Justin Baldoni‘s award for “advocating on behalf of women and girls” has been rescinded following Blake Lively‘s complaint against him, his team and Wayfarer Studios.
On Dec. 9, the It Ends With Us director and co-star received the Voices of Solidarity Award from Vital Voices. The honor celebrates “remarkable men who have shown courage and compassion in advocating on behalf of women and girls.”
After learning about Lively’s legal action against Baldoni, his publicists and others at Wayfarer Studios for “disturbing” and “abhorrent conduct,” the organization decided to revoke his award.
“The communications among Mr. Baldoni and his publicists included in the lawsuit — and the PR effort they indicate — are, alone, contrary to the values of Vital Voices and the spirit of the Award. We have notified Mr. Baldoni that we have rescinded this award.”
It Ends With Us was distributed by Sony Pictures. In a statement, following the complaint filing, a spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter: “We have previously expressed our support for Blake in connection with her work on and for the film. We fully and firmly reiterate that support today. Further, we strongly condemn any reputational attacks on her. Any such attacks have no place in our business or in a civil society.”
Lively and Baldoni’s co-star Brandon Sklenar took to his Instagram Story to briefly express his support for the Gossip Girl star. In a post, he shared a screenshot of the filing and wrote, “For the love of God, read this.” He linked to The New York Times‘ archive of the complaint and tagged Lively’s Instagram with a heart emoji.
In its own statement, SAG-AFTRA spoke out in support of Lively following her decision to take legal action against Baldoni and his team.
“These are startling and troubling allegations. Employees have every right to raise issues of concern or to file complaints. Retaliation for reporting misconduct or inappropriate behavior is illegal and wrong,” the guild said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “We applaud Blake Lively’s courage in speaking out on issues of retaliation and harassment and for her request to have an intimacy coordinator for all scenes with nudity or sexual content. This is an important step that helps ensure a safe set. We all have a right to be treated with dignity and respect on the job and to work in an environment free of harassment, discrimination and retaliation. We urge anyone who may be experiencing abusive conduct to report such violations on our SAG-AFTRA Safe Place app and to their employer.”
The organization’s decision comes on the heels of Lively filing a complaint against Baldoni and his team, including Jamey Heath, for sexual harassment and a coordinated effort to “destroy” her reputation. According to the complaint, several parties had to partake in an all-hands-on-deck meeting to address Lively’s claims of a hostile work environment.
During the meeting, demands were addressed that included “no more showing nude videos or images of women” to Lively; “no more mentions of Mr. Baldoni’s or Mr. Heath’s previous ‘pornography addiction’”; “no more discussions to BL and/or her employees about personal experiences with sex”; “no more descriptions of their own genitalia”; and more.
Since the legal action, several celebrities have spoken out in support of Lively, including her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-stars, A Simple Favor director Paul Feig and Amber Heard. Meanwhile, Baldoni has been dropped from agency WME, and his publicist, Jennifer Abel, who was also listed on the complaint, shared her side of the story.
The filing included numerous text messages between Abel, crisis PR manager Melissa Nathan of TAG PR and Baldoni about their efforts throughout the It Ends With Us press tour.
“What the cherry picked messages don’t include, although not shockingly as it doesn’t fit the narrative, is that there was no ‘smear’ implemented,” Abel wrote, in part. “No negative press was ever facilitated, no social combat plan, although we were prepared for it as it’s our job to be ready for any scenario. But we didn’t have to implement anything because the internet was doing the work for us.”
She added, “As the texts show, we sophomorically reveled and again, joked, privately to each other about the internets feedback to the woman whose team was making our lives incredibly difficult over the course of the campaign. I’m human. The long hours, months of preparation, on top of my day to day scope … it felt good to see that although we were prepared, we didn’t have to do anything over the top to protect our client.”
Baldoni, Abel and Nathan’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, also released a new statement addressing the claims on Monday.
“TAG PR operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources,” he said. “The standard scenario planning TAG PR drafted proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively’s own actions, interviews and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful, and responded organically to that which the media themselves picked up on. It’s ironic that The New York Times, through their effort to ‘uncover’ an insidious PR effort, played directly into the hands of Lively’s own dubious PR tactics by publishing leaked personal text exchanges that lack critical context – the very same tactics she’s accusing the firm of implementing.”
