4/18/26 Lively v. Wayfarer - Lively doesn't want anyone talking about Vanzan

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]At the risk of being silenced, doxed, and other weird things that always seems to happen whenever I talk about Vanzan, I want to take a doubleclick closer look at the motion in lemonade that Lively filed and the opposition that Wayfair defendants filed with respect to the Vanzan of it all. So Lively is the one that pressed the issue and said any mention of the Vanzan action and the Vanzan subpoena are irrelevant and should not be brought up at all. They say that it's not going to help the jury decide the facts and issues of the case and so it shouldn't be referenced. They discuss how if defendants had an issue with it, they should have challenged it and they didn't. And really, it will just be a distraction for the jury. And if they were to hear about it, then Lively should be able to defend her actions in filing the Vanzan action and fi and issuing the Vanzan subpoena. And that would just waste the jury's time because then you'd have to have essentially a mini trial on whether or not it was proper not to obtain the documents the way that they did using the Vanzan action. It strikes me as very telling that they went out of their way to file a motion in lemonade with respect to this. It goes to show that they also seem to think there's something uncou or potentially there are optics around the use of the Vanzan action to obtain the documents they did that went to the New York Times that they don't want a jury to be dwelling on. It's possible that they have seen how the public has reacted to the use of Vanzan and the subpoena to obtain documents and they it seems that they are somewhat implicitly acknowledging that there may have been an issue with obtaining the documents using the Vanzan action from my reading of this. Why are they citing to criminal cases? Why are they drawing that parallel? It's not a good look. But they're trying to make sure that a jury doesn't also get the bad vibes that many other people got when they heard about the Vanzan action and the fact that this is how the New York Times obtained the documents that it did to write that piece.

[00:02:44]filing the motion in lemonade about it offered the Wayfair defendants the opportunity to respond and they did. The way that the Wayfair defendants say that it's relevant is that Lively has placed defendants actions in this litigation squarely at issue. She plans to argue that the defendant's litigation conduct, including their filing of the counter claim that has now been dismissed, was retaliation for Lively's protected conduct, which she defines as filing her lawsuit. And if the court is going to allow this theory of recovery, then what Wayfair defendants are saying is that they should be able to show that they knew from the moment the New York Times article story broke that Lively had wrongfully obtained documents from their publicist confidential work products and that it was this that formed the backdrop of them filing a counter claim.

[00:03:55]This shows that the defendant's actions in this litigation were defensive in nature and not retaliatory in nature, which is which is what Lively is claiming. separately.

[00:04:10]They say that to the extent that Lively is claiming damages to her reputation based on the manner in which defendants have litigated this case, including the filing of their counter claims. The defendants are entitled to present evidence of an alternative cause to Lively's declining reputation, citing to her own aggressive litigation tactic, including the filing of a sham lawsuit against Makebelie non-existent DO defendants just to obtain the subpoena power to then obtain the documents that went to the New York Times. They're saying this all could color her current reputation and contribute to the diminishment of her fan base. You can look at any comment section about any video made about Vanzan and you can see how people feel about it and couple that with the subpoenas that went to the content creators. So, the behavior of subpoenas in this litigation by Lively as a party could contribute to how people feel about her today. And they go one step further to say, "We don't plan to dwell on this at trial, addressing the fact that Lively thinks that there's going to need to be a mini trial about whether or not it was proper or not. It doesn't sound like they're going to go down that path, that it's not going to occupy much time at trial, but they should be entitled to bring it up at trial if, for example, they need to cross-examine Lively and test her credibility as a witness on the witness stand or they need to present evidence of the context in which they engaged in the activities that they're being accused of are retaliatory. I personally think that this is one of those motions that the court is going to kick to trial and deal with it as it comes up at trial. But this whole exchange makes me feel like they also don't think this is a good look for them. And I will die on the hill that I don't believe it was clever lawyering. I think it was ethically questionable and I personally would never do