Blake Lively isn’t out of the hot seat yet!
Just as her It Ends With Us movie controversy started to unfold online, a journalist uploaded an interview from 2016 that bolstered the theories Blake was a secret mean girl! Kjersti Flaa claimed the convo almost made her want to quit her job because the Gossip Girl alum and her Café Society co-star Parker Posey were so rude!
If you missed it, at the start of the interview, Kjersti congratulated Blake on her “little bump.” This was a few months after the actress had gone public with her pregnancy news, so it wasn’t that strange to mention it. Blake, however, was irritated by the comment and hit back with, “Congrats on your little bump.” But the interviewer was not pregnant — and worse, unbeknownst to the actress, could never get pregnant. Oof.
Related: Blake Lively Is Getting ‘COOKED’ In Her Comments Over IEWU Press Tour!
The interview was a nightmare as Blake went on to criticize Kjersti’s questions about the women’s costumes in the Woody Allen film as being sexist (even though it’s a period piece so it’s a pretty natural thing to ask. The whole thing was messy AF and has led to tons of other interviews resurfacing, showing Blake acting rudely toward other journalists. See (below):
Many people are now using the cringe chat to blast Blake’s behavior while making predictions about what happened with the IEWU cast. But there have been some people questioning the journalist’s intentions. Why release the video in the middle of all this if not to jump on the bandwagon against Blake? Well, on Monday, Kjersti returned to YouTube with a new video to explain why she shared the interview after all these years!
First off, the journalist maintains she had no idea about the IEWU controversy unfolding online when she chose to upload this interview. She explained once again it was an unrelated story from another reporter that got her thinking about it:
“I got contacted by another reporter who told me a story that was a little similar to this one that he had experienced. And then we started talking about, comparing notes about this. I just felt like, you know what, it’s not okay to behave like that and I think it needs to be called out. So, that’s the reason why I did that now so much later, and also because it took me a while — to be honest with you — it took me a while to actually get over it.”
She said The Age of Adaline alum’s “mean-girl energy” and the way the actresses made her feel “left out or bullied” during the interaction deeply impacted her, and she believes many people could relate to feeling that way. She added:
“It affected me for a while because it made me nervous when I was interviewing other people after that. I blamed myself for it for a long time because I felt like I did or said something wrong.”
But she reiterated that she wasn’t trying to bully Blake by posting the clip amid this mess, continuing:
“I actually hadn’t read up about all the other controversy that was going on with Blake Lively and her new movie, It Ends With Us. So it was kinda a coincidence that this ended up being posted right now.”
Hmm. That feels hard to believe given the timing, but okay… Maybe the other reporter sending his story to her was because of the It Ends With Us drama? That might explain it…
Anyway, after thanking her supporters for sending her kind messages and inspiring her to stay in her line of work despite challenges like this, the reporter BLASTED the A Simple Favor star for not apologizing yet. But she blamed the silence on her team, speculating:
“No one came out and apologized, and they probably told her, ‘Don’t come out [and say sorry], don’t react, don’t do anything. We’ll take care of this for you. We’ll just say that it’s the journalist’s fault and that you were offended by her and then we’ll just plant some other good, positive stories.'”
Huh. Seems a likely explanation. She pointed out how common that is in the industry — everyone is more worried about how they look than how they act:
“And I think that’s the problem in Hollywood and many other places, that people don’t own up to their mistakes because they’re afraid that it’s going to backfire or that it’s gonna make them look bad, and I think it’s time to change that.”
She urged:
“I think if Blake Lively would have come out in front of this, things would have been very different.”
It would’ve been nice to get an apology — and there’s still time. But if Blake owned up to this, she might never be done apologizing! Every day, more controversial interview clips emerge! She’d be apologizing to people forever. LOLz! So on that front, we get why her team might be pushing for her to ignore this drama — though it’s certainly not the right thing to do. Besides, it doesn’t seem like this scandal is fading away as quickly as they may have hoped! She’s gonna have to address this at some point, right?? Guess we’ll see…
Check out the journalist’s full update video (below):
Thoughts?? Do you think Blake should be apologizing? Sound OFF (below).
[Image via Kjersti Flaa/Sony Pictures Entertainment/YouTube]