned Planet talk repeatedly about his personal desire to make a documentary on the pop singer icon.

In January 2025 I eventually heard Andy highly recommend an already-existent documentary called Square One: Michael Jackson. So, I watched it, and now I also highly recommend it.

See what other truths I’ve come to learn.

[This page was written by Carrie (not Kelly) and last updated on 4/25/25.]