Blake Lively Is Shutting Down Her Website, Isn't Afraid To Say Why

Yes, Blake Lively is shutting down her website, Preserve . No, she is not afraid to be honest about why. 

“We have an incredible team of people who do beautiful work, but we launched the site before it was ready , and it never caught up to its original mission: It’s not making a difference in people’s lives, whether superficially or in a meaningful way,” she told Vogue. 

The actress launched Preserve , a site meant to blend commerce, storytelling and philanthropic efforts, last year. In her first Letter from the Editor , Lively admitted she is no lifestyle expert ("I'm comfortable with the knowledge that I'm not a teacher, but rather, a student. I don't do any one thing perfectly. I do a lot of things though. Some well, some not-so-well") and that her idea was ambitious ("A pretty lofty goal, a pretty lofty statement, but a group of determined hearts behind it"). 

She faced criticism  from the get-go, and comparisons to Gwyneth Paltrow .  Fast forward a little more than a year, and she's shuttering the effort on October 9 -- for now. 

“It’s very exciting and it’s also incredibly scary," Lively told Vogue. “I never thought I would have the bravery to actually do that, to take the site dark and to say, ‘You know what? I haven’t created something that is as true and impactful as I know it can and will be. And I’m not going to continue to chase my tail and continue to put a product out there that we, as a team, are not proud of.’ I know what it’ll look like, what I’m facing publicly, that people are just going to have a heyday with this. But it’s so much worse to continue to put something out there -- to ask my team to put something out there -- that isn’t the best we can do. I’m going to take this hit, and the only way I can prove all the negative reactions wrong is to come back with a plan that will rock people. And I have that plan." 

For now, she's playing "Shake It Off" on repeat and getting ready for what's next. Meanwhile, Preserve fans can get 50 percent off .

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