Court records show Blake Lively legal drama invoked Brightline, Princess Cruises

Actress Blake Lively’s legal drama entangled not only her actor husband, Ryan Reynolds, and her famous friends, like Taylor Swift, but also a pair of Florida companies.

Brightline, the rail service from Orlando to Miami, and the South Florida-based Princess Cruises were mentioned in federal court records released this week after Lively and Justin Baldoni settled their litigation over the “It Ends With Us” film.

According to court records, Brightline was once in talks to partner with Lively’s alcohol brand, Betty Booze. However, the rail service backed out of working with the canned cocktail company because of Lively’s public relations troubles.

“The buyers from Kroger, Princess Cruises and Brightline have expressed concerns about the recent noise in the press — stating they will be closely monitoring our sell through,” according to a Betty Booze document marked for “attorney’s eyes only” that was filed publicly in court documents.

“Transparently they want to hold for a minute until some of the BL chatter can be turned down. I’ll circle back when I hear more,” Dusty Bennett wrote Kate Palay in an August 2024 email filed in the court case. Both Bennett and Palay appeared to be involved in the marking agreement for Lively’s company.

Brightline is facing its own challenges and bad headlines this week. The company is reportedly in financial trouble and may need to file for bankruptcy to pay off its debt amid struggling ridership numbers.

Princess Cruises, which is headquartered out of Fort Lauderdale, also weighed how to navigate a potential marketing deal with Betty Booze.

“By the way our legal ethics and compliance committee board spooked with Blake!!! I am working things out hopefully will not have any affect!” an unidentified Princess Cruises Vice President of Food and Beverage texted, according to the court records.

The Kroger grocery store chain also balked, saying “Unfortunately there is a negative taste in Kroger’s mouths based on the BL interview (press) from the movie. … They’re wondering what BL will be doing to course correct and make things right with her audience.”

The Baldoni-Lively battle started after the actress accused her co-star and director of sexual harassment, body shaming and inappropriate behavior on set of their film. She accused him of fueling online hate to destroy her reputation.

Meanwhile, Baldoni accused Lively of hijacking his film and being power hungry and hell-bent on ruining his career.

The two sides settled their litigation this week ahead of a trial that would have certainly been a media circus.

Lively faced criticism from fans who did not like the actress promoting her alcohol line while also talking about a film that covered heavy topics, like domestic violence.

Brightline and Princess Cruises were paying attention as Betty Booze was hit with a flood of negative comments on social media and sales dropped.

Per the court file, one person posted, “lololol love when the elites show just how out of touch they truly are.”

“Yeah!!! Let’s get buzzed, wear our florals and watch some DV on the big screen with our friends!!” another wrote. “Sooooooo inappropriate. You don’t celebrate DV for booze sales.”

“JUSICE FOR JUSTIN BALDONI!” another wrote.

Brightline and Princess Cruises did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday morning.