Comic Hannah Berner Defends Brutal Blake Lively Joke Made During Roast Special After 'It Ends With Us' Star Accuses Justin Baldoni of Sexual Harassment
The popular comedian didn't garner many laughs with her shock joke.
Dec. 27 2024, Published 7:00 p.m. ET
Hannah Berner's unsavory joke about Blake Lively shocked supporters, but the comedian is completely fine with it that she made the dig.
The 33-year-old appeared on Netflix's Torching 2024: A Roast of the Year, and called out the actress in a joke that left viewers buzzing, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Berner dropped an unsavory dig at Blake Lively during a Netflix roast segment.
During the airing, Berner joked: "The word 'c--t' was trending this year. I don't think Blake Lively was that bad."
Fans were quick to react on X as one person raged: "No part of this roast was funny," and another mocked: "Hannah who?"
One commenter said: "What happened to women supporting women?"
Lively made headlines when she accused her 'It Ends With Us' director of sexual harassment.
On Friday, Berner explained herself on her Instagram Stories: "My joke in the Netflix roast was filmed before news of the lawsuit. To be 100 percent clear, I support Blake xoxo." The roast special was filmed at The Bellwether in Los Angeles on December 17.
All this comes as the A-list actress is suing her the It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni, alleging sexual harassment and a smear campaign. According to Lively's lawsuit, Baldoni "often" referred to women on the set as "sexy," "pressured" the movie star to remove her coat to reveal her onesie, and claims he “routinely degraded” her by “finding back channel ways of criticizing her body and weight."
Lively also notes a moment on set which involves Baldoni "crying" in her dressing room over claims the 37-year-old looked "old" in her role.
Berner clarified her shock joke was filmed before the A-list actress filed a lawsuit.
According to Lively's complaint, Baldoni "made the rest of the (It Ends With Us) cast and crew wait for hours" on just the second day of filming "while he cried in Ms. Lively’s dressing room, claiming social media commentators were saying that Ms. Lively looked old and unattractive based on paparazzi photos from the set."
The complaint reads: "(Lively) tried to reassure him that she should look authentic in the scenes depicted in the photos, which were just after her character had been abused by her fictional husband, rather than 'hot,'" and adds Baldoni "appeared focused on Ms. Lively’s sexual appeal above all else."
When Lively reached out to the film's lead producer, Jamey Heath, to discuss Baldoni’s “unprofessional behavior", Heath is said to have “arrived unannounced” at her makeup trailer while the star was “topless and having body makeup removed by makeup artists."
In her lawsuit, Lively claims Justin Baldoni 'often' referred to women on the set as 'sexy.'
Baldoni and Heath are included in Lively's complaint, as is Baldoni's production company Wayfarer Studios and its co-founder Steve Sarowitz. The lawsuit is also against Jed Wallace, Melissa Nathan, and Jennifer Abel, who are accused of attempting to ruin Lively’s reputation amid the drama.
In a now-deleted post in a Facebook group for PR and marketing, Abel explained she "never thought the day would come" when she needed to defend herself and called the last few days "interesting and devastating."
She went on to claim "no negative press was ever facilitated" during the promotion of the film "because the internet was doing the work for us."
Lawyer Bryan Freedman – who is repping Baldoni, Abel, and Nathan – also ripped apart the lawsuit and issued a warning about the leaked texts involved: "... Anyone involved with this abhorrent conduct will be sued into oblivion."
Meanwhile, Justin Baldoni's former publicist, Stephanie Jones, is also suing Baldoni's team, claiming her reputation was tarnished and her clients were stolen.
In the lawsuit, Jones claimed she turned to Abel to oversee Baldoni's publicity, and she in turn hired crisis specialist Nathan for help. However, the duo apparently teamed up to steal Jones' clients, including Baldoni, to establish their own firm.
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Baldoni's lawyer has shut down the shock allegations against his client.
"Behind Jones’s back, they secretly coordinated with Baldoni and Wayfarer (Studios) to implement an aggressive media smear campaign against Baldoni’s film co-star (Lively), and then used the crisis as an opportunity to drive a wedge between Jones and Baldoni, and to publicly pin blame for this smear campaign on Jones—when Jones had no knowledge or involvement in it," the lawsuit alleges.
