Blake Lively has gone dark on social media. Well, she's at least gone very dim, anyway.
The actress deleted almost her entire Instagram history this weekend, save for one post from September: A trailer for her upcoming movie, The Rhythm Section, which hits theaters on January 31 of next year.
If this move feels familiar, it's because it totally is. Lively pulled a similar stunt back in Mary 2018, when she purged her entire Instagram grid to promote her movie, A Simple Favor. That time around, the actress also unfollowed everyone she had previously kept in her feed and followed only people named Emily Nelson—her character's name in the film.
As of this writing, Lively is following 75 accounts on Instagram, and exactly zero of them share a name with her Rhythm Section character, Stephanie Patrick.
Blake Lively’s Instagram account as of Saturday, November 16.
Clearly, Lively is gearing up for the Rhythm Section's promotional push and it worked because she definitely has our attention. Also, if she's following her PR playbook from A Simple Favor, Lively hasn't actually deleted her photos, just temporarily archived them (cue collective sigh of relief).
There is, however, one little (but still incredibly interesting) tidbit that Lively's second promotional purge revealed that has nothing to do with The Rhythm Section: Jennifer Aniston Insta-stalks Blake Lively.
How do we know that? Well, a quick glance at the post reveals that Aniston is one of the many, many people who have liked the trailer post:
But, remember that the post is from September 19. Aniston didn't join Instagram until almost a month later, on October 15. This means that one of two things is true:
A. Jennifer Aniston was so eager to catch up on all things Blake Lively, that she scrolled back through her old posts and double-tapped. OR
B. Jennifer Aniston is still currently so eager to stay caught up on all things Blake Lively that she actively checks her account for updates when none appear in her feed and, seeing the September post now at the top of Lively's almost-empty grid, liked it.
Either way, here for it.
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