Justin Baldoni Sues New York Times Over Blake Lively Story for $250 Million
Justin Baldoni is suing the New York Times after it published a story about Blake Lively’s sexual harassment and smear campaign allegations against him.
On Tuesday, Baldoni — and nine other plaintiffs, including publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel — sued the newspaper for libel and false light invasion of privacy, among other claims, over the article, and is seeking $250 million in damages. The Times story was based on a pre-lawsuit, California Civil Rights Department filing from Lively against the It Ends With Us director.
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“The Article advances its false narrative by cherry-picking out-of-context (and in some cases doctored) private communications never intended for public disclosure or consumption to advance a highly inflammatory, one-sided narrative plainly designed to villainize Plaintiffs,” reads Baldoni’s 87-page lawsuit, obtained by Rolling Stone and first reported by Variety.
The new complaint accuses the Times of promissory fraud and breach of implied-in-fact contract. “The Times story relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self-serving narrative, lifting it nearly verbatim while disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives,” the suit alleges.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, a Times spokesperson defended the article as being “meticulously and responsibly reported” and based on thousands of pages of documents, texts, and emails “we quote accurately and at length in the article.”
“To date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the other subjects of the article, and their representatives have not pointed to a single error. We published their full statement in response to the allegations in the article as well,” read the Times statement. “We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
The outlet added, in an updated statement on Jan. 2, that the reporters on the story sought comment from Baldoni and others, which included “references to specific text messages” and “asked them to identify inaccuracies” in the reporting.
“Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer and the other subjects chose not to have any conversations with The Times or address any of the specific text messages or documents and instead emailed a joint response, which was published in full,” the updated statement added.
Lively’s attorneys addressed the Times lawsuit in a separate statement to Rolling Stone, stating: “Nothing in this lawsuit changes anything about the claims advanced in Ms. Lively’s California Civil Rights Department Complaint, nor her federal complaint, filed earlier today.”
Among the claims countered in Baldoni’s complaint is one where Lively’s suit alleged to the Times that Baldoni “repeatedly entered her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including when she was breastfeeding.” In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, Baldoni’s attorney refers to purported texts sent by Lively in which she allegedly blamed her assistant for not sending her updated script pages.
“She didn’t realize they were new,” Lively allegedly wrote in a text to Baldoni, according to the suit. “New pages can always be sent to me as well please.” According to the complaint, Lively allegedly signed the text with an “X,” and in a follow-up message, wrote: “I’m just pumping in my trailer if you wanna work out our lines.”
The original Times story, which included alleged screenshots of conversations between Baldoni’s publicists, focused on claims of a smear campaign built against Lively online. In Baldoni’s suit, he accuses Lively of doing her own “strategic and manipulative” campaign and using false “sexual harassment allegations to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production.”
The lawsuit claims that Baldoni’s publicist Nathan was made aware of Lively’s publicist “planting an unfavorable, false and defamatory story about Baldoni’s Bahá?í faith to Page Six” and “a false story alleging that there were ‘multiple’ HR complaints during production.”
Among the allegations in the lawsuit is one that Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds allegedly “berated” Baldoni during one encounter in New York and that Lively pressured his WME agent to drop him back in July.
Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman had warned about a coming lawsuit in a statement to People over the weekend, saying it was “not a response or countersuit — it’s a deliberate pursuit of truth.”
In a statement, Freedman claimed that the Times “cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting of the revered publication by using doctored and manipulated texts and intentionally omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative.”
Lively’ filed her own lawsuit in federal court today on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York, based on her original California Civil Rights Department complaint alleging retaliation by Wayfarer Studios and others in response to her bringing forward allegations of sexual harassment.
Her attorneys claimed Baldoni’s suit against the Times was “based on the obviously false premise that Ms. Lively’s administrative complaint against Wayfarer and others was a ruse based on a choice ‘not to file a lawsuit against Baldoni, Wayfarer,’ and that ‘litigation was never her ultimate goal.'”
Lively’s lawyers told Rolling Stone, “As demonstrated by the federal complaint filed by Ms. Lively earlier today, that frame of reference for the Wayfarer lawsuit is false.”
Reps for Baldoni did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This story was updated on Jan. 2 at 7:30 p.m. ET to include an updated statement from the New York Times.
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