I quickly take her off speakerphone and hold the phone to my ear, wanting to give her privacy.
“I’m guessing you saw the video.”
“No. My manager told me about it,” she says, her words coming out higher pitched.
I know her manager’s job is to keep her informed, but that just seems cruel, even if it’s probably the right thing to do.
“What do I do?” she asks. “It’s not true.”
“I know that,” I tell her. Anyone that’s spent time with Bailey in real life would know that’s not something she’d be capable of. The video is asking people to believe she maintained a flawless performance for the two years of their relationship in every setting. That’s not acting. That’s sociopathy. And Bailey just doesn’t read that way to anyone who’s actually met her.
“I didn’t use River. I loved him.” She sniffles. “I still love him.”
The last part is almost under her breath, but I heard it. This isn’t just a hit piece on Bailey. It’s a lie. And it’s not just attacking her reputation but taking one of the truest things about her—her feelings for River—and making it look like a performance.
The heartbreak in her tone makes me want to fix it more than I’ve wanted anything in weeks, but I also do not know how to do that.
So, I do what PR people do and make promises I have no idea how I’ll keep.
“We will fix this, Bailey,” I say with as much confidence as I can muster. And because I can’t help myself, I add: “I promise.”
So basically, I just vowed to fix something I do not know how to fix for an A-list star whose entire career is counting on me.
Well, crap.
We hang up, but not before I make her promise not to post anything or respond to anyone and tell her I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.
And now I get to work.
By eight o’clock that night, I’m exhausted. But, I think I have a plan that could work.
I spent most of the day doing the PR equivalent of spinning my wheels. This looked like drafting statements and deleting them, hoping some combination of words could save us, but there were none. I gave up on that and then tried calling some press contacts to gauge how bad the damage was, and it’s . . . really bad. Three major entertainment outlets are planning to run their own pieces on it by the end of today, and none of them are interested in waiting for a response from Bailey’s team. AKA me. I know because I asked them.
Tessa reached out to You Oughta Know directly to see if there was any chance she’d take the video down and was unceremoniously blocked. Then we tried tracking down the original creator—if we could discredit the source, we could discredit the video—and hit a dead end.
The only thing I could come up with that might have sometinysemblance of a chance was to dig up some interviews or clips of Bailey and River from early in their relationship. I needed something genuinely warm and unguarded that didn’t look performative.
Tessa found a clip from a morning show appearance late in season one—before they’d fully gone public with their relationship—where River looks over at Bailey mid-interview and the way he watches her is completely earnest. He looks absolutely smitten.
We’ll have the same fan account that posted the Wooster video post it tomorrow morning when people are home and scrolling, with nothing else competing for their attention. And then we’ll have to pray that it goes viral.
Will it work? Odds are not in our favor. According to Brandwatch, sentiment has shifted decisively against Bailey. But we have to try something. Especially with FableCon next week. So many fans packed into one room. What if they stage a riot against my client?
No. We are not thinking about that right now. One disaster at a time.
Because I’m at a point where I can do nothing, and my mom texted earlier that there were leftovers in the fridge for me, I head over to my parents’ house.
“Anyone home?” I call out after walking inside. I can hear the television on in the living room, and the smell of garlic and onions still hangs in the air. My stomach rumbles.
“In here,” my dad yells.
I walk into the kitchen, throwing my purse down on the table, and head straight to the refrigerator, glancing over to see my mom, dad, and Gigi watching some sort of action movie with TomCruise running super fast in his signature arm-pumping style. No sign of Ryan, although he’s more of an eat-and-run kind of guy. He never hangs out all that long afterward.
“You made it,” my mom says over some suspenseful-sounding music.
“I made it,” I echo, glancing around the shelves packed with food until I spot a plate of spaghetti and meatballs—a Gigi classic—covered in plastic.
I sigh with relief. Nothing heals the soul like Gigi’s homemade marinara sauce. This is exactly what I needed.
