Blake Lively is receiving backlash for her truly bizarre press tour.
The “Gossip Girl” alum is currently starring in the new film, “It Ends with Us,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel of the same name.
The film, like the book, centers around a flower shop owner named Lily Blossom Bloom (Lively) who escapes the cycle of domestic violence while also partaking in a love triangle. The book was met with controversy for romanticizing abuse, with an op-ed published to domesticshelters.org, a nonprofit that helps victims and survivors of abuse, saying it “feeds into the very structures of toxic masculinity that it purports to combat” by “romanticizing red flags” and glorifying a “charismatic-but-dangerous man.”
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And instead of speaking out about the complexities of the subject matter during her press tour — Lively, who also acts as one of the film’s producers, has decided to promote the film like it’s a lighthearted rom-com.
HuffPost has reached out to Lively for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
Her Instagram account is flooded with off-key promotional content. One promotional video features Lively cross-promoting her sparkling beverage company, Betty Buzz, while fawning over a mini replica of her character’s flower shop. She also dropped a random promo for her hair care line in between multiple posts for the film.
But Lively’s most egregious social media post, however, is on the movie’s official TikTok account, in which Lively, sitting next to Hoover, announces that “‘It Ends with Us’ is in theaters now, so grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it!”
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On red carpets, Lively has been decked out in mostly floral prints, and has been promoting the “flower” aspect of her character’s profession to such a degree that it makes one wonder if she’s using this press tour as an opportunity to make up for skipping this year’s garden-themed Met Gala.
There’s also the issue of Lively involving her husband, Ryan Reynolds, heavily in her film’s promotion — which feels like even more cross-promotion considering that Reynolds is currently peddling his new action-comedy “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
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Lively has spoken lovingly about her husband throughout the press tour, and had her hubby conduct an interview with Lively’s co-star Brandon Sklenar — in which Reynolds talked exclusively about Sklenar’s butt.
But Reynolds isn’t just involved in the PR surrounding “It Ends with Us” — he also had a hand in writing the script, apparently. Lively told reporters on the red carpet of her movie’s New York premiere that Reynolds wrote the “iconic rooftop scene” in the movie — which was a surprise to the film’s screenwriter, Christy Hall, who said she thought the lines Reynolds wrote were “improvised” during filming.
Lively’s breezy attitude while promoting a film about domestic violence comes in stark contrast to Lively’s co-star, Justin Baldoni of “Jane of the Virgin” fame. Baldoni — who directed the film and plays Lily’s abusive partner, Ryle Kincaid — has focused his promotional interviews around the subject of domestic abuse and has actively championed the anti-domestic abuse nonprofit No More.
“The message is the most important thing. That’s why [Colleen] wrote the book,” he said to Today on Friday. “I was always thinking about the outcome and the why, and the one woman I was making this for who would sit in that theater and maybe not go back to her abusive relationship.”
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Their clashing styles is most apparent in a recent interview Baldoni and Lively did with Jake Hamilton. During the interview, Hamilton asked Lively an odd question — What would she say to a fan who saw “It Ends with Us,” resonated with its story, and then stopped her in the street to talk about it.
“What’s the best way for them to be able to talk to you about this?” Hamilton asked. “How would you recommend they go about it?”
“Like, asking for my address, or my phone number, or, like, location share?” Lively responded jokingly, adding: “I’m a Virgo, so like, are we talking logistics, are we talking emotionally?”
Meanwhile, Baldoni seems to be visibly annoyed with Lively’s silly remarks.
Amid the backlash Lively has received for her weird PR vibes, she did post an Instagram story Tuesday, in which she provided a number to a domestic violence hotline.
“1 in 4 women aged 18 and older in the U.S. alone have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Intimate partner violence affects all genders, including more than 12 million people every year in the United States. Everyone deserves relationships free from domestic violence,” she wrote in the story post.
She also posted another Instagram story to an interview she did with the BBC in which she notes that “It Ends With Us” covers domestic violence, but “what’s important about this film is that [her character is] not just a survivor and she’s not just a victim,” per Us Weekly.
Social media users across platforms like Instagram, TikTok and X, formerly Twitter, felt that Lively’s Instagram stories were too little too late, and have been expressing their disgust with Lively’s behavior. To see some of their comments, just scroll down.
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.