“Horrifying”: Amber Heard Denounces Alleged PR Smear Campaign Against Blake Lively By Justin Baldoni Reps
UPDATED with statement from Baldoni attorney Bryan Freedman: Having been lambasted over her marriage and abuse allegations against Johnny Depp, Amber Heard can relate to what Blake Lively allegedly went through by Justin Baldoni’s PR crisis representatives.
“Social media is the absolute personification of the classic saying ‘A lie travels halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on.’ I saw this firsthand and up close. It’s as horrifying as it is destructive,” Heard said Monday in a statement to NBC News. Heard made the statement three days after the It Ends With Us star/producer Lively filed a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint with California Civil Rights Department.
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In response to Heard’s remarks, Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman released the following statement to Deadline:
“TAG PR must be the most powerful group of publicists the world has ever seen for it to be able to completely change the perception of both Amber Heard and Blake Lively. The only correlation between both individuals was that for decades every move they have made has been out there for everyone to see, widely filmed and documented for the public to make up their own minds – which they did, organically. All you have to do is watch the interviews that still remain if they have not already been scrubbed by their crisis PR Teams (which is apparently their crisis teams next move since that’s what crisis teams do, they protect their clients)”.
Freedman previously called the allegations against Baldoni “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.”
Lively’s action with the CCRD is not a formal lawsuit, but certainly a prelude to expected legal action. Detailing both on set and offset alleged harassemnt and more by Baldoni and his prod co Wayfarer Studios, Lively’s filing mentions several times the involvement of her husband Ryan Reynolds — the Deadpool star was present at pivotal production meetings addressing Lively’s harassment and other claims , as ell as participating in the It Ends With Us marketing campaign.
Baldoni was dropped by his and Lively’s agency WME, as Deadline exclusively reported, after the Gossip Girl star’s allegations and filing were made public this weekend.
In the dense 10-claim complaint filed late Friday with the CCRD, Lively details at length “the hostile work environment that had nearly derailed production of the Film” and the multi-pronged “Astroturfing” campaign that was allegedly launched against her by self-declared feminist Baldoni and his company.
“Mr. Baldoni and his Wayfarer associates embarked on a sophisticated press and digital plan in retaliation for Ms. Lively exercising her legally-protected right to speak up about their misconduct on the set, with the additional objective of intimidating her and anyone else from revealing in public what actually occurred,” declares the 80-page complaint, packed with seemingly damning text messages between Baldoni and “crisis communications specialist named Melissa Nathan, and her company The Agency Group PR LLC (TAG),”
RELATED: Colleen Hoover Supports Blake Lively Amid Justin Baldoni Lawsuit: “Never Wilt”
“Mr. Baldoni and his Wayfarer associates embarked on a sophisticated press and digital plan in retaliation for Ms. Lively exercising her legally-protected right to speak up about their misconduct on the set, with the additional objective of intimidating her and anyone else from revealing in public what actually occurred,” declares the 80-page complaint, packed with seemingly damning text messages between Baldoni and “crisis communications specialist named Melissa Nathan, and her company The Agency Group PR LLC (TAG),”
Heard’s statement was in response to Baldoni hiring the same PR crisis manager as Depp did during the pair’s 2022 defamation lawsuit which Depp won. Heard appealed, but the two ended up settling the case later that year. At the time, Heard called it “a very difficult decision” noting how she was villified on social media during the trial.
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