Kelly Stafford criticized Blake Lively for attending a glitzy event just hours after a judge dismissed Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.
Lively, 37, stepped out at Chanel’s annual Tribeca Festival Dinner on Monday, June 9, posing for photos on the red carpet in New York City.
“I saw her at some award thing or something,” Stafford, 36, said Thursday, June 12, on her “The Morning After” podcast. “I don’t know what it was. Tribeca Film Festival, I think? She looked very, very happy.”
Stafford continued, “It honestly kind of pissed me off. I was like, ‘You haven’t won yet! Relax.’”
Judge Lewis J. Liman tossed out Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit directed at Lively and Reynolds, 48, on Monday and also dismissed the actor’s $250 million libel complaint against The New York Times. The Times was the first to report that Lively had accused her It Ends With Us director and costar of sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign against her in 2024.
Despite Stafford admitting she didn’t “even know the case, really,” she still took issue with Lively’s demeanor at the event.
“You know when you can spot fake happiness?” Stafford questioned.
The whole debate about Lively threw Kelly, the wife of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, into an existential tailspin.
“Wait, I actually like her,” Kelly said. “I think I like her? I don’t know. If [Baldoni’s lawsuit] is true, I don’t like her. But if it’s not true, I like her!”
An exasperated Kelly added, “This is a hard world we live in.”
The football wife and mother of four explained that she wouldn’t have even known about Lively’s red carpet appearance if it weren’t for her recent return to Instagram after a hiatus.
“Honestly, can I tell you something?” she said on the podcast. “I f***ing hate being back on social media. Because now I have people from all different sides that are filling my timeline. Literally, I was so at peace. I was so at peace.”
Lively addressed Baldoni’s lawsuit being dropped shortly after the judge laid down the ruling.
“Last week, I stood proudly alongside 19 organizations united in defending women’s rights to speak up for their safety,” Lively wrote via her Instagram Story on Monday. “Like so many others, I’ve felt the pain of a retaliatory lawsuit, including the manufactured shame that tries to break us. While the suit against me was defeated, so many don’t have the resources to fight back.”
Lively added, “I’m more resolved than ever to continue to stand for every woman’s right to have a voice in protecting themselves, including their safety, their integrity, their dignity and their story.”
While the lawsuit was dismissed, Baldoni and his legal team were given the option to refile later this month after amending certain claims. Earlier this week, his attorney Bryan Freedman vowed to continue the legal fight.
“Ms. Lively and her team’s predictable declaration of victory is false, so let us be clear about the latest ruling,” Freedman told Us Weekly in a statement on Tuesday. “While the Court dismissed the defamation-related claims, the Court has invited us to amend four out of the seven claims against Ms. Lively, which will showcase additional evidence and refined allegations. This case is about false accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation and a nonexistent smear campaign, which Ms. Lively’s own team conveniently describes as ‘untraceable’ because they cannot prove what never happened.”
