Ex-Staffers Spill the Tea on Blake Lively’s Defunct Lifestyle Brand Preserve

Turns out, Preserve was less “Goop” and more “Oops.” Before Blake Lively was constantly in the news because of her legal drama with Justin Baldoni, or how her friendship with Taylor Swift went down the drain after 10 years, she had a brief stint as a lifestyle guru. 

In 2014, she launched Preserve, a digital magazine and e-commerce website with hand-made, one-of-a-kind items all selected by her. It shut down after less than a year, with Lively claiming it had been launched before it was ready. But now, the curtain’s been pulled back, and the behind-the-scenes story is not as charming as the content made it seem. 

In an interview with the Daily Mail, six former staffers are shedding light on what really happened with the company. They called it “toxic, unprofessional” and a “chaotic” workplace. One of them claimed, “The entire company was an absolute disaster. The workplace allegations that Blake is making now [against Justin Baldoni] are deeply ironic, given that it was one of the most insane, toxic, emotionally draining, and disorganized environments you could imagine.” 

Another ex-employee revealed, “The impression [Lively] left on me after I worked at Preserve is that she doesn’t care. It was a really toxic work environment.” 

The ex-staff also shared how Lively’s brother, Eric Lively, was not up to his role as creative director. They alleged that he often “overslept” and left many of the staff to wait outside in the cold before being let into the studio apartment where the company was based. 

They said, “[Eric] was completely unqualified to run a company. There were a lot of ways in which the employment was unprofessional. For many weeks or months, there were no desks. The irony of it being a lifestyle site that was selling these really expensive wares was not lost on anyone.” 

The former employees also alleged they were forced to work “a crazy amount” of hours and that two of them claimed they were not able to pay for their subway fares since their salaries were delayed. 

Daily Mail also reported that some of the staff members allegedly received a $300,000 settlement after they threatened to sue. The whistleblowers also claimed that Lively’s publicist buried all negative news about the defunct brand: “Leslie Sloane shut it down. They buried every single thing from that company.”