Reporter Reveals Trauma of Blake Lively Interview: "I Felt Like a Failure"

According to SAEDNEWS, Award-winning journalist Kjersti Flaa has shared her experience of feeling “belittled” during a 2016 interview with actress Blake Lively. Flaa recently released a clip from that interview, where she congratulated Lively on her pregnancy, only for the actress to respond with, “Congrats on your little bump.”

Opening up about how the encounter affected her, Flaa told the Daily Mail, “It was such a traumatizing experience to me. I was there to do a job and they made sure to make it as difficult as possible for me to do that.” She emphasized that the purpose of her presence was to promote a movie and that the atmosphere felt entirely different. “I was invited to meet them. It certainly did not feel like that,” she added.

The journalist admitted to feelings of being “belittled and ignored,” which led her to question her future in conducting such interviews. “It took me a while to get over it and build up my confidence again,” Flaa revealed.

Kjersti further explained the impact of Lively’s comment, saying she wasn’t pregnant at the time and that it hit her “like a bullet.” She stated, “[Her comment] left me almost paralyzed. To be honest, it hurts because I obviously wasn't pregnant and I could never get pregnant, so to me that comment was like a bullet.”

Reflecting on the uncomfortable encounter, she shared, “I felt very uncomfortable throughout the interview and all I wanted to do was leave and get out of there as fast as I could.” Flaa also expressed her feelings of inadequacy following the experience, recalling, “It made me feel like a complete failure. I kept going through the interview in my head afterwards trying to figure out what I had said or done to make them behave like that. It made no sense to me.”

Currently, Blake Lively is facing backlash over the promotion of her new film, It Ends With Us, which tackles the sensitive theme of domestic violence. Additionally, there are reports of a rumored feud between Lively and the film's director, Justin Baldoni.