Blake Lively’s attempt to appear down-to-earth amid her bitter legal battle with Justin Baldoni, by working in the kitchen of a friend’s Connecticut doughnut shop, has seemingly backfired by triggering an investigation by local health officials.
A spokesperson for the Health Department in Wilton, Connecticut, the location of the small, family-run Rise Doughnuts, told TMZ that they had received reports about Lively working in the kitchen without a hair net.
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Indeed, in photos that Lively herself shared on Instagram Stories Sunday, she can be seen working in the kitchen and behind the counter, apparently letting her flowing blonde locks remain loose during her shift. At one point, she shared an image of herself, leaning over a tray of doughnuts, with strands of hair falling to within inches of the treats.
It’s likely that Lively’s critics were among those lodging complaints with the Wilton Health Department, TMZ noted. But it’s also apparent that the embattled “Gossip Girl” star should have put a little more thought into the optics of her bakery photo op. Critics have called the multimillionaire film star’s visit a “PR stunt” and derided it as an attempt to make her seem relatable and not above doing manual labor.
According to Lively’s Instagram Stories, she surprised shop customers by working behind the counter, People reported.
“Baking with genius food friends and their kitchen mixer the size of a car,” Lively wrote alongside a photo of her working the kitchen tool, adding, “This is what my happy place looks like.” But another potential issue shown by this photo is that Lively isn’t wearing gloves while working the mixer — unlike other employees seen wearing gloves while mixing ingredients.
A source told People that Lively “was in a really happy mood” during the visit and that she is friends with the owner of Rise Doughnuts. The publication said that Lively has highlighted her love of baking in the past and shared her culinary creations with fans on social media.
At one point during her Rise Doughnuts visit, Lively reportedly chatted with a father and son, with the father telling the boy: “Her husband is Deadpool,” referring to the popular character that Ryan Reynolds plays in the Marvel movies.
TMZ said it’s not clear what sanctions, if any, that Rise Doughnuts could face for Lively’s failure to wear a hair net.
But her choice to publicize her visit has brought the shop other unwanted attention. Comments on its Yelp page have been temporarily blocked, with Yelp saying it is monitoring “unusual activity” on the site, due to the business being in the news. That means that the shop’s Yelp page was probably flooded with pro- or anti-Lively comments, which of course have nothing do with the quality of the shop’s service or baked goods.
Lively’s outing to the doughnut shop has come amid her ongoing legal battle with Baldoni, the director and co-star of her film, “It Ends with Us.”
The public dispute began with the film’s premiere in August 2024. During the film’s release, Lively faced an onslaught of online criticism over her “tone-deaf” promotional efforts for the drama about domestic violence. In interviews and on social media, she talked about the movie as if it were a rom-com, suitable for a fun girls’ night out, an approach that was seen as downplaying the film’s serious themes and offensive to survivors of domestic violence. Lively also reportedly used promotional events for the film to hawk her beauty brand or her husband’s gin.
But in late 2024, Lively hit back at the criticism by alleging it actually was fueled by a “smear” campaign, orchestrated by Baldoni, his co-producer and his publicists in an effort to damage her reputation. In a civil rights complaint, a lawsuit and a New York Times story, Lively alleged that the smear campaign was launched to retaliate against her after she accused Baldoni of sexually inappropriate behavior during the film’s production.
Baldoni has vehemently denied the sexual harassment allegations and hit back with a lawsuit of his own, accusing both Lively and Reynolds of trying to seize control of his movie’s final edit and of orchestrating their own P.R. campaign to damage his reputation and career.
In the latest in the Lively/Baldoni legal back and forth, the director’s attorney filed court documents Thursday, blasting arguments put forth by Reynolds in an attempt to get himself dismissed from Baldoni’s lawsuit, People reported. Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s attorney, has said that the actor was “key player,” with his “fingerprints … all over this smear campaign” against Baldoni and his production studio.
