The legal feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni is heating up, dragging multiple celebrities into its carnage.
One of those caught in the crosshairs is Jameela Jamil, who shares the same publicist as Justin Baldoni. Baldoni and Lively, the two stars of 2024's It Ends With Us, are embroiled in a bitter legal battle after Lively filed a lawsuit claiming that she was sexually harassed, while also alleging that Baldoni and his team coordinated a "social manipulation campaign" to destroy her reputation. He filed a countersuit against her, but it was quickly dismissed.
On Wednesday, a slew of court documents in the case were unsealed, revealing text message conversations between Lively and Taylor Swift, as well as messages between Jamil and publicist Jennifer Abel from August 2024. After her text messages became public, the former Legendary judge responded to critics who called her anti-feminist in her Instagram Stories on Thursday.
In the exchange with her publicist, the two were talking about a TikTok in which the person criticized Lively's seemingly flippant attitude during the It Ends With Us press tour for a movie that tells the story of an abusive relationship.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Good Place star texted Abel saying, "She’s a suicide bomber at this point," and added, "I’ve never seen such a bizarre villain act before.”
In videos uploaded to her Instagram Stories, Jamil appeared to go on the defensive, saying that one doesn't have to be a fan of every woman to be a feminist. Her video doesn't directly mention Lively or the legal battle, THR notes, but it does come not too long after publications published articles with news reports that proclaim her "feminist, women-first image may be taking a serious hit."
She defended herself on her Instagram, saying, "Guys, feminism means fighting for the political, social, and economic equity for women." Jamil continued, "Just gender equity. It does not mean you have to like every single woman. It doesn’t mean you have to be friends with every single woman. It means you can actually beef with other women. You can criticize them. You can do whatever you want, as long as you are also fighting for their human right to the same things that men have in this world.”
She ended her video saying, "That’s all feminism is. It’s a moral and political stance. It is not a sleepover where we braid each other’s pubes, OK? So if you are fighting for women’s rights, but you don’t get along with every single woman, it doesn’t make you a bad feminist.”
