LOMÉ, Togo – This story, like many others, begins in a church. On July 11, a few weeks after her own ceremony, Taylor Swift was at my sister’s wedding in Milan, Italy. Not physically, of course, but most definitely in spirit. Five minutes into the sermon, around the time the attention span starts fading away for some of us, my antennas straightened up abruptly. The bearded-spectacled priest in his early 50s mentioned the super-popstar’s name while revisiting a Biblical verse that inspired one of Mrs. Swift’s songs. Believe it or not, the name “Taylor Swift” meant almost nothing to me until early 2025, about a month after The New York Times published a controversial, investigative piece on what people in the industry now consider to be “the biggest scandal in Hollywood’s history”. 

Before that I would have heard the singer’s name and all I could have thought of was connected to music and celebrities in general, nothing specific except for an incident with Kanye West (another artist I knew very little about) at a music award show. I’m a journalist but for the past 20 years I’ve been covering other types of conflicts. Moreover, Taylor Swift was less indicative to me than Ryan Reynolds. I watched only two movies of the actor’s decades-long career: “The Proposal”, because of Sandra Bullock, and “Safe House”, because of Denzel Washington. I knew nothing about “Deadpool” (really disgusting product in my opinion: it’s difficult for some people to watch that level of violence portrayed as a silly joke) and the rest of it, not to mention all the businesses Reynolds is affiliated with. 

Between Taylor and Ryan I would have placed Blake Lively, one of the less effective “little drummer girl”. Again, I watched only one movie with her: “Savages” (because of Oliver Stone). Last year, though, I’ve watched the second one: “It Ends With Us” (I couldn’t resist and I was on a long flight back to West Africa). Like almost everybody outside the industry, I’ve never heard of the name Justin Baldoni but I knew well enough of his religion and I met some of the Bahà’i community members around the world. Few of them are really close friends here in Togo. In January 2025 I therefore began researching on the “Baldoni-Lively” scandal and on some of these celebrities’ lives. I also started following an interesting variety of “YouTubers” and content creators that were now deeply involved in something that I still consider much bigger than what meets the eye. 

This particular scandal offered a great opportunity to analyze Hollywood’s complexities and dynamics, friends and enemies, alliances and betrayals, great deals and failures. I had (almost) everything at my disposal: articles, videos, podcasts, contacts, and a very small number of past experiences meeting with Hollywood celebrities. So I took a week-end off just to study this case as if it were an armed conflict raging in some remote region of the African continent. By Monday morning I felt with no doubt that something this big would have never gone to trial. “They f*ed up...”, was Joe Rogan first and only assessment on the scandal days after The New York Times’ infamous hit-piece: “We Can Bury Anyone, Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” (what was Megan Twohey thinking…?). That comment from Rogan was enough confirmation for me: “They just never thought that anybody was gonna come out with the receipts”, the most famous podcaster in the world continued while being distracted by a UFC match that his producer, Jamie, was trying to put on the screen. “Because everyone’s scared, because Ryan Reynolds is A-List, Blake Lively A-list...”. 

The current connectivity experience we can all live through podcasts and social media is maybe pushing us closer and closer to a “rational-utopian” dimension where, one day, everybody will know everybody else’s stories much better. This specific Hollywood scandal seemed really special (much more than the “Heard-Depp” story): The CIA involvement, a “digital revolution”, new (and old) discussions on the “Jewish influence in Hollywood”, the US propaganda machine, the relationships between actors, the media spinning, the “Tree Pain kind of publicists”, etc, etc, etc. I’ve never seen so many “different” people from all over the world and from all walks of life coming together to get to the truth as in this Baldoni-Lively saga. Not even the violence in Gaza or the Charlie Kirk’s assassination felt this intense on the internet, and for such a long period: almost two years of front-page-news every day. Lawyers, doctors, nurses, artists, writers, journalists, make-up artists, TV producers, police reserves, waiters, dog-sitters, no matter the profession, as soon as those receipts were published in the Baldoni “LAWSUIT INFO” website (probably the first of its kind and a blue print for future legal cases), many rushed to help Justin and his main lawyer, Bryan Freedman, as if they were our own brothers in trouble.   

These days, at the intersection between reality and pop-culture lies one main man: Judge Lewis J. Liman. I knew of his father and brother, but not of him. As the son of Arthur Liman, involved in the Iran-Contra affair trail, and the brother of Doug Liman, the troublesome, interesting filmmaker (loved the first two Bournes and “Fair Game”), I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for Judge LJL every time he gets recognized by a waiter in a restaurant: “Sir, sorry to bother, but you are…you are Judge Liman, right? The Baldoni-Lively Judge, correct?” And him responding: “Well…yes, but I did other things too during my over 30-year-old career”. I’m quite sure Doug would have really liked to replace his brother for once during these past two years. 

HOLLYWORLD

There’s a war going on among Hollywood CEOs, executives, agents, old and new ones, and it’s difficult to understand the alliances sometimes. Bob Iger (whose book was published few months before the COVID-19 pandemic), Bob Chapek (whose book just came out), Ari Emanuel (whose book just came out and whose brother, Rahm, seemed interested in Bob Iger’s brief political aspirations), the Ellison son and daughter’s acquisitions of Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, Bezos’ Amazon strategy, Sarandos’ Netflix strategy, now more than ever all closely observed by journalists, podcasters and lawyers. And then you have the “soldiers”: actors and directors, who’s for and who’s against AI, who’s for streaming and who’s for movies in theaters. Maybe in the middle of everything lie the producers, they usually go where the money is.

It looks like the beginning of a new era in Hollywood. The old system isn’t working anymore, we live in a time where celebrities are less considered “stars” and “untouchable” than few years ago (the Epstein and Weinstein cases, among many, surely helped with that) and where people will finally ask more questions about what they watch, who’s involved and why. It’s becoming always more difficult to separate the art from the artist and I believe it’s a good thing. The Baldoni-Lively saga compelled some of us to re-watch old and recent interviews with more mature but fresher eyes. The outcome looks now very different for many people outside (and maybe quite a few inside too) the show-business: the general public, the real fuel to the whole machine. A big chunk of us is coming to terms with the extent to which Hollywood has been functioning like an incredible propaganda machine for decades (or since inception). 

Hollywood, like all medium, is essentially a tool, though, not just a neighborhood in Los Angeles. For politicians, artists, business people, good and bad, but a tool nonetheless. Its apparent functionality keeps getting damaged (or bettered, in some cases) by the effects of a new technological wave. One that hasn’t been seen since the invention of the printing press in 1440. One of the biggest and first, recent cracks in the system was the “Will Smith-slap” against Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022. So many lessons to learn from that “episode” alone (Lupita Nyong’o’s expression throughout the whole scene was the real deal). One of these lessons is how Smith’s team decided to manage his come-back by doing what too many celebrities do since the 90s: turn to Africa when their situation seems desperate. In early January 2024, the BBC reported: “Hollywood star Will Smith surprised Mamadou Safayou Barry, a 25-year-old engineering student from Guinea who bicycled 4,000 kilometers across Africa to attend university in Egypt. Smith video-called Barry to gift him a new bike, a laptop, and flight vouchers”. A gesture that might have moved me in the past but that now feels quite…disappointing. A brother taking advantage of a brother. Real charity stays hidden. Celebrities need to reconsider their role in it, often they’re doing more harmed than good. Ben Affleck on C-SPAN in front of the Senate (next to Bill Gates) reading about his efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Stop, please, is not working. Or if you need to continue, do it without anyone knowing it (or get Erik Prince in a parking lot and have a serious conversation with him because he’s not helping either).

Some actors, and Ryan Reynolds is probably among them, believe that “you can’t be cancelled if they keep talking about you”. The Will Smith-Chris Rock scandal made me think about Tony Rock and how he has been used for years by the Smiths as a decoy to influence or keep at bay his big brother, Chris. In the movie “Hitch” (among the deleted scenes, of course), Tony played “a guy who tries to copy Will Smith's dating moves but fails miserably and gets punched in the face.”  Will (and Jada too) had recruited a young Tony also for the TV series “All Of Us” with a very similar role: the funny guy. Now I can’t think of anything else but some sort of “show-biz set-up” or trap. The Baldoni-Lively saga taught us about certain Hollywood’s dynamics that aren’t too different from the ones occurring within any family or middle-school playground.

Italy had an actor caught up in the scandal too: Michele Morrone. He starred in the movie “Another Simple Favor” (as a “gay mafioso”, a suggestion coming from Ryan, of course) with Blake and he used to go to dinner at her and Ryan’s house to eat pizza. After some research I discovered that this guy from the small village of Bitonto, in the Apulia region (Southern Italy), got regularly drugged by his ex-girlfriend for over a year before making it into Hollywood. She would put flowers soaked in drugs all over his meals. It wouldn’t surprise me if what happened to him after being drugged was recorded with a camera by his ex-girlfriend and given to Ryan or Blake, apparently “good friends” of Morrone’s. That might prove Michele’s fervent support for the Hollywood (once A-list) couple. Morrone can appear arrogant but he can’t be that blind.

Since the Baldoni scandal became public in late 2024, there are some actors that I can’t watch anymore with the same “affection”. I can’t watch Sacha Baron Cohen anymore: during the 2-hour-long interview with Jenelle Riley he conveniently left out his greatest performance in the Netflix series “The Spy” (2019), I wonder why. I can’t watch anymore Sandra Bullock (another “little drummer girl”, chosen to voice Golda Meir and be the “Frank Sinatra” of “Ocean’s 8”). I never bothered to watch Gal Gadot, one of the latest “little drummer girl” (in her last movie she ran a lot faster than Gwyneth Paltrow in her 51Park Israeli TV advert, almost the same running uniform, though). Scott Eastwood (Clint’s son), Tom Hanks, Adrien Brody, etc. The many connections that some of these actors have with the CIA and Mossad is concerning. Theaters (before films and comedy) must have always been a very fertile ground to recruit government agents that can pass for “actors”, maybe some of them to the level of Christopher Marlowe during the Elizabethan era. 

The strange Israeli connections: Leonardo DiCaprio buying shares of a hotel near Tel Aviv, Quentin Tarantino’s wife, Ziggy Marley’s wife. The bizarre animated cartoon roles: Ricky Geravais as the dog Argonaut leaking oil, shooting bullets and spraying gas in the 2011 “Spy Kids” franchise? By the way, fun fact: Ricky actually worked for Harvey Weinstein, he simply didn’t know it when he made that joke at the Golden Globe 2020 before introducing Sandra Bullock. Strangely enough, one of Ricky’s co-stars, comedian Bob Kelly, reminded him of that during a podcast more than a year before the joke. Then you have the “Madagascar” franchise, “Kung Fu Panda”, “Toy Story”, etc, filled with actors that don’t seem to ask themselves (or to their agents) anything related to: “Why was I given that specific role in that specific cartoon?”. As Marguerite Yourcenar would say, some of these actors have become the mask they got used to wear during all these years. Because of the abuses they perpetrated or witnessed, many celebrities fled the US and sometimes even asked for foreign citizenships as a new kind of migrants, the “show-biz migrants”: George Clooney, Robin Wright, Rosie O’Donnell, both “Canadian Ryans”, Tyler Perry, Ellen DeGeneres (now coming back, apparently), Stevie Wonder, and so on. Is Hollywood turning into Hollyworld? “We’ll see”, said the Zen master.

RYAN REYNOLDS

Bullying is addictive, though. Once you’ve tried it, it’s difficult to get rid of it and you can’t just stop if you’ve reached a certain level. You’ll go on and on and on until a Baldoni comes along and “esreVerse” the whole outcome thanks to the support of his family, friends, lawyers and hundreds of thousands of unknown people. I’m just one of them and maybe you are too. Of about 500 interviews and video appearances I’ve watched featuring Ryan Reynolds, maybe 3 or 4 come as close as you could get to the real person. The “personaggio” this guy created was almost flawless. Ryan really became the mask he (with the help of others) built for himself. And now, in this new digital wave, it’s all crashing down and quite fast, dragging many others down the drain. But I wouldn’t have expected much more from a person that played a dictator since an early age like in Ryan’s (and not Matt Damon’s) “The Odyssey”, a Canadian TV series from the early 90s.

In the cover-picture from the SNL50 anniversary I can recognize only a few celebrities: Steven Spielberg seats perfectly behind and in the middle of Blake and Ryan, quite a message to all of the other actors, agents and publicists. Robert De Niro, subtly laughing in the right corner below and probably thinking: “Ryan, it’s not your fault, it used to be easier in my time. You are done.” Kevin Costner worried about Blake. Will Ferrell, still a friend of Ryan’s (for now). Cher, a statue. And finally Blake who caught me by surprise, actually: as soon as Ryan made that joke she got really scared for a second. I don’t think she was acting and even if she said “yes” to her husband’s plan for Baldoni, I feel she was also used and manipulated. 

“I can’t ever remember the lie”, Minnie Driver explained during her SAG retrospective career interview with renowned Hollywood journalist, Oliver Jones (I don’t understand why it has only 50k views, that interview is a masterclass in almost everything about life, second only to the Beau Bridges interview from the same journalist). “My dad told me that early – Minnie Driver continued – ‘The truth is much easier to remember and maintain as well’. And there are really great sociopaths that I know, actors, million-gillion-miles away from who they actually are but very, epically great at keeping those lies in the air. And I’ve watched with utter, sort of horror – slash – admiration, how they do that, and for them it’s a mantle that protects them, they don’t want their soft inner-belly to be exposed”. Especially with people like Ryan, an actor sometimes does his or her best job OFF the screen. 

But I didn’t really know Ryan Reynolds. I didn’t know that he married Blake in 2012 in a former slave-plantation in South Carolina (they then said it was “a big mistake” and we now know that it wasn’t). Ryan seems obsessed by Africa and black people. I didn’t know that during the early 2000s he visited Malawi together with his screenwriter friend, John August (and John’s husband). I didn’t know that an African-American stunt woman got killed on his Deadpool movie-set because he pushed her over the limit. I didn’t know that he likes to repeat how he punched (again, “big mistake”) Denzel Washington in the eye during “Safe House”. I didn’t know he could use a company called VANZAN LLC to obtain information illegally. I didn’t know he could influence the NYTimes thanks to his relationship with John W. Rogers Jr. (the only person able to beat Michael Jordan on a 1-0-1 game) and “The Athletic” (always NYTimes) through one of his many business partners, Adam Hansmann. I didn’t know Ryan was affiliated to quite a few companies: Mint Mobile, Aviation American Gin, Nuvei, Kelce sports apparel, Maximum Effort, etc. 

But what (maybe) surprised me the most is Ryan’s connection to the Safra family. An AI version of the actor is featured in a small documentary I’ve watched on YouTube about “one of the world's richest and most powerful banking dynasties, with a history in finance stretching back to Ottoman times, known for operating with extreme privacy and controlling a vast financial empire spanning over 30 countries with hundreds of billions in asset.” Why was AI-Ryan in that video? With just a little more research I found out a link between Michael J. Fox, his Parkinson foundation, Ryan’s deep involvement with it (his late father is the justification) and the financing coming from the Safra family. Moreover, I found interesting the “banana sketch” Ryan did (while surrounded by black people in the audience) during Stephen Colbert’s last show. Maybe it had to do with the deals the Safra family has with Chiquita. According to Forbes: “In October 2014, the Brazilian Safra Group (controlled by billionaire Joseph Safra) and the Cutrale Group (led by the Cutrale family) agreed to acquire the American banana giant Chiquita Brands International for $14.50 per share in cash, in a deal valued at approximately $1.3 billion including debt.”

Ryan (another kind of “drummer little girl”) always compares his father to Clint Eastwood (probably the oldest “drummer little girl”). James Chester Reynolds (often called Jim and whose name was given by Ryan to his first…daughter) passed away in October 2015 at the age of 74 after battling Parkinson's disease for nearly two decades. For quite some time Jim served as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer. For the people that don’t know: “The RCMP works closely with domestic and international intelligence agencies, though its primary focus is law enforcement rather than pure intelligence gathering. Historically, the RCMP handled domestic security and intelligence through its former RCMP Security Service until those duties were transferred to the newly created Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in 1984.” Ryan’s brother, Terry, served as a Mountie too. 

The RCMP always takes me back to a great story about foreign intelligence: “The Defection to the West and life in Canada (1970–1983) of Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov. According to a statement provided to the Delhi Police by the Soviet embassy, on February 8, 1970, Bezmenov was set to see a screening of the American film ‘The Incident’ with two of his colleagues. However, it was reported by them at the time that he had not bought his ticket, and he told them he would join them in a moment and try to purchase one from a scalper outside the theater. Bezmenov did not return to the theater. Instead, Bezmenov put on hippie clothes, complete with a beard and wig, before joining a tour group. By these means, he escaped to Athens, Greece. His defection was reported in the United States, with Soviet sources stating ‘he was not important and did clerical work’. After contacting the American embassy and undergoing extensive interviews with United States intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was able to help Bezmenov seek asylum in Canada, granted by the administration of Pierre Trudeau (whose son is now with Katy Perry…). The CIA and the RCMP assigned him a new name and identity for reasons of safety. In order to save face with the embarrassment of defection of a Soviet agent, the Delhi residency officially reported he had been abducted, and his son, his closest surviving relative, was given financial compensation.

So, I didn’t really know much about Ryan but when Travis Kelce (happy birthday, by the way) unfollowed him on Instagram, I knew that the IEWU scandal was becoming more and more serious. Later on, of course, came the Swift-Kelce wedding where everybody was invited but the parents of Talyor’s God-children. In between, videos from Jake Gyllenaal resurfaced and he looked pretty angry at Ryan for some reason. Even Christopher Candy seemed forced to stay away from mentioning Ryan who produced the “I Like Me” (what a title chosen by Ryan, of course) documentary about his father, John Candy (Christopher worked for Chris Martin as well). With his Maximum efforts, Ryan’s team waits for the scandal before intervening in the most dramatic way he could think of. But lately HE is the scandal. It’s clearer now why the A-list couple needed Nick Shapiro, a former CIA senior official and Tulane University alumni (Tulane helped with Ryan’s movie “Green Lantern”), to manage a situation in which Hollywood and the CIA intertwined at their best (the A-list couple recently made clear that Leslie Sloan, their publicist for 20 years, wasn’t apparently enough).

DIGITAL REBELS

Bryan Freedman said it best on Zack Peter and Dana Bowling’s podcasts: “Culturally, socially, in every way, it’s been an amazing case. The most amazing part of it has been the content creators. It has been the intelligence, their willingness to fight the system. And I don’t just mean on the ones pro-Justin but the ones willing to dig into it. And I’m amazed at how intelligent people are.” I digitally-met so many great people and a few confused-ones. I first met Kjersti Flaa (her partner, Magnus, and her executive producer, Oscar) by chance in relation to another Hollywood legend and a story I’ve been working on for some time. If something untrue is written about us, we get suspicious about the whole article. That’s one of the main reasons why Kjersti, “Hollywood truth teller and the voice of reason in a town built on delusion (love her intro)”, shifted her perspective about the Lively-Baldoni scandal after reading lies about herself. Her professionalism is something so refreshing in an industry that is now waking up to the responsibility it has in telling us the truth, not just entertain the public. 

Andy Signore (and the wonderful Kim) has a documentary in his pocket that is going to blow up. He was patient enough to see it through it all. Even when I was passing by the Senegalese coast or drinking at a classy bar in Milan, I was watching Popcorned Planet’s videos (I was quite concerned when Kim went missing for a few days). Elsirich from FAFO & Associates, the most “agguerrita” of them all, is originally from Ghana, close to Togo, my country of birth. She probably didn’t like the Togolese energy trying to get in touch with her but then I saw the energy with which she went after one of Lively’s fans outside the court in New York City and she was scary, ahah! That poor old lady tried to mumble something but nothing, Elsie wouldn’t have it, never felt so proud of a Ghanian-American sister. 

Katyinkc’s reporting was also quite aggressive and funny at the same time. So much that after following her for about a year I had a dream about her (and I believe in dreams). So, on May 2, I wrote an email to congratulate her and tell her about the dream, hoping she wouldn’t think I was a crazy fan: “I don't know if it was that feud (with another podcaster from the same State, Kenz) that affected me, but I have to tell you about a strange thing that happened to me last night: I dreamt about you, and it was quite a long dream, and I realized just this morning that it was actually you when I opened my PC and I saw some of your videos on YouTube. In brief, we were in some countryside area in rural US, there was some sort of party that, in the end, after quite a few dynamics and "challenges" with other participants, went well. It was a strange dream.” Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni reached a settlement two days later, on May 4, ending their nearly two-year legal dispute and for some, Katyinkc included, the real party began. 

Many were stunned but as soon as Kjersti’s lawyer, few weeks before, said that a settlement at this point was inevitable, it was just a matter of waiting. So, when the news of the settlement pierced the sky, I was not that surprised. Judging by what I saw Ryan and Blake doing, I actually thought they would settle the day before the trial on purpose, I didn’t know about the imminent Met Gala. Somebody that really surprised me was Dale Wheatley, Leonardo DiCaprio’s “original nemesis”, and a staunch supporter of Blake’s until the very end. He was sure to report on the trial. Similar to Grant Show missing the Brad Pitt role in “Thelma & Louise”, Dale made the movie “Don’s Plum” (what a story!) with DiCaprio before the latter became a movie-star with “Titanic” in 1997 (I also didn’t know that Kate Winslet’s uncle-in-law is Richard Branson, a worse figure than Epstein. By the way, happy birthday, Kate). But it didn’t end well with Dale, he banned me from his initial podcast “Tooreallive” because I told him three times that I was quite sure about the settlement. So, the cancelled one cancelled me. He thought I was too arrogant and he left me out of the proverbial “walled garden” (Dale unfortunately deleted his entire Blake-episodes catalogue from YouTube recently, I hope he’ll make a documentary out of that, he’s a great editor too, not just an interesting screenwriter).

Then came Billy Bush. I didn’t predict this: who knew I would be able to follow the podcast of someone inside the Bush family. He seems quite normal (another great fan of Elsie’s) despite being first cousin to a former president and nephew to another former President and former CIA director. But mostly, Billy knows what it is being at the center of a public controversy. Last but not least, Perez Hilton, “the original influencer” that I never knew about. I heard his name in an episode of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” years ago but I didn’t connect the dots until few months ago when I began following his ups and downs. There were many other “digital rebels” that gave different, insightful perspectives too: “The Bush Birds” were focusing on the comments, “Ask2Lawyers” on the legal aspects, the two Ashelys (B-TV and Briana Eve), Dave Neal, Lauren, Aaron, Sasha, etc.

And then came the subpoenas. I thought it was a joke: “Blake Lively's legal team issued sweeping subpoenas to Google, TikTok, X, and various content creators as part of her legal battle against her ‘It Ends With Us’ co-star and director, Justin Baldoni. Lively alleged that Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, orchestrated an online ‘smear campaign’ to damage her reputation following workplace sexual harassment allegations. Her lawyers theorized that Baldoni's legal team was paying or directing influencers to bash her online. The aggressive legal strategy targeted a massive pool of internet commentators, creating a major backlash. Lively's team sought information on over 100 content creators, ranging from massive media personalities to everyday users. High-Profile Commentators included Perez Hilton, Candace Owens, Andy Signore, Megyn Kelly, and entertainment journalist Kjersti Flaa. The subpoenas targeted everyday YouTubers and TikTokers—some with fewer than 100 followers and unmonetized accounts—who had simply made videos discussing the drama. The legal requests were heavily criticized as overly invasive. Rather than just asking for public communications, the subpoenas issued to platforms like Google demanded highly sensitive personal data, including: real names, physical addresses, and registered phone numbers, bank account and credit card numbers or blockchain data, IP addresses used during account creation and routine video uploads”. We all know how it ended.

That kind of pressure, though, probably helped Victoria Burke, the lawyer of the bill 47.1, to come out of the cold and into the light. She felt used by Ryan and Blake when she met with them and part of their family. After listening to her claims and story, I did some research and I started to suspect that she has been probably monitored for some time by Ryan’s lawyer, Warren Dern, also a reservist of the LAPD and her colleague at Southwestern Law School. In 2024, Dern won “Specialized Divisions Reserve Officer of the Year”: “He’s an 11-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Reserve Officer Corps. Since joining the Department in 2012, Warren has balanced his busy personal career as an attorney with volunteering as many hours of service as possible as a reserve officer. Previous to joining the Department, he founded a law firm that exclusively deals with the entertainment industry, following in the footsteps of his father, legendary entertainment attorney Dixon Dern.”

IT STARTS WITH YOU

During the early 1970s, Erno Rubik first attempt to resolve his own cubic-puzzle took him a couple of months. Considered by many as the best puzzle in human history, the Rubik-cube needs to constantly change before getting it right. For the same reason, it’s easier to talk about all the movies Harvey Weinstein got right without considering the many more movies he got wrong, that flopped at the box office, or projects that he personally damaged or destroyed (“All The Pretty Horses”, “Frida”, etc). In the meantime, all sorts of abuses were happening, on and off the screen, before, during and after filming. With IEWU the abuses were actually coming from or provoked by the “victim”, Blake, and orchestrated by her husband, Ryan. Finally, thanks to this scandal, we know that there’s so much more to unpack, not only about Hollywood but about our small, propagandized world as well. History needs to constantly be re-written to get to the truth.

For those who prefer to separate the art from the artist (by the way, singer and former army officer James Blunt is in big trouble) times are a-changing. Maybe, every once in a while, one needs to consider that both aspects of the same person, the personal and the professional one, should align as much as possible under a positive energy. Kevin Spacey was first introduced to Tony Blair (friend and business partner of Larry Ellison) by Sinead Cusack, one of the most powerful theater actors in the world and his co-star in “Rocket Gibraltar” (1988). After his case and the Epstein’s links, I could see how Spacey performed very badly on Piers Morgan (by the way, loved the brief Jaguar Wright interview where Morgan censored his own “Uncensored” program). We now know so much more about the person, not just the actor, so the lies are easier to spot (three of Spacey’s accusers died within a short period of time, one of them was a Danish aristocrat married into the Norwegian Royal family with deep connection to Epstein). Moreover, Piers Morgan complains about Charles Spencer’s honest mistake (was it?) in his book “Swan Song, Diana my sister” but Morgan’s interview with Chris Tucker in late September 2018 (Epstein was arrested in July 2019), with a picture of Bret Rattner in the background, was very dark and it reminded me of ancient slavery behavior.

By the way, I hope the new Hollywood will avoid as much as possible movies like “Air”. What a low point for everybody’s career, bowing down to David Ellison’s feet, the new sheriff in town. “Air” was a mixture of Bezos’ distribution-mania, Ellison’s fancy-production style, and Tucker’s Epstein-legacy. I doubt Michael Jordan actually “greenlighted” that project, no matter how many stories were told about his talk with Affleck and despite the “family excuses” given by Damon who couldn’t participate in the meeting with MJ. Also, for a few days I had on my YouTube feed a video about an admirer of Ben and Matt: Quentin Tarantino. He was discussing “Black Hawk Down”, the “best movie of the decade”. That movie is unwatchable for anyone that has been in Somalia and I was surprised by that thumbnail’s title. What does Tarantino know about movies like that, set in a totally different context from which he’s used to. I successfully resisted for a while, very proud of myself, I didn’t want to give Tarantino my “view” but then I surrendered and watched the video. To my surprise, the director of “Pulp Fiction” was comparing the movie to the current situation in Gaza (?!). And what about a friend of his: Uma Thurman? It looks to me now that they (Tarantino, Weinstein, etc) wanted to kill “Kill Bill” for real. Tarantino must be one of the most insecure men in Hollywood.

The Tarantinos, the Clooneys, the Weinsteins, the Ratners, the Bryan Singers, the Spaceys, the Penns, etc, they might have partied a lot back in the 90s but the party has been over for a few years now and we’re witnessing the consequences. Some of the culprits found refuge in Israel (Brett Ratner is no Arnon Milchan, though). I agree with Erika Eleniak: “Yeah, it’s show-business but often there’s too much business involved”. A kind of business that leads to figures like Diana Jenkins, who started from war-torn Bosnia, went to London and married a banker, joined the UN and humanitarian work in the US, and was briefly featured in “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” years after producing the book: “Room 23”, a series of photos with a variety of celebrities posing in hotel rooms. Quite a dark subject. Among others, there are the likes of Hayden Panettiere (who died in August), Cindy Crawford (whose son, Presley Gerber, died in September), the late Dennis Hopper, Elton John, James Blunt, Sharon Stone, Clooney and Brett Ratner, yes, him again. (Rush Hour 4 will probably never happen unless the powers that be will force Tucker and Jackie Chan with some very “compelling” arguments, money might not be enough this time).

In life you really never know, though. Grant Show may have missed the opportunity to become Brad Pitt, John Grisham should have probably insisted in meeting John le Carré, while Jimmy Fallon definitely lost a chance with Nicole Kidman (I didn’t know she was very good friend with Wendi Deng, one of Rupert Murdoch’s former wives) but, again, you never know which directions their lives would have taken. “Many are called, a few are chosen”, Bob Marley used to sing and Matthew used to write. We live in a time where Joe Rogan can sit down with Jared Diamond and get schooled on comedic timing (a really precious episode). Sometimes it’s simply the destiny you can’t escape, just like Candace Owens meeting Justin Baldoni in an airport in Iceland after all this time. 

How could have we been so wrong for so long on so many things? I’ve heard all kinds of excuses on how the movie industry got this bad: money, talent, careers, strikes, incidents, etc. All but the real excuse: indifference. Too many of us, the general public, have shown total indifference to the behind the scenes, we just wanted to be entertained. But decade after decade, the bad simply got worse. The Epstein characters evolved for decades: Woody Allen is just one of them (the name “Epstein” comes out in Allen’s movie “Bananas” during a court room scene, quite a prophecy). I didn’t know about DeNiro, Pesci and Scorsese grooming for a year and then beating up for real on camera a very young Cathy Moriarty. They were bad characters, acting with impunity, but we all became indifferent to their actions, especially if Oscar season was involved.

Is the future of Hollywood in these A-list performers’ children’s hands now? They did not have to climb the fame-ladder, they were born on top of it and too often they died trying to descend it. The so called “nepo-babies” have means that their parents couldn’t dream of while trying to become famous only two decades before. We have too many cases where nepo-kids can’t take it anymore. They struggle. I saw Madonna’s son, David Banda, and his biological family back when I went to cover their story in Malawi in 2006. Will and Jada Smith’s kids, Michael Douglas’, Tom Hanks’, etc etc. Moreover, Edward Juul Rød-Larsen was the 25-year-old son of prominent Norwegian diplomats Terje Rød-Larsen and Mona Juul when he died by apparent suicide in Oslo last April. They all visited Epstein’s island years ago. This death was one of the reasons why “Norway's parliament opened public hearings on September 30th to investigate deep ties between late U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and senior Norwegian diplomats, politicians, and elites following the release of millions of DOJ documents.”

All these strange deaths: Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson. Anne Celeste Heche and Stephen Laurel "tWitch" Boss. Gene Hackman and Rob Reiner. DeShaun Dupree Holton and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Haydan Panettiere and Presley Walker Gerber. And the list goes on and on for far too long with people sometimes unable to talk about certain aspects of their real life before the end of it. Maybe Dylan Penn could have expressed her-real-self only through the podcast of a surfer but her brother seems in need of help. The death of Diane Keaton (the original “little drummer girl”) seemed bizarre too. By watching her interviews during the past few years, where she would try to kiss everybody on TV, I felt like she was waiting for it to happen and it did, about a month after Woody Allen’s appearance on the “Club Random” Podcast (Bill Maher’s best episode on “Club Random” was probably the one with Charlie Kirk, another strange death). 

The 90s were the first big wave of movies produced with a new technology. Did we go too far in certain ways? Which ways? The sons and daughters of that age keep struggling or dying. Others disappear from the public. Selah Marley went missing for a few years from the internet right after the public realized a few things about how she was disciplined by her mother. Her father then started to do podcasts everywhere. Jaden Smith had it rough since the film “The Pursuit of Happiness” by Italian director, Gabriele Muccino. And now we have Halle Berry’s young son, Maceo, in the cross hairs between his mother and French father, Olivier Martinez. We might need to restart from the basics, zero, and build the whole house back again. It might be the only solution. “In journalism the most important rule in re-writing an article is shooting it down.” (The Wire, season 5). Listening to these celebrities talking with a more mature perspective about their lives makes you learn a lot about what went on inside and outside the industry. Ask Sienna Miller where she found the best spaghetti bolognaise: in Northern Nigeria, and I believe her (I don't know how she survived the media attention years ago, though, what a fierce actor and person she must be, I now understand Kevin Costner's choice to cast her for his dream project).

By watching various podcasts sometimes it feels like watching an instant version of Brad Faulchek’s “Famous Last Words”. One of the episodes of his Netflix series is about the late Jane Goodall, appointed a United Nations Messenger of Peace by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2002. But if everything in a movie is there for a reason, I now wonder why Denzel Washington accepted the role in “American Gangster” and the scene in which he’s talking to his mafia counterpart with the New York City United Nations building in the background. What kind of message am I supposed to read into it. The UN was and still is a very interesting project, we just need to keep building it the way it was intended to. 

So, dear Justin, I know it might not look like it but this scandal has got nothing to do with you, with domestic violence, or with Hollywood. It’s got to do with the number of people that thanks to your strength will now better understand how propaganda actually works. That means that one day we won’t see any more pictures of African babies crying with flies in their eyes in order to raise funds. The Richard Curtis-kind will soon be forgotten (in “Notting Hill” there’s a picture of a semi-naked African child behind Hugh Grant while Julia Roberts tries to win him back, then the Darfur joke, etc.). The damage that some of these people’s films have contributed to societies around the world, and not just inside their own countries, is grave. Therefore, here a reminder about the roots of propaganda from a fairly reputable study: “What is propaganda? The etymology of the word ‘propaganda’ is from the Latin and modern Italian verb propagare meaning ‘to spread’. It was first used by the Catholic Church in 1622 when Pope Gregory XV established the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Sacred Congregation for Spreading the Faith) as part of missionary efforts to prevent the decline of Catholicism as it was challenged by Protestantism and the Enlightenment.”

“The modern focus upon the term began during the 1920s when Communications Studies was established as an academic subject distinct from psychology, sociology and linguistics, and on account of emerging public debates about the societal impact of the ‘new media’ of radio broadcasting. Propaganda is most effective when used subtly or when it operates beneath the target audience’s conscious awareness. It is on account of these subtleties that it is marginalised from full public consciousness and struggles to achieve the quality and quantity of critical attention that merits its influence over individual and collective decision-making. For example, propaganda is usually perceived as a part of warfare, when, in reality, it represents a much fuller part of the explanation for why these acts of mass violence continue to be accepted by publics in their name, why combatants enlist, why publics support armed conflict, and why most politicians and civilians cannot conceive of a world without war or have limited will to make it illegal. Propaganda is not a part of war – it is arguably the whole reason that war continues to exist.”

“Propaganda usually involves communications intended to provoke emotional attachment to a cause, belief, concept or individual. It discourages rational thoughts – although the propagandist may claim rational or ‘common sense’ logics. It regularly adopts or aligns with readily held ideological tenets and cultural symbols (flags, patriotism, the Royal Family, positive moments within collective memory - war victories, for example) to achieve its aims. This is where common understanding of propaganda usually ends. Beyond this, much of the work of the propagandist involves influencing the social, economic and political circumstances that encourage the eminence of their cause above others. It is a process that results in the marginalizing of inconvenient alternatives, encouraging the conditions of censorship and self-censorship, buying influence, using the spectacle of entertainment or controversy to attract attention, manipulating the rule of law and threats of legal consequences to compel compliance.”

I recently rewatched “Live from Baghdad”, a movie about former CNN producer, Robert Weiner, and the coverage of the “First Gulf War” in 1991. It was in development for 10 years but then it was rushed into production and released in late 2002, few months before the beginning of the “Second Gulf War” in early 2003: what a coincidence. Aside from the main events (the moon landing) and main people (Donald Trump) mentioned in the movie, I found quite dark the role of Murphy Dunne. For over two decades, since it was first seen in Italy, Dunne’s role as Bob Vinton meant nothing to me. But to the American people probably meant quite a lot: “While Dunne is widely recognized for his comedic and musical background—most famously playing the keyboardist "Murph" in The Blues Brothers (1980)—his role in ‘Live from Baghdad’ was a brief but emotionally heavy dramatic appearance meant to ground the real-life human cost of the media's coverage during the crisis.”

Screenwriter William Goldman used to say: “The first thing you need to learn about Hollywood is that nobody knows what’s going on”. With the Skydance merger, the Ellison family might establish today the real beginning of its empire. It’s a big responsibility for the world, not just for the people directly involved. That kind of power needs to be well monitored by everybody. Propaganda travels fast, very fast, especially in such a small world. In the last season of “The Newsroom” (2014), Larry Ellison is mentioned together with Elon musk and Michael Bloomberg. Was this one of Sorkin’s prophecies? Was Lucas Pruitt actually based on Larry’s son, David? Sorkin still has Ari Emanuel as an agent, so the connection to the Ellisons has been quite direct for some time. I therefore wonder if one of the most successful American screenwriters knows what his beautiful words have been used for and by whom during his long career. 

As Charles Spencer said in his courageous eulogy for his sister Diana almost 30 years ago: “Genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum.” So, in my humble opinion, we just need to prepare and be more careful from now on because of one simple reason: B.W.C. – Big Wave Coming.

Matteo Fraschini Koffi