The Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni controversy has dominated social media for weeks, a Hollywood drama that seemed to reach its peak last Saturday. That’s when Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, made a surprise guest appearance at the SNL 50 event, delivering a flippant joke about the situation. While the audience erupted in laughter (except for an seemingly unimpressed Kevin Costner), it left many of us wondering: Who was the real butt of this joke?

A joke that came as a surprise to many considering the immense resources both parties have poured into this sprawling legal battle, with no clear predicted winner. But as the dust settles from Reynolds’ SNL appearance, it’s becoming increasingly clear that neither Lively nor Baldoni are the only casualties of this public spectacle. While they are undoubtedly effected by this intense stress the likelihood is once all is said and done, their careers will recover, their brands will pivot, and Hollywood will move on. Yet the true victims are those who desperately need the #MeToo movement to maintain its credibility and momentum—the everyday women whose stories won’t make headlines, and whose voices risk being drowned out by the noise of celebrity drama.

And let’s be clear—only those directly involved know what really happened on set. While thousands of messages and days of video footage are scrutinized and previous interviews dissected under intense public examination, the real story here isn’t just about picking sides in a Hollywood feud. It’s about how as a society, ever hungry for scandal, we rush to judgment with an almost gleeful abandon. This pattern of trial by social media reveals something far more concerning than the behavior of two celebrities—it exposes our collective inability to grapple with nuance.

And perhaps that’s part of the problem—it’s difficult to empathize with characters like Lively or Baldoni whose wealth and privilege is incomprehensible to most. That subliminal sense that they don’t need our sympathy. But their very public battle has become dangerously entangled with the delicate threads of #MeToo, threatening to unravel a movement at the precise moment its message of accountability has never mattered more.

This controversy has become easy catnip for those seeking to discredit the #MeToo movement. Social media pundits eagerly point to the murky details and conflicting accounts as proof that workplace harassment claims are often exaggerated or fabricated for attention. They conveniently ignore the documented history of power abuse in Hollywood, instead fixating on the most sensational aspects of the Lively-Baldoni dispute. The reality is that spectacle still trumps substance. Even when the stakes couldn't be higher.

But what we must remember is that #MeToo was never just about one woman’s story. It was about the systemic enablement that made these experiences resonate with women from all walks of life, across both personal and professional spheres. While we have no reason to believe the Lively-Baldoni controversy will be the death knell of #MeToo, it does highlight a deeper fatigue that’s now on display. We are facing a swell of backlash looking to dismiss, minimize, discredit, and rewrite the narrative of a movement that was never about isolated scandals or the platform of the privileged. Instead, it was about a long-overdue collective reckoning.

In a different era, perhaps we would have looked at Reynolds’ SNL joke as another flippant moment of celebrity self-awareness. But in this cultural climate, with a growing level of public skepticism toward #MeToo, such trivializing moments only serve to further erode a movement that has already suffered enough. When the powerful men involved make light of these issues, it signals to the public that these allegations—and by extension, the movement itself faces the butt of the joke.

A key question we should ask here is not whose side we are on, but who is likely to truly suffer the most from this saga? Lets be real, its not alone Lively or Baldoni, who will likely continue to book high-profile jobs and live a life of wealth and privilege regardless of how this controversy shakes out. Its not Reynolds, whose joke will be forgotten by next weekend’s SNL episode. Its not even the broader Hollywood elite, who have proven time and again that they can weather any storm of bad press.

The ones who will suffer are the everyday women who don’t have millions of followers to defend them, whose allegations will never make headlines, and whose experiences are all too easily dismissed when the culture collectively decides it’s tired of hearing about #MeToo. Women who will continue to live under coercive silence, who will be left little choice than to work in industries that protect abusers and trivialize accusers. Real women, who despite everything, still need #MeToo.