Since Blake Lively’s explosive civil rights complaint alleged a coordinated attempt to tarnish her reputation, many pundits, influencers, and everyday fans have begun to consider how public relations efforts can influence their own perceptions of celebrities — particularly women who are at the center of other controversial ones cases stand.

Lively accused co-star and director Justin Baldoni of repeated sexual harassment while filming her summer blockbuster “It Ends With Us” — and then said in her filing that he set up a crisis publicity team to deal with her as difficult to handle and branding her as insensitive. The central theme of the film is domestic violence. A lawyer representing Baldoni has denied Lively’s allegations and filed a $250 million libel lawsuit against The New York Times, which first reported the defamation campaign allegations, claiming that there was no defamation campaign and that Some of the Times’ reporting left out crucial context.

The Times responded in a statement that it would “vigorously defend itself” and said Baldoni, other parties and his representatives “did not point out a single error” in their reporting. Hours after Baldoni filed suit against the newspaper, Lively filed her own lawsuit in New York with her allegations of sexual harassment and smear campaigning.

The allegations caused a stir on social media, partly because they opened the curtain on the Hollywood press machine.

“The Hollywood publicist has been around for decades, almost as long as the industry itself. What I think is changing is that people are starting to realize how artificial the narratives and the personas are,” said Molly McPherson, one Crisis communications strategist with over 560,000 TikTok followers. “I think people will scrutinize the PR industry. I also think it will lead to a loss of trust.”

This is already happening with fans on social media discussing how the Baldoni-Lively feud has changed their perception and understanding of the machinations and influence of Hollywood PR.

Deborah Hollingsworth, 45, who works in education in North Carolina, said she was inundated with short social media videos on Facebook and Instagram criticizing Lively during the press campaign surrounding “It Ends With Us.”

“In a lot of ways, before I even knew what the movie was about, I was like, ‘Hey, there’s this new movie about domestic violence and Blake Lively is in it and she sucks,'” Hollingsworth said. “And it was so pervasive.”

After reading the New York Times article announcing Lively’s complaint, Hollingsworth changed his mind. She remembered telling her husband, “The whole thing was a ruse.”

Hollingsworth said the whole episode made her reconsider her opinion on another major celebrity feud that has taken over the zeitgeist in 2022: Johnny Depp’s libel lawsuit against Amber Heard. Hollingsworth said she now wonders how PR might have influenced her perspective – and she wasn’t the only one.

Online, influencers and everyday people have also begun comparing Lively’s story to those of other prominent women like Heard, Angelina Jolie and Megan Thee Stallion, who have faced intense public scrutiny and widespread attacks in recent years, particularly over domestic violence issues , harassment and her relationships with prominent men. The attacks, fueled by PR teams, the accused celebrities and people online, included negative viral posts, authors pushing out monetized content and misinformation on social media.

On platforms like TikTok, Reddit, Instagram, in some cases the same creators and actors from the Hollywood PR world are involved.

Melissa Nathan, one of Baldoni’s crisis publicists, previously represented Depp. Heard, who lost a high-profile libel lawsuit against Depp in 2022, spoke out after Lively’s complaint was filed, saying: “I’ve seen this firsthand and up close. “It’s as horrific as it is destructive.”

“The smear campaign against Amber Heard and the smear campaign against Blake Lively were organized by the same PR firm. Do you get it yet?” said a post on X with over 800,000 views. “Angelina, Megan, Amber, Blake, and others are all victims of the same system whose sole goal is to destroy them while empowering their abusers,” reads a comment with more than 3,000 upvotes on Reddit. In addition to online comments, other women in entertainment, such as Abigail Breslin and Kate Beckinsale, have also spoken out in support of Lively and shared their own allegations of harassment and retaliation on set.

Chris Harihar, who has also worked in crisis communications strategy, said the crisis advertising tactics Baldoni’s team is accused of were adopted from algorithm-driven social media platforms that reward content with a misogynistic bias.

“This narrative works because it fits into a broader framework that we see online where women in power are demonized,” Harihar said. “You would hope that people would be more skeptical about situations like this, and I think that will happen, but people have short memories. They slip back into bad behavior.”

The tide hasn’t completely turned for Lively. After Baldoni filed his lawsuit against the Times on Tuesday, many posts and comments turned back toward him and against Lively.

McPherson said, “People are still suspicious of Blake Lively,” in part because of her past controversies. McPherson also made a video with over 1 million views about the latest developments in the case and how both sides are using public relations tactics.

In 2020, Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds apologized for his choice of wedding venue eight years earlier – a former slave plantation. Some content creators and commenters continued to disapprove of Lively promoting her beverage and hair care brands alongside “It Ends With Us,” even as they said they believed her allegations against Baldoni. There have also been many posts and comments from those who don’t believe Lively’s claims.

McPherson said the larger impact of Lively’s case was that it exposed the “backroom tactics” of crisis publicists that she said could have veered into unethical territory. Baldoni’s ex-publicist sued him and his current team, including Nathan, for alleged manipulation and breach of contract.

In a TikTok video with nearly 4 million views, creator KJ Miller wondered whether a previous video she made about Lively’s talking points during the “It Ends With Us” press tour was part of a “much larger chess game” in PR -industry was.

“I felt like I made the video naturally, and now I’m like, ‘Was I? Did I get it?’” Miller said in the video. “I’m not trying to absolve myself of any guilt, but rather really wondering about this machine that I guess I’m now a part of.”

Factors that influence how the public perception of stars evolves include their past reputation, the size and strength of their fan base, the way social media influencers and news outlets cover them, and, how the former Litigation attorney and workplace consultant Adrienne Lawrence said various biases against marginalized groups come into play.

“Stereotypes against gender, race, sexuality and other identities are often weaponized to support these smear campaigns,” Lawrence said. “As we saw with Lively, women are often portrayed as manipulative and overly ambitious when enforcing boundaries or seeking responsibility. It really addresses the long-held stereotype that penalizes women for asserting power in professional settings.”

Online reactions to controversies involving prominent women have varied in recent years. In 2023, when singer Joe Jonas and actress Sophie Turner divorced, Turner appeared to win the ensuing PR battle by remaining largely silent amid negative stories about her from media outlets such as TMZ. In 2022, after content creators profited from portraying Heard in a negative light, women like Jolie and actress Evan Rachel Wood were targeted as “Heard 2.0.”

“As I read the pieces excerpted from the lawsuit and went over things with Amber Heard, I really felt like I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was,” Hollingsworth said. “I hope I learned something from this.”