Blake Lively’s Team Shrugs Off $7M Defamation Suit From Alleged Smear Campaign Architect; Jed Wallace Says Claims Have Cost Him Big Bucks
Hours after Jed Wallace launched a $7 million defamation lawsuit against Blake Lively, the lawyer for the self-described “human crisis” navigator admitted Wednesday that the action is in no small part a response to Wallace’s likely addition to the It Ends With Us actress’ ongoing legal battles with Justin Baldoni, his company, his backers and his publicists.
Which is not the first time a tit-for-tat strategy has been employed in this increasingly messy affair over the past almost two months.
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The move Tuesday by Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ attorneys in the Texas courts to drop their demand for Texas-based and Street Relations founder Wallace to give a deposition under oath about what he did and didn’t do in an alleged online smear campaign last year against Lively was first reported by Deadline. It was fairly clear, from statements made by Lively lawyer Michael Gottlieb made during a February 3 hearing in New York on his client’s suit against Baldoni and Baldoni’s January 16 and since amended $400 million suit against Lively, her Deadpool hubby and their publicist, that Wallace was a probable candidate to be formally included in the consolidated case.
Attorney Bryan Freedman and publicist Melissa Nathan repped Wallace’s other lawyer Chip Babcock, who laid it all out on the table today, for better and worse.
RELATED: Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds Aim To Have Justin Baldoni’s $400M Defamation Suit Tossed Out
“Blake Lively made false statements to the press through a private administrative filing, claiming Mr. Wallace and Street Relations had sexually harassed her, retaliated against her, aided and abetted others who did the same, breached a contract with her and engaged in other improper conduct,” the Texas-based Jackson Walker, LLP partner said for his client in a statement Wednesday. “Mr. Wallace, who is a very private person, has never met or spoken to Ms. Lively. Ever. He has not engaged in a smear campaign against her at any point in time. The decision to file this lawsuit to rightfully protect himself and his family was made after Ms. Lively not only filed against him first in Texas but, indicated she intended to name him in yet another lawsuit.”
Named in Lively’s December 20 sexual harassment and retaliation complaint to California’s Civil Rights Department that put the multi-pronged matter in the public sphere, Wallace was not a part of Lively’s initial December 31 lawsuit against Baldoni, Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios, crisis PR boss Nathan and publicist Jennifer Abel. Though the prelude to a lawsuit does name Wallace, it is only in relation to the retaliation Lively says she experienced, and not linked to the harassment she says she was subjected to during the It Ends With Us production, nor to any breach of contract — so he doth protest a bit much here.
RELATED: “I F*cked Up”: Justin Baldoni Tells Blake Lively In Late-Night 2023 VM
What Lively’s lawyers have said in their now-dismissed effort to get Wallace to sit for a deposition is that the Street Relations exec “weaponized a digital army around the country from New York to Los Angeles to create, seed, and promote content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums.”
With all that, the whole conflict is set to start trial on March 9, 2026.
No amended complaint from Lively/Reynolds has been put in the court docket yet, but I hear a filing is only a question of when, not if.
Wallace is close to Nathan and Freedman on some level even if he says he wasn’t hired by Nathan in orchestrating the alleged astroturfing attack Lively claimed he was active in and that she was subjected to in the lead-up to It Ends With Us‘ August 2024 premiere. Certainly, there was a “Jed” mentioned or implied in several text messages seen in legal documents between Nathan, Abel and their crew last year about online attacks on Lively.
Regardless, in his complaint filed today, Wallace says the spotlight has cost him serious cash because his name keeps coming up in a number of posts, broadcasts and publications (like Elle) in connection — falsely, he says – with Lively and Baldoni’s mutual scorched-earth war in the courts and the court of public opinion. The media storm has caused “millions of dollars in reputational harm with a projected loss to his company that exceeds another million,” Wallace’s filing says.
For Lively’s side, as one would expect in a tit-for-tat scenario, this is all more of the same in a situation that has seen Baldoni and his entourage insist they are the ones who have suffered a smear campaign and career crash and burn at the hands of the powerful Ladypool couple.
“Another day, another state, another nine-figure lawsuit seeking to sue Ms. Lively ‘into oblivion’ for speaking out against sexual harassment and retaliation,” attorneys at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and Willkie Farr & Gallagher said in a statement of their own. “This is not just a publicity stunt — it is transparent retaliation in response to allegations contained within a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint that Ms. Lively filed with the California Civil Rights Department. While this lawsuit will be dismissed, we are pleased that Mr. Wallace has finally emerged from the shadows, and that he too will be held accountable in federal court.”
There is almost nothing the parties in this agree on. For example: Documents filed Tuesday by both sides estimated next year’s trial could take anywhere from two weeks, according to Liveley’s team, to a month and a half, according to Baldoni’s side.
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