Wow, great piece. I have a couple thoughts here. First of all, importantly, I notice in your comments that you say Baldoni "cast a friend of his as Lively's OB-GYN."

Actually, the "friend" was... Baldoni's wife Emily.

She's an actress in her own right and has cameo'd in other work of his. I can totally see news outlets misrepresenting his relationship to the casting choice, though, and insinuating that this actor was a man, because that would be more sensationalistic.

Of course, that doesn't mean it doesn't create a weird power dynamic on set, but idk. Even though I saw the movie (interested in it because of my background in abuse research), I don't remember whether Emily Baldoni's hands were even anywhere intimate at all on Lively's body. That hadn't struck me as a particularly intimate medical scene. I certainly hope Emily Baldoni didn't make Lively feel harassed! But luckily, since Lively's allegations aren't against Emily too (as far as I know?), I gather that perhaps everything was copacetic about that scene and the media's slant on this casting choice, at least, might be disingenuous.

All this said, to be entirely honest, I haven't known what to believe. I've followed a lot of the allegations, and supposedly Baldoni has hung onto his texting history with Lively as evidence in the proceedings. Here's a sampling of some of the stuff I've seen online:

Supposedly, "Baldoni came into Lively's trailer while she was breastfeeding!".... and then I see, "Baldoni has furnished text messages that show that Lively told him she was breastfeeding and asked him to come use that time to practice their lines in her trailer."

Or, "Baldoni made Lively watch porn!" but then, "What Baldoni made Lively watch was a video of a real birth, in order to discuss the scenes surrounding the birth in the movie."

Or, "Baldoni shamed Lively for her weight!" vs. "Baldoni asked about her weight for a scene where he was supposed to lift her, as he has an injured back."

Or, "Baldoni unnecessarily said, 'It smells so good' into Lively's neck while filming a non-dialogue scene where the two were to produce B-roll material of themselves flirting!" vs. "Lively was using a spray tan and had previously commented on how awful she thought her spray tan smelled. The two joked on set about the smell of the product."

Meanwhile, by contrast, I see stuff like... "Lively made fun of the size of Baldoni's nose and told him he should get a nose job." Which, not cool for anyone to do to anyone, but especially considering the fact that Baldoni is of Jewish and Italian descent, and Jews in particular have been subject to nose-shaming for centuries.

If it turns out that there's indeed proof of Lively's allegations being obfuscations of fact — or of her demands being manufactured for shock value (i.e., I could "demand" absolutely anything of you so as to create a written record, but the fact of my demanding it doesn't mean that my demands reflect your actual conduct in the first place)... then that would be disappointing.

If it turns out that the evidence in support of Baldoni's conduct doesn't actually exist, and that he additionally ran a smear campaign against her just to cover over abuses on set, that would be horrible twice over.

I'll be following the case with great interest. That said, Lively seems to have a good chance of winning, as she and her husband together are more established, and seem to have more power, on the Hollywood scene than Baldoni and his wife. Whatever the truth is, I hope it comes out.