Will the Blake Lively and J. Lo Backlash Kill the Puff Piece?
The remarkable downfall of two stars whose A-List status seemed bullet-proof.
In today’s issue:
Remembering my days interviewing the stars as a tadpole reporter, in light of Blake Lively’s viral 2016 interview.
Why puff pieces may now be failing the A-List.
Loose Threads, including the latest RHONY trailer featuring Jenna Lyons and Rebecca Minkoff; Anna Wintour allows Vogue (Dogue) to profile her dogs; and more.
The Blake Lively backlash received a boost this week thanks to a Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa, who uploaded an interview that she said “made me want to quit my job.”
Flaa interviewed Lively and Parker Posey about the 2016 Woody Allen movie Café Society at what looks like a press junket. She opens by congratulating Lively on her “little bump.” Lively replies and says, “Congrats on your little bump.” Posey then says, “What about my bump?” and puts her hand on her rear. After awkward bump blathering, Flaa says the movie was “visually amazing” and asks if they liked their costumes. Lively barely looks at Flaa and says, “I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes.”
The video has resulted in a fresh round of headlines and discussion in the midst of the Lively backlash (or “Blake-lash,” as
termed it). Lively’s promotional tour for the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us could have been as controversial as the Internet saying her floral outfits are mid. Yet the movie and Lively’s red-carpet appearances have been overshadowed by a number of things:Her clash with director Justin Baldoni, which seems to have resulted in them not speaking or interacting on the press tour.
Lively downplaying the domestic violence depicted in the movie.
Lively’s past, including how she got married on a plantation (she and husband Ryan Reynolds apologized for this in 2020) and how she published a fashion spread in her defunct lifestyle site Preserve in 2014 called “Allure of Antebellum.”
And then, this old video interview came along. I watched it before wading deeply into the discourse about it and it didn’t seem all that bad to me. As a tadpole reporter for New York magazine, I used to attend red-carpet events and parties around New York City to interview celebrities for the “Party Lines” page and write short items for the website. New York magazine got pretty good access, so sometimes I would be the only reporter roaming around a party in a hotel suite filled with famous people, and could go up to them and ask them questions. Other times, you’d be on a red carpet along with lots of other reporters trying to get someone to talk to you. On occasion, I’d talk to people, realize I didn’t have what I needed, and have to muster up the courage to go back to them to ask follow-up questions.
I encountered celebrities in all kinds of moods.
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