Justin Baldoni Sues His Ex-Publicist for Allegedly Sparking 'Catastrophic' Blake Lively Lawsuit by Leaking Texts

Justin Baldoni is suing his former publicist, claiming she sparked the legal firestorm between him and Blake Lively by leaking private text messages.

Amid the ongoing legal battle surrounding It Ends With Us, Baldoni, 41, and publicist Jennifer Abel filed a lawsuit in New York federal court on March 21 against Stephanie Jones, founder of PR firm Jonesworks. The complaint alleges that Jones violated client confidentiality by sharing private communications that later became central evidence in a separate lawsuit filed by Lively.

"It is undeniable that Stephanie Jones initiated this catastrophic sequence of events by violating the most basic of privacy rights, as well as any remaining trust her clients held,” Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman said in a statement to PEOPLE. “No stranger to stirring up crisis scenarios for departing clients, Ms. Jones maliciously turned over communications from the phone she wrongfully took from her own partner to her cohort [Lively’s personal publicist] Leslie Sloane, immediately after Jones was terminated for cause by Wayfarer due to her own wrongful behavior."

Jones had been representing Baldoni and his company, Wayfarer Studios, when reports surfaced last summer of a falling out between the It Ends With Us director and Lively.

This latest lawsuit is the sixth tied to the It Ends With Us production. The dispute began in December 2024, when Lively, 37, sued Baldoni, crisis public relations manager Melissa Nathan, producer Jamey Heath, Wayfarer co-founder Steve Sarowitz, and others, alleging sexual harassment and a coordinated campaign to damage her reputation. The New York Times later reported it had reviewed “thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena.” Those messages appeared to come from the phone of Abel, which had been seized by Jonesworks shortly after Abel informed Jones she was leaving to start her own firm.

Baldoni later filed a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times, accusing the outlet of libel, false light invasion of privacy, promissory fraud, and breach of implied-in-fact contract.

According to the complaint, Abel was summoned to a meeting where “she was confronted by a physically imposing security guard, a forensic data extraction technical expert, and an attorney sitting at a conference table awash in documents," two days before her last day at the company.

Once inside, the situation escalated, per the complaint. “After being ushered into the conference room, Abel noticed that the security guard was posted just outside its doors, positioned between the conference room and the office entrance, blocking the exit,” the complaint states. "There, the attorney gestured at the documents and instructed Abel to review and sign them. The attorney stated that Jonesworks suspected Abel had retained proprietary information on her personal laptop. Abel was told that Jonesworks would have grounds to sue if she did not allow them access."

The lawsuit argues that this alleged encounter — and everything that followed — violated California labor laws governing Abel’s employment. The forced phone seizure, threats of legal action, and denial of access to her own data were not only coercive but unlawful under state labor protections, according to the filing.

After gaining control of Abel’s phone, Jones allegedly locked her out of critical accounts tied to two-factor authentication, including her iCloud, bank accounts, utilities, and insurance. “By contrast, Jones now had unrestricted access to everything stored on Abel’s phone — her text messages, emails, personal photos,” the complaint states.

Jones is then accused of using that material against Baldoni and Wayfarer, passing it to Sloane, a publicist who works with Lively.

“During that call, Sloane told Nathan that Sloane had seen Nathan’s text messages (which could only have come from Abel’s phone) and that Nathan should expect to be sued,” the complaint continues. “Jones [had] turned over the contents of Abel’s phone to Lively and her team — without a subpoena — so they could slice and dice her communications to construct a false narrative about the source of Lively’s bad publicity. In turning over these materials to Lively, Jones knew full well that the blowback would engulf not only Abel but also her clients, Wayfarer and Baldoni. As a result of Jones’ malicious scheme, Abel’s life has been turned upside down. Her career and reputation have been destroyed, her private information leaked, and her email inbox and social media pages filled with a daily stream of death threats and abuse.”

In December, Jones filed her own lawsuit against Baldoni and Abel.

At the time, her attorney, Kristin Tahler, told PEOPLE: “For months, this group has gaslit and disparaged Stephanie Jones and her company for financial gain, to settle personal scores and most recently to distract from their disgraceful conduct.”

In a new statement to PEOPLE, Tahler said, "Ms. Jones’ lawsuit is based entirely on facts and concrete evidence. That suit clearly shows that Jen Abel conspired with Melissa Nathan and others to steal reams of confidential documents, clients and staff and eventually attempt to destroy the business that Ms. Jones spent decades building. Abel, Nathan, Baldoni and their co-defendants attempted to achieve these outcomes through bullying distortion and outright disparagement. These facts are backed up by dozens of messages provided in the suit we filed month ago and cannot be credibly disputed. Having no facts or evidence, we see a familiar playbook — smear our client, culminating in the work of fiction masquerading as the counterclaims that were filed yesterday."

Baldoni has also filed a $400 million defamation suit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, 48.

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