We can bury anyone.. but did we?
TL;DR: Hello people, this is a huge post where I try to show how, from my perspective, NEITHER BL proved that JB did a smear campaign against her, NOR JB proved that he didn't. Sure, there are some exchanges that look really bad for JB. There also some where the meaning behind it is only inferred, not actually written. There are also some that look really good for him.
Before breaking down the texts , I want to explain my reasons for writing this. It is very clear that this case has been affecting some of us really deep. For some what is triggering is the SH, for some the retaliation and for some the bullying. Also, for everybody regardless of the side, the feeling that justice is not done yet. I think it is easy to look at someone that has different opinion and think "Is this person crazy? It is so clear, why can't they see?". The reason for this is that is that each person interprets the same evidence in different ways. Who is right or wrong is not really the point, I just want to show you that it is not so black and white as it sometimes seems, and we still have a long way to go.
I also want to clarify my approach:
- For transparency: I tend to believe JB’s version of events, but my goal here is to be as fair as possible to both sides. Of course it is very likely that I am still biased, but I tried my best not to. Please point out where I got it wrong, my main goal is not to convince anyone of a specific narrative.
- I tried to focus mostly on the PR and the alleged smear campaign part.
- I'm using exchanges that where in both BL and JB lawsuits and put then as best as I could in chronological order.
- I didn't include all the text messages due to the Reddit limit. I tried to pick the ones I found most relevant, and left the ones which explanation would be similar.
- I tried to categorizing them as Offensive (they are attacking or planning to attack), Defensive (they are responding or protecting themselves), or Neutral (no clear offensive or defensive intent). I realized that I should have used a better classification, but it was already too late.
- The sub title is just a joke with the NYT title.
- Please forgive spelling and grammar errors, English is not my first language.
That said, let's go :
01/08/2024
Offensive - this one is quite explicit, she is saying that she has all the contacts and they are willing to publish it as soon as they give the green light. I couldn't find any specific articles on this subject, BL complaint didn't present none either.
02/08/2024
Offensive - This, in my opinion, is the worst text exchange presented against the. However, I have a few considerations :
- This exchange is between two PR agents. Melissa is trying to convince them to hire her services.
- Blake camp had access to everything in BL phone, where are the text exchange that JB has been sending her on the side? I think it would be quite relevant to present JB himself saying those things, and the fact that they are neither in BL accusation, nor in JB defense suggests me that they are probably not good for either side.
- Regarding of what happened in May/2023, it is safe to assume JB was quite angry and frustrate at this point. He had his cut taken from him and was bared from the promos. Does it mean that he did all the things that we wanted? I don't know.
06/08/2024
Neutral- This is a business proposal outlining strategies for online crisis management and reputation protection. It doesn't say anywhere that they pretend to mitigate the crisis by attacking BL.
07/08/2024
Neutral Tending to defensive- They are hiring TAG for social media mitigation and proactive fan posting. It doesn't really specify about what they are going to post, but the tone is to defend themselves.
Neutral tending to offensive - It wasn't created by them, but it is offensive (more to RR) and the sender assumed she would like it.
Defensive - This is just regular PR. He can mean ONLY cause he saw that it had a good repercussion and wants to focus on it, ONLY cause he wants to avoid talking about BL and the drama. He has been all about DV from the start, it makes sense for him to talk about it. And why talking about the subject of the movie would automatically make BL look bad? Alright, their agreement was to focus on Lily strengths, but Lily's strength is shown on the movie by she breaking the cycle of abuse. Also, what made her situation worse in this case was promoting the alcohol brand, which he had absolutely no control over. At some points she's gotta take some responsibility for her own bad press as well , right?
09/08/2024
Neutral tending to defensive - why wouldn't his PR team celebrate about the possible negative pieces not coming out? How are they defaming BL by suppressing the negative subjects? And they were crushing it on Reddit , it doesn't say anywhere they caused people to defame BL. The only thing you can definitely infer from it is that they were able to prevent JB's bad press (which is their job). If they were responsible for her bad PR is not mentioned there.
10/08/2024
Neutral - She is celebrating that the narrative is good for JB, she is not celebrating that there are anything negative about Blake.
Offensive - Shift the narrative towards shining a spotlight to Blake and Ryan. It doesn't really make clear if this is just deflecting ( Don't focus on me, focus on them) or sending negative pieces. On the media outlets the narrative where that Justin made BL uncomfortable on set and was chauvinist, and also that tension on set led to two cuts of the movie and Sony chose the most feminine view. The social media were already speculating about Blake taking over the movie. I need to make a point here that JB was very close to the CH community and was the face of the movie for a very long time.
Neutral - It is offensive in a personal level, but they are allowed to have their opinion on her. This last message "She F herself by doing the unfollow thing and insisting in no photos together". I read it as "She brought in on herself", but it can also be interpreted like "She chose this, now it is war"
Defensive - I was thorn if it belonged here or not, but I wanted to also show that just one sentence that was removed can completely change what they are saying. Is it absolute proof that these things didn't happen? No, but it at least shows that JA seemed to think that it didn't happen. Maybe he downplayed everything to her, maybe he told her the truth, maybe it was the truth from his perspective.
====> Kjerst Flaa interview Came out
Neutral - It doesn't make sense. Even if she were MN buddy from the JD ( which lots of people were posting about), isn't it too much coincidence? What are the odds that your buddy happened to have an bad completely unaired interview saved just for it? I think it is important to also make a point here that this is when people really started bashing BL. Up to this point she was being a bit criticized, but it had a very narrow audience. I also want to make a point here that all the celebrations that we see in the messages happened before this.
13/08/2024
Defensive - They are saying that they had nothing to do with it, but it is possible to interpret it as "We only posted this, the reaction is not our fault".
Neutral - It doesn't say anything wether they had anything to do with the articles, but it is a bit contradictory to say that you are happy from a good article about someone your actively trying to smear.
15/08/2024
Offensive - this one is defensive in a sense that it is in response to a bad article that was posted about them ( the same way BL assumes all her bad press was caused by JB, JB also believed that as his bad publications came from BL). But overall it is an attack, he is directly asking if they can plant a piece that would make RR look bad. However I have never seen such article anywhere ( maybe LS killed? Maybe they never tried? Maybe it got lost in all of the new?)
16/08/202
Defensive - This is one of the more polemics. Lots of people believe that the reason why JB supporters claim that it is an ironic message is only the emoji, when in reality it is the print screen that comes just before. It is very important to notice that BL might NOT have the print screen on the extraction, so I can see how it could be interpreted in a bad light.
Defensive - They are stating that they had nothing to do with THIS piece. Can they mean that they had nothing to do with nothing? sure! Can they be only referring to this floral thing? Sure as well.
Defensive - They negate that they where responsible for this content. It is still possible that they started it and at this point things where just scaling up by itself.
18/08/2024
Neutral tending to defensive - She does say that Jed is doing something, but it is not clear what. However they are talking about he being defended. Nowhere there they say that he is being defended by attacking BL. They also deny bots.
Posted Jun 15, 2025, 3:08 AM UTC