Jameela Jamil Is Sticking to Calling Blake Lively a Villain
The legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni surrounding the production of It Ends With Us is still ongoing and evolving. Lively is continuing to sue Baldoni over a number of allegations regarding his conduct on the film, including that he sexual harassed her and created a hostile work environment. A number of major names have been folded into the orbit of this case… and now, The Good Place and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law star Jameela Jamil is joining that list.
Recently-unsealed court documents have made a number of texts surrounding the case public, with Lively’s correspondence with Taylor Swift and Ben Affleck already making headlines. The documents also include an August 2024 exchange between Jamil and Jennifer Abel, a publicist who represented both her and Baldoni at the time. In the exchange, Jamil and Abel were criticizing Lively’s decorum during the It Ends With Us press tour, which was being criticized at the time for not taking the film’s subject of domestic abuse seriously. (The tide has since turned on that aspect of the ordeal, given what we now know Lively was dealing with at the time.)
On the topic of Lively, Jamil texted, “She’s a suicide bomber at this point,” adding, “I’ve never seen such a bizarre villain act before. She’s over over.” Jamil and Abel also criticized Lively for posting a link to resources for domestic violence survivors, and both agreed that they hated Lively “so much.”
Jameela Jamil is Doubling Down…
These texts have also now gone viral, with some criticizing Jamil for having that outlook while strongly championing feminist issues in public. And now, Jamil is doubling down on her comments, through a video message posted to her Instagram Stories last Thursday. Jamil does not mention Lively or the situation by name in the video, but argues that she can still be a feminist even while having “beef with other women.”
“Guys, feminism means fighting for the political, social and economic equity for women,” Jamil said in her video. “Just gender equity. It does not mean you have to like every single woman. It doesn’t mean you have to be friends with every single woman. It means you can actually beef with other women. You can criticize them. You can do whatever you want, as long as you are also fighting for their human right to the same things that men have in this world.”
“That’s all feminism is,” Jamil continued. “It’s a moral and political stance. It is not a sleepover where we braid each other’s pubes, OK? So if you are fighting for women’s rights, but you don’t get along with every single woman, it doesn’t make you a bad feminist.”
Jamil then addressed the comments again in a Substack piece titled “So, my private texts were leaked to the world…”, as well as in a TikTok video. In the latter, she stressed that none of her leaked correspondence with Abel was in response to Lively’s legal claims against Baldoni, but rather about her “diabolical press tour.”
“I create space for an Itty Bitty Shitty Committee… where nobody is judged for being gratuitously gossipy and shallow and petty and mean, because it’s a safe, private space,” Jamil writes in part. “A victimless crime. I want her to know I am all in. Thelma to her Louise. I will hold her hand all the way off the cliff. I wanna get angrier than she is about the person who has hurt her so that she never feels alone. I want her to have to calm ME down. I am the friend who holds a grudge for 20 years against whoever makes you cry, even if you have forgiven them.”
(featured image: Aeon/GC Images/Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)
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