Justin Baldoni Files $400M Lawsuit Against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds Over Alleged Smear Campaign
A legal showdown continues to erupt over misconduct allegations in the filming of It Ends With Us, with Justin Baldoni suing Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for orchestrating a campaign to smear him.
Baldoni, in a lawsuit filed in New York federal court on Thursday, alleges extortion, defamation and claims related to breach of contract, among several others. He’s joined by his film studio, Wayfarer, and its chief executive Jamey Heath, and their public relations representatives, Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel. They seek at least $400 million.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Also named in the lawsuit: Reynolds and Leslie Sloane, the actress’ public relations representative of Vision PR, who didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s lawyer, said the lawsuit is “based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media.”
He added, “It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret.”
The filing of the lawsuit follows Lively suing Baldoni and his public relations team for allegedly marshaling a sophisticated, multi-tiered plan to undermine her reputation in retaliation for speaking up about sexual misconduct on the set of the film. The same day that legal action was initiated last month, Baldoni sued The New York Times for allegedly conspiring with Lively’s public relations team to advance an “unverified and self-serving narrative” while ignoring evidence that contradicted her claims.
In a statement later Thursday, Lively’s legal team responded and called the situation “an age-old story.”
“A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender,” the statement continued. Lively is represented by Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
Among the many reasons the legal drama has fascinated Hollywood is the tangling web of relationships between the major players in the litigation. Shortly after cutting ties with Baldoni, WME — which also represents Lively and her megastar husband, Reynolds — released a statement insisting that the married stars didn’t pressure the agency to do drop him.
Baldoni challenges the denial from WME and offers a clashing account of events. He says in the complaint that he “received word that, during the premiere of his movie Deadpool & Wolverine, Reynolds approached Baldoni’s agency, namely, an executive at WME, and expressed his deep disdain for Baldoni, suggesting the agency was working with a ‘sexual predator’ (a phrase that uncoincidentally later appeared in the press) and, at a later date, demanded that the agent ‘drop'” him.
This is slightly different than the account in the lawsuit against the Times, which stated Reynolds approached Baldoni’s agent at the premiere. WME maintained that Baldoni’s agent was not at the premiere, and that Reynolds didn’t pressure the agent to drop Baldoni.
“In Baldoni’s filing there is a claim that Reynolds pressured Baldoni’s agent at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere. This is not true,” the agency said in a statement at the time. “Baldoni’s former representative was not at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere nor was there any pressure from Reynolds or Lively at any time to drop Baldoni as a client.”
The lawsuit details calculated maneuvering behind the scenes of the movie. Wayfarer says it was blindsided when Lively, upon conclusion of last year’s strikes, refused to return to production without the company agreeing to a 17-point list of demands that implied misconduct during filming. Lively leveraged her demands, the lawsuit claims, to seize control of the movie, ultimately getting her own cut of the film delivered and a producer credit. At her command, Baldoni was ousted from all marketing and promotional efforts, according to the complaint.
When her promotional efforts allegedly backfired and resulted in public backlash, Lively directed Sloane, her publicist, to propagate false stories portraying Baldoni as a sexual predator, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also offers details behind the split between Stephanie Jones, founder of Jonesworks and the PR firm for Wayfarer and Baldoni, and Abel, Jones’ right-hand partner who oversaw the company’s Los Angeles office. It claims Jones aimed to undercut Abel after she announced her decision a month earlier to form her own company.
“Jones’ behavior grew more and more bizarre as she lashed out at loyal clients like Wayfarer in rage-filled rants, and veered away from professional experience and strategy when making critical decisions affecting Jonesworks clients,” the complaint states. “After a final outburst against Wayfarer in which she outright refused to comply with their direct instructions, Wayfarer had no choice but to cut ties with Jones and Jonesworks rather than leave their public image in the hands of what appeared to be an out-of-control Jones, whose actions were not aligned with Wayfarer and Baldoni’s worldview and wishes.”
Per the lawsuit, Jones took Abel’s phone upon her departure and mined it for messages to be used as legal ammo without necessary context to concoct a false narrative that Lively was the target of a smear campaign initiated by Baldoni and his team.
In a statement, Nathan and Abel, who said they’ve been subject to death threats, said Lively and her team “initiated this smear campaign in the media for the sole intention of gaining undeserved public sympathy for her own missteps.” They added, “Five months ago Ms. Lively chose to promote a film about domestic violence in a way that caused instant negative and organic backlash due to her own highly publicized actions. Instead of accepting responsibility, she decided to cruelly blame us. This malicious attack on private individuals by Ms. Lively and her team in which they chose to spoon feed The New York Times with doctored, out of context and edited text messages in an effort to paint herself as a victim set off a chain of events that has been harmful beyond measure.”
Jan. 16, 8:45 p.m. Updated with Lively’s legal team response.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
Sign up for THR's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
