The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson

The Top PR Wins and Fails of 2025: Part Two

• Molly McPherson • Episode 343

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This is the main event of Molly's Top PR Wins and Fails of 2025 series, recorded live on Substack (aired Friday, December 19) and built around the stories that truly owned the year: culture-war outrage that turned into real market impact, celebrity reputations getting torched (sometimes by their own silence), late-night becoming a political battleground, and the kind of persona erosion that turns “brand equity” into “lawsuit energy.” If you listened to Part Two (ranks 10 through 6), this episode is the payoff: sharper, bigger, and way messier in the best possible way.

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Hey there, welcome to the PR Breakdown. In this episode, we're getting into the top five PR winners and losers of 2025. I'm judging these by press reverberation, who picked the story up, how long it stayed in the news cycle, and the social chatter that kept it alive. Last week's episode, picks 10 through 6. You can listen to them right now. This episode is the main event. It is a recording from a live on Substack that aired Friday, December 19th. All right, let's get to it. Here we go. Number five winner, American Eagle. So the crisis type culture, war, outrage that function like a stock market rocket ship. The American Eagle Sydney Sweeney has great genes campaign. Many of you heard about this because, of course, it popped up on social media first. So what many people heard, the pun on jeans, great jeans, J-E-A-N-S, G-E-N-E-S, the wordplay combined with Sydney Sweeney's look, blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman. So triggered these accusations of claims that kind of flirted with eugenetics and also white supremacist aesthetics. Some people felt it was a little too sexually charged. It was a callback, throwback to Brooke Shields Kelvin Klein campaign. But then I was looking back even on the whole, I was reacquainting myself with Brooke Shields Kelvin Klein campaign. Holy moly, holy problematic. Wow. And we just accepted it. Like this was normal. Okay. So there was a lot of backlash. So it's really interesting to say that someone's a winner, considering all the backlash that was there. So right wing media, politicians, White House sees the backlash as this woke overreaction. The fact that Donald Trump and his communications director were talking about it, other mega aligned voices are talking about it. And they're all praising Sweeney and calling the spot like the hottest ad. It turned the ad into another culture war flashpoint, similar to Budweiser. That happened. It all mushes together in my COVID brain. Was that 23, 24 when Budweiser? It feels like 23. I think it was 24 when that happened. But that Bud White, it kind of plotted through it. But instead, American Eagle soared with it, which is the reason why I have it as a winner, because American Eagle's stock spike up to 25% in a day. Okay. That is a huge surge. Okay. And also more than 30% at one point, pre-market trading as the ads went viral. So a massive win for American Eagle. And the takeaway here is outrage can be a marketing tool, even when it makes your celebrity endorser collateral damage. And now American Eagle is just moving on. So they became a culture moment campaign. All right, next for losers. I have to add this in here because last week I missed it and I got my numbers off, which it's really bad form, but also not surprising considering everything that I'm drinking at the same time. But I should have added in here as losers, and please no hate. I never want hate because every time I talk about this person online and I don't like talking about them online for this very reason. But since we're compiling this list and sharing it, we have to, we can't hide from it. Meghan Markle Prince Harry. And the reason why I'm putting this in there for a crisis type, they have a long-term credibility erosion. They also suffer from identity confusion. I'm not putting them on the loser list because I'm hating on them at all. I really want to look at them as rationally, with academically, if you will, even without bias. I'm just looking at them with the numbers. So I pulled some in the UK. Roughly 27% reported positive opinions of Harry and only 20% of Megan. These are their lowest numbers since tracking began on the couple. So because they sit on the lower end, the problem end, and they're only slightly above Prince Andrew, that shows for a couple, they're having another bad year, no matter how much they try. And in the US, where I think it matters a lot to them in terms of a capital point of view, the numbers, you gov, Harry's popularity in the U.S. dropped 14 points in 2025, from roughly 50% positive to 38%, which is his lowest since 2020. That signals a failure. Megan's numbers in the U.S. dipped sharply in the first half of 2025 and recovered somewhat. You know, I think in these last few weeks, I mean, she does have her company as ever. She's posting more photos with her kids, shielding their faces. They're doing quite a very, very good job doing that. And I got to give them aesthetic points. Instead of plopping the emojis on the kid's face, which is so jarring on a post, they are using, they're capturing images where it's just silhouettes and they're off to the side. I think what the numbers represent is that people who buy from her are the people who love her. And that's what she is. Like just in your words, she's polarizing. For every person who hates her or hates on her, there's people who love her. So her products sell out. Manny, her wine sold out. Yes, as ever products sell out. It's the reason why I'm putting them on this list, is because they have not found their footing. And that's why almost every move that they make is charged because they don't have footing. So then let me drop into another loser for number five to catch us up, is Prince Andrew. So we're just kind of staying in the house, if you will. Prince Andrew, so his crisis type, that is toxic legacy scandal with even more detail and institutional distancing. So he was accused, you guys could write this story by Virginia Guffrey of sexually abusing her in 2001 when she was 17. Of course, it's not her personal memoir, it's a biography about her that came out posthumous and more stories coming to light. Of course, traffic by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghlaine Maxwell, his 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, which I watched again, correction, Chris, formerly known as Prince Andrew. I stand corrected on that. Thank you. Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor. Thank you. But that newsnight interview, which then became a series on scandal, which I had to watch again. It's fascinating. It effectively ended his strength with the White House when he's defending his friendship with Epstein, knowing what he did and the implausible details that he shared in those interviews. So it was widely seen as disastrous. We all know that. But since then, his frontline royal career has been stepping back, stepping back, stepping back. He's been absence from a lot of family events. And now we're seeing a lot of the video footage of him. Everybody is capturing, press is capturing how distant he is. It's always, oh, and off goes Andrew doing this and off. So collateral damage would be Fergie, his former wife, as well. So the two of them are struggling. King Charles issued a statement. Back in May, Prince Andrew issued a statement, again, denying that he did anything wrong, trying to clear the air. But King Charles releases a statement out of Buckingham Palace, essentially condemning it, taking away his title. And now he is no longer really effectively a part of the royal family. Huge reputational informs their father. So it just shows reputational damage, what one person's deflection can do to a reputation. All right, number four. So this is a name, but I could put it under a title as well. So there's some adjacency here. So the number four in my winner for 2025, Jimmy Kimmel, and adjacent Stephen Colbert, who will no longer be on the air with CBS next year. So the crisis type for him is straight up political targeting, corporate caution, ABC News, and humanized increase. So Jimmy Kimmel, his reputation bruised, not battered, not broken, I should say. So when Trump went after Jimmy Kimmel, ABC, Walt Disney Company capitulated, like a lot of the media businesses out there, corporate, gave in to the White House, gave in to Trump, and the backlash was extreme. Bob Iger felt it. I mean, this is a leader who was with the company, brought it to incredible heights, left the company, came back to the company, and he's had nothing but problems ever since, like this. Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, he gets involved, says we can do this, you know, the easy way or the hard way, because of comments that Jimmy Kimmel made regarding the death of Charlie Kirk. And Jimmy Kimmel, as we've seen now in reports, since a lot of people don't watch his show live, but a lot of people do watch him online. Same thing with other late night hosts, the morning after. So the social media YouTube numbers are really high. And that does bring in revenue. Jimmy Kimmel expressed grief and that remorse that everyone feels when they see what tragedy happened on the air. And so Jimmy Kimmel was weaponized. That's what happened. They canceled Jimmy Kimmel. But this is a case where we, the people, they made a stand and said, no, no, we are not standing for this. And what I loved about this event and remind me, can someone remind me when I come back to the loser list that I was here about the people and attacking the public in a crisis? Will someone just chime in with me, just table it, help me stick a pen in it and to add all my cliches? This was a case where the public mobilized together to say, this is ridiculous. And they started to cancel Disney, Disney Channel, Hulu. Over 60 actors came out on a list of names. You know what? I didn't even check, but I bet Rob Reiner was on this list, and came out in defense of Jimmy Kimmel and just the abhorrent nature of what was happening right now to the industry, that he was being pulled off the air. The following Monday, Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air. At the same time, the announcement is when Donald Trump went on the air, classic deflection, RFK Jr., who was on my list last week, Dr. Oz, to say that acetamideophins cause autism. Classic deflection. Jimmy Kimmel bust through it, ratings all over the place. So he went from, on average, 1.8 million viewers in early 2025, that return episode, 6.3 million viewers across platforms. That is a win. Also, to add in there, he had the death of his best friend, Clito Escobado, who's on the show. Everyone saw his emotional monologue tribute to him. It was absolutely beautiful. And that also helped really cement Jimmy Kimmel as a decent person this year. So that's why I'm giving him the win for it. He's authentic, emotionally open. And he was willing to challenge Trump and that mega movement and look at what happened with that. Jimmy Kimmel. Next on my list, I gotta go to the losers, American Eagle Crisis, which was a win for American Eagle, is a loss for Sidney Sweeney. So she is a celebrity brand who's caught up in the political interpretation. Dylan Mulvaney, though not as big of a celebrity, I would argue, but a much bigger presence probably online, was a casualty of it. Sydney Sweeney, also a casualty of it. So the American Eagle campaign that helped the company, I think dented Sydney Sweeney's reputation. Definitely with liberal audiences, online audiences. It did deepen her appeal with right-leaning people, but I would argue that her profile ended up bigger, but it's a damaged profile. I also understand coming in as a Gen Xer, I have kids, Gen Z, who totally understand Sydney Sweeney. I texted Rory, Kate, and Quinn, my daughters, and said, decode Sydney Sweeney for me, please. And her aloofness that is part of her brand, being unlikable is what makes people like her brands. It's somewhat all adjacent, but just not in a good way. And how we know this, it's not just my opinion, it's the tell. And the tell is in how she cleaned it up. Late 25, she's doing interviews and she's addressing it because first she avoided it, then she's addressing it more directly, saying that she was surprised by the reaction. Like, really? I think American Eagle absolutely planned this entire campaign. They shouldn't be surprised in the least. I think because I think it was all by design. So when Sydney Sweeney comes out and acts, what? And a little chuffed that all this happened. No, girl. You knew this was part of the playbook. You knew this. And she also said that she's against hate and divisiveness and that she did not share any of the extremist views. She needed to say that, but so many people saw it as a racist ad and one that she was very complicit in in terms of the planning of it. I mean, it was a bait ad, and it worked for American Eagle. It probably worked since it was a collab with American Eagle. So she probably made a lot of money from it. But we, this is not a business podcast and breakdown. We are reputation. So the reputation, I think the takeaway here is again, silence. It's never neutral. It's a decision that gets louder for people. What do you guys think of the Sydney Sweeney? Huge damage. All of her castmates are repelling her right now. I feel like Amanda Siegfried is working as her PR trying to change image. That's a really, really good point because I noticed those two working on something together. And I thought, oh, look at Amanda coming out and helping Sydney out here. If I could be bold, I felt she was trending towards a Marilyn Monroe archetype, and this killed it. Okay, good point. The outfit, I don't know where she wore it. I don't know where it was some annual gala. But Sydney Sweeney in the dress that was very Marilyn Monroe-esque, a little transparent in the bosom area. She looked beautiful in it. It was certainly a talking point dress. But when I saw that dress, I went, oh girl, that dress ain't doing it for you. That dress ain't doing it for you. Not at all. So that's just Sydney Sweeney. I think a lot of people might argue that Sydney Sweeney is fine. They might argue that. But I'm just, again, looking at her overall, what it did for her. It's just too polarizing. Now, my number three winner is very similar to Sydney Sweeney. She is someone who is not a clear winner from a brand reputation point of view. However, it's a very polarizing. But when you look at a name landing on the map, and someone who's been given so many opportunities for visibility, it's incredible. So my number three is Erica Kirk. This is the moment where I'm going to pause for reflection so I can take a sip of my latte. Because I'm dying a little bit inside saying that. Many of you in this community know I have a fascination with Erica Kirk. Not because I believe in her, side with her, I am fascinated by her. My thanks to this community for sharing clips of her in Summerhouse showing up in reality shows. So I think that encapsulates why I am putting her on my winner column. I am going to label reality show types right now. I am saying this as a person who's watched reality television, but I also work with people who are appear on reality shows. I have helped a number of reality stars, a number of them, go through their moments. And some are huge. So I've done network television, Bravo, all of them. And if I could share with you all what my head is doing some of those times. But in the case of Erica Kirk, the fact that she first appears, well, I shouldn't say first appears. She was Miss Arizona when she won that title. So she's done other things. She went to college, she got degrees. Okay, so we got to give her that up. But haven't we all gone to college, many of us, and received degrees? But the fact that she moves to New York and pivots to reality is what does a reality star tell you when someone wants to be on reality television? What do they want? They want fame, they want relevancy, they want an opportunity to monetize fame. It is a quick sugar rush pie to get there. It tells us what motivates Erica Kirk. And her motivation is very similar to her husband, the late Charlie Kirk. So many people praising him for how he thinks and his views and what he said and what he tried to do, praising his character and his ethos, a lot of people from the right. And then there were certainly people from the middle and in the left after he was tragically killed, said some things, even Ezra Klein to this moment. I should add him on my alt list of WTF moments of 2025. Ezra Klein, I'm sorry, you're saying that Charlie Kirk, this is a positive thing, how he brought public speech and public debate to a culture? Are you kidding me? No. He's a content creator who wanted to monetize extreme views, and he knew he could. Misogyny culture, and they turn it into trad culture and Christian and evangelical. That's where we are as a society. We monetize this. So Erica Kirk is no different than Charlie Kirk. No different at all. So why she's on the winner's list is just due to her sudden elevation. That's a it's just a sudden elevation. Because it was so huge since what happened to Charlie. And when you watched his funeral and her remarks, they really were incredible. She's a very good speaker. She's now leading this movement. I just feel it's movement mythology. I don't believe any of it. I did a post when I received in the mail campaign letter to support turning point. I'm like, girl, do you know who you're sending this to? But that's why I'm putting her on the win list. So she's very pro-life. She's evangelical. She highlights faith and family. She's the new CEO. She's the mother figure of Turning Point USA. Certainly the money is rolling into Turning Point. However, where she is, it's fragile. I promise you, in 2026, when we're sitting down here doing this list, I promise you she will not be on this list as a winner. I promise you, I will not do that. I'm only giving it because of her very, very quick ascension. So her appearance now, that she appears to be this courageous, faith-driven widow, you know, who stepped into leadership under these extreme circumstances, which from a narrative, you know, makes sense. But the liability for her, that will catch up in 2026, I think. Polarizing, heavily managed, opportunistic, conspiracy adjacent. This back and forth with Candace Owens, who is on the list for a winner in my six through 10, is just going to continue to threaten her mainstream credibility. So she's rising, but fragile. That's where I'm going to put her there. Comments. Erica Kirk's facial expressions, eyes mixed with her tone, are fascinating. I think she knows exactly how she comes across. Not entirely sure what she wants. Oh, come on. I think we know what she wants. I actually think she'd do better in a completely different field. I don't know. I don't know. But oh yes, but we have in the comments. There was the narrative with JD Vance. There is that the narrative lurking around, certainly. That is there as well, right? So we will certainly be watching. So number three in the winners, uh, in the winner group, I have Erica Kirk. All right, continuing off the list, number three losers. Let me pause for a sip if you all don't mind. Comment. Totally agree. She threw her grief into work, but she's starting to do too much. Yeah, because to brand yourself as the mother, very trad wifey, to brand yourself under content, monetized content with your husband, where staying home to be the mother, and when Charlie walks in the door on Friday, Shabbat Shalom, put your phone down, and this is nothing about family. She's now out on a book tour. No one ever sees her at home. And do you notice a lot of the content that they had was about family family? Now we don't see anything about family. We don't, which is probably smart on her point of view because she knows she'll get railed for it. Any type of videos. I think there's probably some tension in that family. I think there's just tension in turning point. Did you know that Erica didn't invite Candace to her wedding because at the time they were all coworkers at Turning Point? No, I did not know that, but I'm not surprised by that. I'm not surprised. I think Candace Owens is not going to give up until she brings Erica Kirk to her knees, honestly. All right, number three. I posted this yesterday to TikTok and Instagram and social and to Substack here in Substack. And that's because yesterday I had a day of crisis like no other. I mean, I was on the phone from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. with clients dealing with oh my gosh, I talked all day and my COVID brain was ready to bleed out of my head. I couldn't believe it. But everything that I was talking about with my clients, you could just transfer over into culture. Then I get a text from my favorite booker, Jake, at NBC, about doing an interview about this topic. And then as I'm doing the interview with NBC, CBS Morning writes me about doing the piece for CBS Morning, which was on this morning, me talking about this topic. Kristen Cabot, who's the chief people officer, former for astronomer, and Andy Byron, the former CEO. Now, they wanted me to speak about it because Kristen Cabot worked with the New York Times, Lisa Miller, and also with the Times UK to do a little bit of an update. And I knew actually that I told the producers right away, I said, you are not going to like my take. I know from a morning television point of view, from a network news point of view, you want me to reinforce the headline from the New York Times that Kristen Cabot's bad PR advice is telling her to spin. Public shaming. And how Kristen Cabot is the victim because of you, the public. And I told them from the outset, I'm not giving you that. I am not giving you that because I don't feel that way. I know the villain. And we all know the villain in this story, and it's astronomer, the company. As you all know, this is the stadium kiss that was heard around the world, but happened in my neighborhood. And when I found out about it from all the texts, I went, damn, Coldplay was at Foxborough. I would have loved to go to that concert, but we all know it. I don't even need to waste a second telling you because I guarantee every single person on this chat saw the video. But Manny, well said. Astronomer laid them out to dry. That's exactly what happened when this thing broke late Wednesday into Thursday, and when it started to pick up traction, and it really was everywhere. I mean, was there ever another story that you talked with your friends about more than Astronomer? When you're with your girlfriends or couples or whatever, texting text groups, everybody talked about this story. It also got picked up culturally, the Phillies fanatic. We saw spoofs, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, everybody is spoofs everywhere about this. Then there's misinformation that the CEOs married, and now everybody's going after the CEO's wife, Megan, and her Facebook page. Meanwhile, the company astronomer is sitting on their asses doing nothing. And this is where I come in. Because and the why is a huge story too. Every media network contacted me. Every network morning show contacted me to appear on their network to discuss this story. Every producer I know, every close producer who has my cell phone number. Now, thankfully, I had dental work, so I couldn't speak. I had Nova Cain. So thank goodness, because I really didn't want to talk about this story because I didn't want to pile on with this couple. I already had an inkling, a feeling. I'm like, something tells me the CEO just kind of reeked of something to me. I couldn't put my finger on it. But there was something about Kristen Cabot that I kind of felt I felt for her. Because I knew I'm like, this is a woman my age. And also they're in my neighborhood. I thought I'm gonna know people who know these people. This people in my community know this in real time because I was texting this and everyone out. I was telling them when I was finding out, like, yep, sure enough. And that couple got really close to my universe. So I found inside stories there. So I certainly have empathy for her. And in this piece, that's what she's talking about. It's highlighting the shame that happened to her, how the internet turned against her. And she recounts very personally, she wanted to tell her side of the story. And what she does well, and I'm glad she had the chance, she recounts in the New York Times piece and in the UK piece, step by step, her thinking of why she did it. I knew he was my it wasn't the right thing to do, but I was crushing. I was going through my second divorce. I have two kids, I had tickets of Coldplay. I don't love them, but I had them anyway, and I was going with friends. And when the CEO told me that he was going through wife issues, when I was going through issues, and people in my vault know that I know more about this behind the scenes. That actually confirms it, honestly, which confirms. Though I will say for the CEO, the timeline is really, really tight. There isn't even an inch of space for you to say you were separated. So that's why I put a lot on him. But she clearly was. Her soon-to-be ex was at the same concert, which feeds into her reaction when she was on the Jumbotron, her arms, she was interlocked with Andy Byron. She, you know, puts her face up and then she blows up. Okay. But then as it's going viral, astronomer just lets it sit and fester because they loved the publicity. They loved it. Now, where this story went sideways for me and is around astronomer. And even here in the chat, the death threats and impact on our kids was intense, though. Any chance it was worth trying to garner some sympathy. And that's a really important part. And on my TikTok, there was someone who replied saying the same thing, the doxing, the threats, and the so on and the so forth. And then I looked, and it was from a content creator who does PR breakdown. But in her New York Times piece in the Times UK, she does talk about it. And that it is true. But her whole framing from her PR team is to blame the internet, to blame all of you. It's your fault because you followed the story or commented on the story, and then it appeared in the press, and then it became a cultural touchstone in the summer, peak time to go viral. They're framing it as the public's fault. Now, look where we are culturally right now. This story was published on Thursday, four days earlier, five days earlier, we saw a tweet, a post from the president of the United States commenting on Rob Reiner and his wealth and his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner's death, horrific murder, and saying essentially that Rob Reiner deserved it. This is the culture that we're in right now. This is the mood of culture. It should not be surprising at all that people are going to dox her or people are going to say things to her in public. We shouldn't be surprised by that at all. But that's not our fault. That's not our fault that people are like that. Okay. So when you put that in the same pot, that's where I don't really buy that argument. Oh, but did she deserve that? No one deserves to have death threats for a viral moment. No one deserves that. But that's not our fault. That's the fault of my loser here, the company astronomer and the board and the CEO, who allowed the story to fester because they loved the publicity. And how do we know they love the publicity? Because they invested how much money with is it maximum impact or endeavor for Ryan Reynolds company to then get Gwyneth Peltrow to turn it into a bit. They invested the company funds to defend their CEO and chief people officer who were spotted having a relationship together. But still, even if it was cheating or not, doesn't matter. Those two should not be in a relationship. Senior leadership, that is a legal liability. And the company's response was to capitalize on the publicity. That's BS. So anyone who challenged me on TikTok, this PR takedown lady, girl on TikTok about that. I should be snarky, but it's true. Don't come at us. That's astronomers' fault. And then they made Gwyneth Peltrow mock her. That's why they lose. And her story, I'm not going to say that Kristen Cabot isn't telling the truth, but she was a heavy hand in that time story where she wanted to lay out bit by bit how bad it is. I'm not going to say she made up the stories. I'm not going to say that she embellished the stories. I'm not. But in my profession, I work with Kristen Cabot's all the time, all the time. And when they're at the center of a crisis and they've done something off and they're wrong, what and people can understand what they did. They shouldn't be lacerated for it, but they're still wrong. When it comes to the response, they want to double down on how awful people are treating them. I see it all the time. So to use that as a narrative and your framing for this is a massive mistake. To wait almost six months to come out with your profile piece in December in the New York Times, bad PR advice. Whoever Kristen Cabot hired for PR sucks. They're not good at it. Or they could be good at other things, but they fumbled this one. Kristen Cabot needed to tell this story. The humble, I made a human mistake, a very human mistake. That story needed to come out months ago. So that's my take. Now I'm going to go to the winner's list. And also, is it just me? I really felt like I was an island on there because everybody loved that astronomer ad. Ad Age said it was one of their top astronomers or one of the ads for the year. Depending on your metric, views, impressions, sure. But can anyone honestly tell you, can anyone here say they know what astronomer does as a company? Is anyone here a consumer? No, they're B2B. So no, I say massive, massive fail. All right, number two win. I'm not going to spend a lot of time here because we spent a lot of time here on Wednesday. And it's just too obvious, right? Number two is going to be Taylor Swift. Obviously, I mean she's always big, but she had such a massive year. Why she's in the reputation piece of it, as we all learned in the vault on Wednesday night. And by the way, if anyone wants to watch the video of the interview from our chat on Wednesday with Dr. Abbey, it's posted now in the membership. So if you want to watch it, it's fascinating. But we talked a lot about Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey, the release of the news. I guess you can call it a release. Anyone else would be an engagement announcement, but with them, it's a release that happened on the podcast. She sidesteps a lot of things and she does it brilliantly with the help of Tree Payne, her publicist, her strategist. She's more than a publicist. She's a flat out just strategist and a genius at that. Taylor Swift deserves to be on this list for this year. She also had to sidestep a lot of just mini blow-ups to political polarization, endorsing Kamala Harris, when you know that so many people on the right love her, especially with the Chiefs and Travis Kelsey. She is someone who constantly has to sidestep things. So I give her a lot of credit for that. Also, the whole thing of Blake Lively. The whole thing of Blake Lively blowing up. And Taylor Swift had to navigate that. So that's where I give her a lot of credit for that. Also, Life of a Showgirl took a lot of hits, a lot of dings. I loved it. I'm not a huge Taylor Swift fan. And, you know, I'm a mom of daughters, so we certainly went through our eras. But when that album came out, I listened to it like 5 a.m. when I was running on the treadmill. I'm like, this I like this album. I like it. So she's gonna be my win. She's gonna be number two. Because when you have to navigate big things, I think she did it very well on the chat. The Blake Lively Fiasco is her team's greatest work. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, I have to agree with that. All right. So let's go. Should we do let me do the number one win? Oh, you still think the album stinks? You don't like it? Yeah, fair. I could see why people don't like it, but my gen X brain really kind of liked it. I knew listening to it. I'm like, ooh, listen to Ophelia. Good running beat. Let me do my number one win. Here we go. My number one winner of the year, it's Dolly Parton. She had a microcrisis and she handled it with speed and warmth and just Dolly. Absolutely amazing response. If you remember back in October, there was a scare around her health when her sister went on Facebook and said prayers for Dolly. She was having health issues. She had also, right around Halloween, had stepped back from a Halloween event at Dollywood. So she just wasn't feeling well. That comment on Facebook will naturally went viral because people were very worried that there was something wrong with Dolly. I saw it and I immediately posted something right away. And then as I posted, Dolly Parton comes up with a new response to it. She has kind of a horsey voice and saying, I know many of you are worried out there. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. I was like, damn, girl. Who's better than Dolly Parton? Who is better than Dolly Parton? So I'm traveling. Where was I? I was speaking somewhere. I can't remember. I was on the road, but I was in a hotel in Minneapolis. I can't remember. But I was on the road. Then I get an email from Dolly Parton's publicist, reaches out to me and says that I had part of it wrong about the response in my take. I think I was making some assumptions behind the scene. And he said I got part of it wrong, but I actually didn't get it wrong. Or no, I did get it wrong, but technically I didn't get it wrong. Because what he said was in my take, I said a representative for Dolly said XYZ. And Dolly's publicist said, that's not Dolly's publicist. I'm Dolly's publicist. But when someone officially speaks out on your behalf, it doesn't matter about the hierarchy, who has what title. That's your spokesperson. That is your spokesperson. That's how it works. So I was quoting the publicist said, that's someone who works on our tour. That has nothing to do with us. I disagree. But I wasn't going to say that. So he and I have been going back and forth. And even this week, because I wanted to get him for an interview. But I told him, I said, I'm just so all over this. I love it. And it was a fantastic. So she is my number one. And I know in the chat here, people are saying, yes, you want to go to Dollywood this year. I loved it. I went to Dollywood as a kid. Who could ever outdo? It takes a lot of money to look this cheap. That is so true. Dolly is a classic. And can you imagine a life where we don't have a doll? I'm not even going to finish the sentence. I'm not even going to finish what I was going to say. I'm not going to finish it. Okay. So now we're going to do the top PR losers for 2025 because it's so obvious, right? You know, who the losers are here. And we look at it with all the metrics: press, social chatter, money, reputational loss. I did find out, I think, was this supposed to be off the record? A people magazine interview last week. I think it's coming out this weekend. And they're definitely using my stuff in it about Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Okay. So the fact that they use it again, just like my CBS morning interview when I told them, you know, what's your agenda? Because I don't think I'm going to fit your agenda. Because I know that People magazine is a mouthpiece. Like that's where Blake and Ryan go to spin their, they go to People Magazine. But I was in a very right down the middle piece that was more of the factual piece. So my stuff was in there, which was good. But we're going to put Ryan Reynolds at kind of number two, Blake Lively at number one. So what it is for both of them, it's just persona erosion under legal and PR scrutiny. Ryan Reynolds, his career right now, I'd I call the transition zone. He still has a lot of brand equity. He's still hireable. He still has money. He's still a big A-list celebrity. But they branded themselves reputationally as a cute couple, the back and forth, the banter. They nailed the banter, right? But now we know those two were never bantery. They weren't bantering at all. It was just marketing. It was stick. It was Ryan Reynolds manufacturing a persona of their brand that isn't matching up to that. Now he's labeled as a jerk. That's his label. And that's why he's taking such a massive hit, in my opinion. This legal drama with Justin Baldone, so overmanaged on PR. And the reason why he's attached, obviously, is the husband, you know, of Blake Lively. But you all know in the vault, in my community, you all know this. Ryan Reynolds, in my opinion, is the driver behind this. Dr. Abby Metcalf saying the same thing. He is the driver. We learned from our video on Wednesday, our live chat, Blake Lively likely is codependent. She's a pleaser. She's dependent on Ryan Reynolds. He's the money guy, big guy in the relationship. She's trying to please him. She does whatever he wants and whatever he needs. I personally think her and Justin got too close and Ryan came in and imploded it. And now they went to the point of no return, right? They passed the Rubicon last December at this time when they filed the civil complaint against Justin Baldoney and then worked hand in hand with the New York Times on this hit piece against Justin Baldone. And they deserve everything that they get. Now, Blake Lively is by far and away my number one reputational casualty for 2025 because the career risk litigation has spiraled for her. She is suing Justin Baldoni for$160 million for reputational loss. So we actually have a dollar figure for why she's number one on my list of losers. But those liabilities as someone who tracks us for a living comes from a natural place. I still dispute that it was part of an orchestrated smear campaign. Justin Beldone and their team doesn't have the operational back end to do all of that at that level. Blake Lively didn't have a lot of goodwill to begin with. She was already in a goodwill hole. So it crushed her. And she had spent a year and millions of dollars trying to bury Justin Beldoney. It's not like he's coming out great, but those two get it a lot worse. Her brand now is just lawsuit energy. That's her brand. And people will stop viewing her and looking at her by her work, and they're going to evaluate her for her persona. It's going to be less damaging for Ryan Reynolds because he is, as a man, sorry, I'm just going to say it. Males have more opportunities. Males can use being a jerk to their benefit, but women can't. Women can't use being strong, it doesn't help them. In the end, women always run out of runway, which is going to happen to Blake Lively. So that's why she sits on the top of my list with her husband, Ryan Reynolds. All right, everyone. Our top PR crises winners and losers for 2025. Some people might just give you the top PR crises for the years, but not here. We have to highlight the winners as well. You can certainly watch this list again if you missed some of it. The replay will be on Substack. It will also be on the podcast next week. 6 through 10 is on the podcast, the PR Breakdown Podcast, and it's also here on Substack. I want to thank all of you in this community for joining me. My thanks to all of you for your support, for spending time with me, and with your comments, your humor, your wit, and your strategic brilliance as well. I've enjoyed every minute of it. So thanks everyone. I wish you all the best during this holiday season. And I can't wait to revisit our connection back in 2026. Bye for now.

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Molly McPherson

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