Justin Baldoni Dropped From WME After Blake Lively Files Complaint Accusing Him of Sexual Harassment
Justin Baldoni has been dropped by WME following Blake Lively’s accusing him of sexual harassment in a complaint filed Friday, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The update comes hours after news broke that Lively was taking legal action against her It Ends With Us co-star and director.
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In the filing, the Simple Favor actress — who is also repped by WME, along with her husband, Ryan Reynolds — not only accused Baldoni and his co-workers at Wayfarer Studios of sexual harassment, but also of an alleged coordinated effort to destroy her reputation. The Jane the Virgin star’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, fired back at the allegations, calling them “shameful,” “serious and categorically false.”
Lively claims in the filing that things got so bad on set that there was a meeting with Lively, Sony Pictures, Baldoni and Jamey Heath from Wayfarer Studios, producers on the film, publicists for the film and more to address some of the “inappropriate conduct” that took place on the set.
The actress and her team brought forth demands for Baldoni and his team in order to begin production again after the actors strike. Some of the 30 demands included: “No more showing nude videos of women, including producer’s wife, to BL and/or her employees”; “No more mention of Mr. Baldoni’s or Mr. Heath’s previous ‘pornography addiction’ or BL’s lack of pornography consumption to BL or to other crew members”; “No more descriptions of their own genitalia to BL”; and “No more improvising of kissing.”
The complaint also notes that the It Ends With Us cast and crew were contractually obligated to promote the film per the predetermined marketing plan, which stated they would “[f]ocus more on Lily’s [Lively’s character] strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.” The plan also established they would “[a]void talking about this film that makes it feel sad or heavy [sic] — it’s a story of hope.”
However, Baldoni veered from that in the days leading up to the film and focused on the film’s more serious, domestic violence content. Per the filing, the actor-director and his team did so in an effort to explain why many of the film’s cast and crew had unfollowed him on social media and did not appear with him in public. The filing claims that he and his team used domestic violence “survivor content” to protect his image.
“What the public also did not know was that this was the beginning of a multi-tiered plan that Mr. Baldoni and his team described as ‘social manipulation’ designed to ‘destroy’ Ms. Lively’s reputation,” the complaint reads. “That plan was backed by virtually unlimited resources.”
In a statement to The New York Times, Lively said, “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”
Baldoni’s attorney, Freedman, released a lengthy statement denying the claims in the filing. “It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the Internet to generate their own views and opinions,” he began.
The statement continued, “These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media. Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film, to work alongside their own representative with Jonesworks employed by Stephanie Jones, due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met. It was also discovered that Ms. Lively enlisted her own representative, Leslie Sloan with Vision PR, who also represents Mr. Reynolds, to plant negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media, even prior to any marketing had commenced for the film, which was another reason why Wayfarer Studios made the decision to hire a crisis professional to commence internal scenario planning in the case they needed to address.
“The representatives of Wayfarer Studios still did nothing proactive nor retaliated, and only responded to incoming media inquiries to ensure balanced and factual reporting and monitored social activity,” the statement concluded. “What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals.”
Pamela McClintock contributed to this story.
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