How The Lively-Baldoni Legal Battle Evolved On TikTok

Dueling lawsuits from Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's respective camps have created an ever-evolving PR battle (as Lucia Moses details well on Business Insider).

But on social video, the news cycle hasn't maintained the same momentum as the ongoing accusations. Data from Tubular Labs shows that viewership around legal fight peaked within the first couple days, and most of the most-watched videos about Lively and Baldoni were also from that initial time period right after the initial sexual harassment allegations on Dec. 21, 2024.

• The legal back-and-forth generated 374 million views on TikTok from Dec. 21-Jan. 10.
• While there's been consistent conversation in the time since, Lively/Baldoni-related TikTok views still peaked on Dec. 22, with 77.7 million, and nearly half of the 374 million views occurred within the first three days (Dec. 21-23).
• Tubular found that 13 of the 15 most-watched videos came in those first three days, showing that those initial ideas wound up shaping the narrative of this story much more than later videos and developments.
• Individual creators accounted for 65% of views since Dec. 21, while media was 38% (that said, creators uploaded over 1.7K videos, while media uploaded just 149 videos (so those videos got significantly more views per upload).