IT was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill promo tour – another global round of glad-handing and photo opportunities to plug her new film.
But Blake Lively’s marketing blitz for It Ends With Us has seen the actress hog the spot-light for all the wrong reasons.
The gorgeous blonde wife of Hollywood hearthrob Ryan Reynolds has been slammed as a real-life mean girl by fans and critics.
Even alleged bad behaviour from her past has been dragged up.
So how did Blake’s world cave in to the point where even her dress sense is being blasted?
Central to the drama is the claim she is trivialising her new movie, which is about domestic violence, as if it were a frivolous romcom.
She plays Lily Bloom, a florist who becomes embroiled in an abusive relationship with Ryle Kincaid, played by the film’s director and star Justin Baldoni.
The story is an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling 2016 novel, which is based on the lives of her own parents.
But critics say Blake’s “shallow” approach to the film during promo tours was insulting to victims of domestic abuse.
The New York Times accused Blake of using the film as “a brand-building exercise” adding that it was “a tool she uses to sell her hair.”
Guardian writer Arwa Mahdawi wrote: “Marketing a movie about domestic abuse will inevitably be challenging; a few missteps are understandable.
“The problem here is that Lively seems more interested in marketing her brands than anything else.”
Earlier this week, she was blasted as “tone deaf” after failing to mention the movie’s serious message while hosting an interview with other cast members.
I’m going to put it away because it doesn’t go with my outfit.
Blake Lively to a young fan who has given her a friendship bracelet
Instead, she discussed dream jobs and zodiac signs during the breezy chat with the novel’s author and co-stars Jenny Slate and Isabela Ferrer.
Blake has also come under fire for flooding her Instagram account with lighthearted posts urging fans to dress in florals when they go to watch her film, and fawning over a mini replica of her character’s flower shop.
In one post she says “Grab your friends, wear your florals and head out to see it!”
A comment on Instagram from a furious fan branding Blake “tone deaf” attracted over 20,000 likes.
Another wrote: “Blake Lively’s acting career Ends With Us.”
Meanwhile, guests at the post premiere party in New York were said to be horrified at being served cocktails made with her drinks brands Betty Booze and Betty Buzz.
One of the cocktails was called Ryle You Wait — named after her character’s abuser in the film.
She was also blasted for promoting her haircare line Blake Brown during the publicity blitz.
During a chat with US entertainment news show Extra TV, she interrupted the reporter to plug the range, leading some to claim brand her “opportunistic”.
And her critics were equally shocked earlier this month when she did not wear a pink friendship bracelet offered to her by a little girl at the film’s London premiere.
She told the young fan: “I’m going to put it away because it doesn’t go with my outfit.”
But when the same girl gave a bracelet to Isabela Ferrer, Blake’s co-star immediately put it on.
A clip showing the difference between the two reactions has gone viral on TikTok, with more than two million views.
I hope to have a few girls one day. If not girls, they better be trannies because I have some amazing shoes and bags.
Blake Lively on having children
And on the red carpet last week Blake was lambasted for flippantly dismissing a question about how domestic abuse victims could approach her to talk about her character if they saw her in person.
She replied sarcastically: “Ask for my address or my phone number.
“Or I could just share my location with you.”
She was also blasted for turning up to a screening of her movie in a pair of £14,500 Valentino jeans.
The floodgates have now opened and even remarks she has made in the past have been dragged up.
Internet sleuths also unearthed a series of interviews, making Blake look cold and difficult and referring to trans people as “trannies”.
Yesterday it re-emerged that she snapped at a reporter from New York magazine, “I thought you were supposed to be classy”, when quizzed about her then-boyfriend Penn Badgley in 2008.
And an award-winning journalist claimed that interviewing Blake was so awkward it made her want to quit her job.
Kjersti Flaa revealed that their chat was “the most uncomfortable situation” she had ever experienced.
When Kjersti congratulated the actress on her pregnancy in 2016, she fired back: “Congrats on your little bump.”
Things only got worse when she asked Blake and Parker Posey about the vintage costumes they wore in their film Cafe Society.
“Everyone wants to talk about the clothes but I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes,” Blake said.
Afterwards Kjersti, 51, explained: “To be honest, it hurts because I obviously wasn’t pregnant and I could never get pregnant.
“So to me that comment was like a bullet.”
An interview she gave The Cut about having children in 2012 was dredged up during which Blake said: “I hope to have a few girls one day.
“If not girls, they better be trannies because I have some amazing shoes and bags.”
On top of all this, it has resurfaced that Blake, rose to fame playing New York socialite Serena Van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl, and Ryan married in 2012 on a plantation in south Carolina, which once had nine slave cabins and was referred to as ‘Slave Street’.
They later apologised for choosing the venue.
Blake’s attitude is being seen as a stark contrast to Baldoni, 40, who has actively championed the anti-domestic abuse charity No More.
But there is something odd about why she is being singled out in such an aggressive way.
It has certainly managed to deflect attention from one of the more interesting stories that emerged when the film’s promo tour kicked in.
And that is that she is apparently locked in a bitter feud with Baldoni.
They were not pictured together at the premiere or any subsequent screenings, and Blake promptly unfollowed him on Instagram.
Blake has also said she felt “fat shamed” by Baldoni who asked a trainer on the set how much she weighed before shooting a scene in which he had to lift her up.
The actor, who has a history of back problems, reportedly asked the expert how to protect his back from injury.
An on-set source also told TMZ that Blake felt uncomfortable when Justin lingered longer than necessary during a screen kiss.
It has also emerged that her husband weighed in on the production process and rewrote a romantic rooftop scene.
Reynolds’ involvement came as a complete surprise to the film’s script writer Christy Hall who believed the extra lines he wrote were ‘improvised’ during filming.
Blake told E! News about her husband’s additions to the script: “We help each other, we work together so much.
“He wrote it, he works on everything I do, I work on everything he does.
“So his wins, his celebrations, are mine, and mine are his.
“I mean, he’s all over this film.”
Hall later told People magazine that she was not aware of Ryan’s involvement.
Of course Lively is not a complete angel – her past transgressions did actually happen.
She also famously mocked Kate Middleton’s photoshop fail and then issued a grovelling apology after it emerged she had cancer.
But little did she know that a few months later she would find herself the one being mercilessly mocked.
My View By Dulcie Pearce
THE endless fashion shows and inappropriate plugs for hair products during promotion for her latest movie It Ends With Us is not Blake Lively’s biggest crime.
It’s actually her performance in her sickly sweet and frustrating drama that’s a Hallmark version of domestic violence.
The baffling and boring film is a frustrating watch, with Lively replicating the giggling character she played in US TV drama Gossip Girl, making it clear her acting range may be limited to one role.
Yes, the shiny promotion for a story about an abusive relationship is uncomfortable viewing, but not as much as the film itself.
She needs to shake the glossy, girly roles ASAP and get her agent to find her something gritty and real. Think Charlize Theron in Monster.
Otherwise Lively’s career might end with this.
