Blake Lively 'was horrendous to work with', claims Gossip Girl extra

[TMC]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...n-Baldoni.html

An actress turned TV chef today claimed that Blake Lively was 'horrendous' to work with and accused her of throwing Justin Baldoni 'under the bus' because she is 'used to being adored'.

Rossella Rago, 37, host of the popular YouTube Italian food series Cooking with Nonna, even accused the star, also 37, of flatulence between takes when she was an extra on Gossip Girl.

‘She would burp and fart in the middle of set – and act like we were lucky to be smelling her farts’, she said in a TikTok post, adding: 'She was very unpleasant to work with. I just don't know how else to say it'.

Rossella, who has also written a series of cookery books, claims that Blake's husband Ryan Reynolds would 'bow down at her feet' when they began dating after her brief fling with Leonardo DiCaprio in 2011.

'She is used to being adored and when she is not, s**t gets real, and Baldoni has found out how real it gets’, she said.

Ms Lively has found herself at the centre of a storm after she tried to incinerate the reputation and career of Justin Baldoni, her co-star in hit film It Ends With Us.

She filed a civil complaint just before Christmas accusing him of sexµal harassment on set, leading to a media storm which has engulfed her – and her husband Ryan Reynolds.

Ms Rago says that she worked as an extra in six series of Gossip Girl, where Blake played Serena van der Woodsen in the teen drama.

'I was a stand-in on movies and TV shows for 15 years and I worked on the show [Gossip Girl] on and off for all six seasons.

'I'm going to attest that Blake Lively is horrendous. I'm sorry to burst your bubble. She was a nepo baby and when she was 19 and the whole world was blowing smoke up her a**. It is really hard to keep your head when that happens.'

She went on: ‘I'm thinking she thinks that she has the right to behave exactly as she wants. And how dare we make a fuss? She couldn’t handle that people didn’t frigging like her and she was looking like an a**hole.

'She has thrown people under the bus. This guy [Justin Baldoni] has a wife and family. And made out these benign interactions are assault when I’ve seen the footage and I think just “go home”.'

While filming Gossip Girl, Rossella claimed that Blake would rarely speak to extras via a director who told them to be quiet or not to move, on her behalf.

On one occasion Ms Rago said she gave Blake some script notes in a scene.

'When she tried to be nice… she really has to force herself because I was a normal person’, she said, adding that Ms Lively would say 'thank you' in the most OTT way.

Rossella claims Blake had come back to the set of Gossip Girl after splitting with Leonardo DiCaprio, and that he 'had a puss on her face' and 'she was in a very bad mood and it was like: do not talk to her'.

Blake and Leo dated briefly in 2011 and were seen together at the Cannes Film Festival and on dates in Italy, New York, and Australia.

She had auditioned for the role of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby but the role went to Carey Mulligan.

But soon afterwards Ryan Reynolds fell in love with her. The couple married in 2012 and have two children.

'Ryan started coming around. We all deserve a man like that, to bow down in front of you. That was cute. That’s the kind of person she is'.

Lively and Reynolds, 48, might have been expected to go to the Golden Globes on January 7 as his film Deadpool & Wolverine was up for an award.

But they didn’t attend and are expected to dodge Oscars night on March 2, too.

More claims about Ryan Reynolds resurfaced on social media in recent days, as the star is caught up in an ugly lawsuit between his wife and Justin Baldoni.

Comedian TJ Miller, 43, claimed Reynolds, 48, was 'horrifically mean' to him on set and 'insecure' in a 2022 The Adam Corolla Show podcast interview that has now gone viral again.

'As the character, he was, like, horrifically mean to me,' Miller claimed, before sharing an alleged incident from the filming of the second film.

'But to me. As if I'm Weasel.'

The Big Hero 6 star continued, 'He was like, "You know what's great about you, Weasel? You're not the star, but you do just enough exposition that it's funny and then we can leave and get back to the real movie."'

Miller said he 'kind of listened and thought it was weird' before walking away after the director called cut.

The Yogi Bear actor alluded to Reynolds possibly being 'insecure' for some reason, though he didn't seem exactly sure why.

The twists and turns of this bitter Hollywood feud have become steadily more sensational – and more damaging for Lively – as January has unfolded.

The film at the heart of the feud, based on the 2016 bestseller by Colleen Hoover, was released in August and was a box office hit. It follows Lily Bloom, a florist played by Lively, who falls in love with a charming but abusive neurosurgeon played by Baldoni, who also directed the movie.

Initial rumours of a fall-out between the co-stars surfaced over the summer after they appeared to avoid each other during the movie’s promotional tour and have since blown up into a full-scale war after Lively’s lawsuit dropped on December 23.

This included claims that Baldoni, 41, entered Lively’s trailer while she was topless, showed her pornographic pictures and a graphic video of his wife giving birth, repeatedly discussed his ‘pδrn addiction’, described his own genitalia and even bit and sucked on Lively’s lips during an improvised kissing scene for which Baldoni insisted on doing multiple takes.

In response last week, Justin Baldoni’s team released a video of unedited footage of him and Lively doing three takes of one scene of their characters flirting in a bar, which had given rise to Lively’s accusations of sexµal harassment.

Both sides say the video vindicates their account, but most people agree what is shown appears to fall a long way short of the ‘predatory’ behaviour of which Lively complained.

Meanwhile Baldoni’s contention – that Lively ‘stole’ the film from him, erased his credit, banished him to the basement on the night of the premiere as she wouldn’t allow him to be in the same room as her and cooked up a story about creepy behaviour to cover up what she had done – is being widely believed on social media.

Multiple sources connected with the lawsuit confirm that Baldoni’s team are building a full website on the case which will be open to the public.

When it goes live it will include numerous snippets of unedited footage from the film, including anything which ‘speaks to’ Lively’s original complaint about her co-star. As Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman puts it: ‘We have all the receipts – and more.’

This might extend to footage of one scene which Lively has complained about where her character is giving birth.

She said that she was ‘pressured’ into simulating ‘full nudity’; Baldoni’s team say that she was covered by a prosthetic bump and a hospital gown.

The website will also include full unedited WhatsApp, text and email exchanges between Lively and Baldoni, such as a message where she invites him to come and run through lines in her trailer, saying she was ‘pumping’ - expressing breast milk.

This could cast doubt on her assertion Baldoni had entered her trailer on multiple occasions while she was breast-feeding, causing her distress.

The question of evidence, and if it has been manipulated, is at the heart of the first legal action in this feud and led to The New York Times printing a 4,000-word article titled ‘Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine’ within a few hours of the Lively lawsuit being filed.

The article, which is now subject to a libel complaint from Baldoni’s team, alleged that his PRs Melissa Nathan and Jen Abel conspired to create a global smear campaign against Lively at the time of the film’s premiere, when the actress was criticised for being tone deaf in using a movie about domestic violence to promote her alcohol brands and for telling viewers to ‘grab your florals’ to watch it.

It cited one text message from his publicist Nathan which read: ‘We can bury anyone.’ Now it seems the initiative has swung back to the Baldoni camp.

Lively’s team are insisting they want to go to court and no discussions over a settlement have been opened.

They say: ‘While they [Baldoni’s team] are focused on misleading media narratives, we are focused on the legal process. We are continuing our efforts to require Mr Baldoni and his associates to answer in court, under oath, rather than through manufactured media stunts.’

Baldoni’s lawyer responds: ‘Prior to filing her lawsuit in court, Ms Lively went to The New York Times in an effort to publicly destroy Justin Baldoni. When Mr Baldoni exercises his right to publicly defend himself by putting forth actual facts and evidence, for Ms Lively and team this instantly becomes morally and ethically wrong.

‘Ms Lively wants very different standards to apply to her but fortunately, truth and authenticity apply to everyone and can never be wrong. Looking at the video and the evidence to come, I can understand why Ms Lively would now not want this to play out in public.’