Seth Meyers Fans Aren’t Happy That He Let Blake Lively on ‘Late Night’

Late Night audience.

Justin Baldoni is the most contentious, costly and divisive PR war in entertainment right now, and it seems like everyone with an interest in pop culture has strong feelings about who is in the right — well, everyone who doesn’t have to talk about Lively v. Baldoni on national television, somehow. Considering that some of the lawsuits filed in the fight demand nine-figure payouts and even news outlets like The New York Times are in the crosshairs over their coverage, the smartest position that any public figure who doesn’t have direct ties to either Lively or Baldoni can have right now is, “Yeah, uh, I dunno.”

When Lively appeared on yesterday’s episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers to promote her new film Another Simple Favor, Meyers feigned ignorance over Lively’s feud that continues to make international headlines before allowing Lively to deliver a guarded, lawyer-approved monologue on the importance of her fight, a speech that has Meyers’ online fans irate: 

Right now, the above YouTube video is sitting at a smooth 2:1 ratio of dislikes to likes, and shortly before Meyers’ social media team shut down the comments section underneath the video, Late Night fans were flocking to the video and fiercely criticizing Meyers’ decision to allow Lively to speak for so long on her ongoing PR controversy when Meyers himself claims to be so very out-of-the-loop.

On Twitter, the reaction to Meyers landing the hottest and most controversial interview guest in late-night was even more vitriolic, with one fan claiming that Meyers should have a spot directly below Lively on the internet’s list of public enemies. “That’s why u should be cancelled too @sethmeyers another Hollywood bully,” the wrote.

“She ruined someone’s career and life and she gets to go on as if nothing has happened. I thought she was traumatized?” another Twitter wrote of Lively, asking, “Why the fuck did Seth Meyers let her on his show? He must need ratings! I would rather watch my dog take a dump than watch Blake Lively!”

Much of the outrage and negative over Meyers’ platforming of Lively amidst such a contentious PR battle has certainly come from viewers who are bigger fans of Justin Baldoni than they are of Meyers’ show. At the same time, the tense silence from the in-studio audience that dominated Lively’s appearance on Late Night and the decidedly partial applause she received at the end of her speech on the moral implications of her lawsuit suggest that Meyers’ following isn’t fully on board with his show becoming yet another battleground in Lively’s war against Baldoni.

So if Meyers wasn’t educated on the legal complexities of Lively v. Baldoni before last night, he’ll certainly get some schooling as soon as he opens his Twitter DMs.