Justin Baldoni‘s legal team is responding to a new statement from Blake Lively‘s legal team.
Here’s the latest in barb trading between the two parties which are locked in a lawsuit and reputational struggle that has mesmerized the industry.
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman — in a Tuesday comment confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter —teased additional forthcoming information about the It Ends with Us star, presumably as part of an upcoming countersuit.
“It is painfully ironic that Blake Lively is accusing Justin Baldoni of weaponizing the media when her own team orchestrated this vicious attack by sending the New York Times grossly edited documents prior to even filing the complaint,” he said. “We are releasing all of the evidence which will show a pattern of bullying and threats to take over the movie. None of this will come as a surprise because consistent with her past behavior Blake Lively used other people to communicate those threats and bully her way to get whatever she wanted. We have all the receipts and more.”
The remark was in response to a statement given by Lively’s legal team on Monday to People which accused Baldoni’s team of trying to distract and attack in the press, describing such efforts as a classic technique to discredit a victim of sexual harassment.
“This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation,’” read the statement from Lively’s lawyers. “As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer [Studios] and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set. And their response to the lawsuit has been to launch more attacks against Ms. Lively since her filing.”
“A classic tactic to distract from allegations of this type of misconduct is to ‘blame the victim’ by suggesting that they invited the conduct, brought it on themselves, misunderstood the intentions, or even lied,” the statement continued. “Another classic tactic is to reverse the victim and offender, and suggest that the offender is actually the victim. These concepts normalize and trivialize allegations of serious misconduct. Most importantly, media statements are not a defense to Ms. Lively’s legal claims. We will continue to prosecute her claims in federal court, where the rule of law determines who prevails, not hyperbole and threats.”
Lively’s original Dec. 20 complaint accused her It Ends with Us director and co-star of sexual harassment on the set of the film and of orchestrating a retaliatory smear campaign afterwards. A story in the Times detailed the accusations and included sensational text messages among Baldoni’s PR and crisis management team.
Last week, Lively followed up her complaint with a lawsuit in New York federal court, accusing Baldoni and his public relations team of 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 complaint names Baldoni; his film studio, Wayfarer and the public relations representatives, Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, both of whom are alleged to have helped lead the effort to undermine the actress.
In a statement, Lively’s attorneys said she was subjected to “further retaliation and attacks” after she went public with misconduct allegations against Baldoni and his public relations team in a Times report. “Wayfarer and its associates have violated federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns.”
Among the many accusations: Lively claims that Baldoni tried to add in a graphic sex scene, without her consent, which saw her character orgasm on-camera. She claims Baldoni proceeded to ask personal details about her and her husband Ryan Reynolds’ relationship. Lively accuses Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath of pressuring her to perform certain acts for scenes that weren’t originally in the script. Lively also alleges that Heath and Baldoni also entered her hair and makeup trailer unannounced on multiple occasions, while she was getting dressed. Also, that Lively made several attempts to raise concerns regarding Baldoni and Heath’s alleged misconduct, however, the reports often went uninvestigated.
Last week, Baldoni filed a $250 million libel lawsuit against the Times, accusing the publication of coordinating with Lively to cherrypick facts which gave readers an inaccurate impression of certain text exchanges (such as omitting from one exchange that Lively had invited Baldoni into her trailer while breastfeeding).
“In this vicious smear campaign fully orchestrated by Blake Lively and her team, the New York 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,” Freedman said at the time. “In doing so, they pre-determined the outcome of their story, and aided and abetted their own devastating PR smear campaign designed to revitalize Lively’s self-induced floundering public image and counter the organic groundswell of criticism amongst the online public. The irony is rich.”
