Two weeks from now, I was supposed to be setting my alarm for 5 AM or worse so that I could go stand outside the Manhattan courthouse where Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni were going to trial. The case had been narrowed down to Lively’s allegations that Baldoni, his production company, and the PR agency he hired had retaliated against her with a viral smear campaign after she made workplace sexual harassment complaints against Baldoni, who was her director and co-star for the 2024 blockbuster adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us.

Just like during the 2022 celebrity defamation trial Depp v. Heard, which centered around Amber Heard’s domestic violence allegations against Johnny Depp, a coalition of content creators (including some of the very same ones who covered that 2022 trial) had assembled to cover every minute of this trial through an anti-Lively and pro-Baldoni lens. They had already been dissecting all the pretrial motions and events leading up to it like this for the past two years, and several of them had jumped on the initial hate train against Lively when the movie came out, before the allegations and lawsuits.

Even more than my alarm, I feared how social media would react to this trial. I was already seeing visions of signs and trending hashtags calling Lively a liar, Baldoni supporters cheering his entry into the courthouse, and endless memes mocking the most sensitive parts of Lively’s testimony. In other words, I feared a repeat of the psychological warfare that accompanied Depp v. Heard, the weight of Depp’s “total global humiliation” that I can still feel in my body today.

But instead, just after 4:30 PM yesterday, I opened the X app and saw that Lively and Baldoni had settled the case out of court. There wasn’t going to be a spectacle after all. And frankly, that was a relief. Lively wasn’t the one on trial in this case, but that was how she was already being treated by media both new and old. Even if Lively won, the victory would be undermined by another viral pile-on of a famous woman for challenging the status quo.

Now they would have far less to talk about. Four hours after the news broke, multiple people texted me that Lively had shown up at the Met Gala in a pillowy cloud of pastel fabric. She was grinning triumphantly for the cameras. It was over, for now.

We’ll get back to the Lively case in a second, but one quick pitch first: If you have nothing to do tomorrow night, come to a virtual workshop I’m co-hosting about survivor-informed journalism with Survivor Stories Deserve Better! Last year, I wrote about SSDB’s goal to support more ethical standards in reporting on abuse and sexual violence. We’ve been creating a toolkit, some of which we’ll share at the workshop tomorrow! If you’re interested in attending but don’t have the resources for a ticket, we have a scholarship slot open—just reply to this email. Only participants 18 and older, please.

In the immediate aftermath of a high-profile allegation being made, a lawsuit being filed, or a legal outcome being reached, it can be tempting to evaluate the first day response and leave it at that. “It ends with a settlement,” was the refrain I kept seeing, from serious journalists and offhand commenters alike. But it’s not over yet, not for Lively or for anyone.

The media ecosystem that profits from cases like Lively v. Wayfarer won’t stop now. And this is just one of many efforts to silence women and ultimately all victims in the wake of #MeToo. Because Hollywood was the center of the viral moment in 2017 (despite Tarana Burke starting MeToo as grassroots activism for Black girls), actresses like Heard and Lively have been some of the highest-profile targets of the backlash. The DARVO narratives used to vilify these women align perfectly with the misogynistic attitudes that have long characterized all forms of media coverage. Despite these women being wealthy, well-connected, and white, they are still considered expendable by their elite peers and become examples of what happens to victims who speak up or seek accountability. No one wants to be called “Amber 2.0.” or “the next Blake Lively” right now. Their vast resources, teams of lawyers, Met Gala invitations, and box office successes do not save them from damaged reputations, industry exile, and online abuse.

Even people who don’t care about celebrities are affected by the impact of these successful campaigns. Although they receive far less mainstream news coverage, workplace sexual harassment and domestic violence victims who are not celebrities are also facing the same DARVO narratives and online smear tactics as Lively and Heard.

Back in October, I covered the case of a young woman named Olivia Henderson who was working as a DoorDash courier when she alleged that a customer exposed himself to her by leaving his front door open with his partly-nude body in clear view. Henderson posted a video on TikTok that appeared to corroborate this, showing a man laying on a couch through an open door. You couldn’t make out any gratuitous details from what I saw, but TikTok removed the videos and issued strikes against Henderson’s account, then DoorDash deactivated her account for posting the video. As Henderson’s ordeal went viral, so did disinformation and manipulated media painting her as the aggressor and the villain.

Henderson also reported the customer to the police, which is when they arrested and charged her with felony counts of surveillance and discrimination. In a public statement, local police appeared to acknowledge that the man was nude when Henderson arrived and that she was able to see and record him from outside his home. But instead of punishing him, the police say he said he was drunk and passed out, which apparently justifies it. So instead, they’re seeking to punish Henderson for posting about it.

Lots of people have rightfully called out that this discourages victims from reporting to the police and gathering, let alone sharing, evidence of crimes. There’s a huge double standard for victims, where people demand they publish and hand over gratuitous evidence of the crimes they allege if they want to be believed or even taken seriously, but when victims collect this evidence, perpetrators and the same people who defend evidence reframe it as a privacy violation.

Just last Friday, a grand jury indicted Henderson on these charges, and some outlets are reporting that her counsel is working on a plea deal. Video footage of her leaving the courtroom in Oswego County, New York has gone viral to the tune of tens of millions of viewers. The same kind of viral scrutiny and smears that celebrity women face can also be turned on working-class women and single moms whose allegations against men in their communities can fit into the same DARVO narratives for content creators, media outlets, and their audiences to exploit.

Women with fewer resources than Lively and Heard face significantly more consequences from state violence, workplace harassment, intimate partner violence, and retaliation through the legal system. Marginalized women, especially Black women, other women of color, and queer and trans women, are most at risk of being arrested and charged instead of perpetrators, but we’re far less likely to see their cases on our social media feeds. Victims are harmed through both hypervisibility and invisibility, leaving them with no true “good” pathways for recourse.

Victims of sexual misconduct, abuse, and retaliation rarely ever prevail in court, even among the minority who have expensive legal representation and file headline-grabbing civil suits. Settlements can be the best course of option for several reasons: they take less time to resolve, they’re less expensive, they get negotiated confidentially, and they can allow both parties to avoid the process of discovery and depositions. It’s extremely common for cases to settle rather than go to trial, even at the last second.

To call the justice system flawed for survivors would be the understatement of the year. It’s literally designed so that victims get a bad deal. They have to go through retraumatizing ordeals that cost endless time, stress, and actual money. They do all that just to get to a point where the system encourages them to settle or cuts their perpetrator a deal. And there are very few legal protections stopping victims from getting smeared before, during, or after their court cases proceed, as we’ve seen happen with Lively and all the others.

Even though Lively settled before going to trial, I wouldn’t characterize her case as a failure at all. She was smeared throughout it, but her legal team was still able to uncover evidence of the inner workings of Hollywood smear machines. They exposed thousands of text messages, emails, voice notes and more, paving the way for other targets of the same PR agency and lawyer Baldoni hired to sue them separately. The other lawsuits allege that these “fixers” were building websites and social media accounts to publish false, salacious allegations about their clients’ opponents. And some of these crisis PR professionals previously worked for Depp and for a firm that represented Jeffrey Epstein post-2008 conviction.

One of Lively’s attorneys said exposing these tactics was her ultimate goal in waging the lawsuit, which reportedly cost her tens of millions of dollars in legal fees even before going to trial:

“For Blake Lively, the greatest measure of justice is that the people and the playbook behind these coordinated digital attacks have been exposed and are already being held accountable by other women they’ve targeted,” the attorney said previously.

In the warring online factions for Lively and Baldoni, where Lively’s supporters number far fewer than Baldoni’s, the settlement announcement sparked opposite reactions. People who defended Lively took it as a win. Baldoni fans were still convinced of his innocence, but what they were really devastated about was not getting to see the trial play out for their entertainment.

“i hate we didnt see BL getting exposed and humiliated,” wrote one anonymous woman on Reddit. “this might be peak parasocial relationship or delulu or whatever but let me grieve.”

Dana Bowling, a personal branding coach turned pop culture podcaster who has attacked Lively relentlessly, posted a picture of her at the Met Gala with the caption: “This makes me physically ill. This woman lied under oath and deleted evidence. She ruined multiple peoples lives and has the balls to do this on the same day.” Bowling then interviewed Baldoni’s lawyer on her podcast the next day.

“She ruined people's LIVES for her own rich ego!! She is a damn MONSTER! We won't stop,” wrote Andy Signore, an anti-Heard and anti-Lively YouTuber, who has faced his own sexual misconduct allegations. He was also subpoenaed by Lively after Baldoni’s crisis publicist referred to him as her “new Bestie” in a work group chat.

Signore has a track record of not letting up. Even after Depp v. Heard ended in 2022 with a messy, contradictory decision that was mainly in Depp’s favor, Signore continued to pump out hundreds of negative videos about Heard—and even some about yours truly! These drama and commentary creators can weave news out of thin air and turn minor tidbits into drawn-out sagas for a series of 20 to 40-minute YouTube videos. When the main characters give them nothing to work with, they create new subplots out of peripheral figures like journalists, pro-Heard and pro-Lively social media accounts, and victim advocates.

On Tuesday, TMZ reported that Baldoni hadn’t paid Lively any money in the settlement, which has already kicked off another round of discourse. Although the matter may be technically settled, and we’ll never know the full, confidential details of their negotiation, the relentless drumbeat of misogyny disguised as celebrity gossip will continue. Even four years later, Depp v. Heard is still getting relitigated. So the Lively haters will simmer down to a slow trickle, but remain a persistent thorn in the side of anyone who defends her going forward.

Meanwhile, Baldoni is currently producing Dinner with Audrey, a movie about Audrey Hepburn that has been gaining traction with casting announcements. The male lead is played by Ansel Elgort, who was a bankable 2010s star but hasn’t appeared in any movies since he was accused of sexual assault in 2020. Lots of people seem to think Baldoni’s career is ruined, but given the pattern of these other #MeToo backlash cases, I wouldn’t be so sure about that either.