Justin Baldoni’s former publicist is suing the actor-director amid the growing fallout over the alleged harassment harassment of Blake Lively, Baldoni’s It Ends With Us co-star.
Lively previously filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment on set and initiating a social media campaign to “destroy” her reputation — details of which were in a series of text messages involving Baldoni, his current publicist, Jennifer Abel, and PR crisis manager Melissa Nathan.
In a new lawsuit filed with New York state court Tuesday, Stephanie Jones, who owns PR company Jonesworks, accuses Baldoni of breaching their contract when he dropped the firm after Abel left Jonesworks to start her own company.
Jones also claims Abel and Nathan carried out an online smear campaign against Lively behind Jones’s back and without her knowledge. Jones is suing the two, along with Baldoni, for defamation, saying they tried to blame Jones for the alleged campaign once word got out.
‘You know we can bury anyone’
Documents submitted in Lively’s filings show texts between Abel, Nathan and sometimes Baldoni and others that appear to detail plans to tarnish Lively’s reputation by spreading negative stories about her in the press and on social media.
“You know we can bury anyone,” reads one text attributed to Nathan.
In another message purportedly sent by Abel, the publicist claims she’s having dinner with a friend who writes for several major U.S. publications, and “is armed and ready to take this story of Blake weaponizing feminism” to any of her outlets. “She hates Blake, has heard this story before, and will do anything for us,” the message says.
Blake Lively has accused her It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni of trying to ‘destroy’ her reputation after she complained about sexual harassment during the filming. An attorney for Baldoni calls the claims ‘categorically false.’
Baldoni’s talent agency, WME, dropped him the day Lively’s complaint was filed.
Baldoni’s lawyers have denied the allegations. Abel told the Hollywood Reporter that the text messages in the filing were cherry-picked and there was no smear campaign.
“These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media,” lawyer Bryan Freedman, who represents Baldoni, his production company and its representatives, said in a statement.
Lively’s complaint alleges that during filming, a meeting was held — and attended by her husband, Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds, and others — to address Baldoni’s behaviour. According to the complaint, Lively demanded an end to Baldoni “showing nude videos or images of women” to her, as well as discussions of Baldoni’s alleged past “pornography addiction” or “sexual conquests.”
Other topics addressed at the meeting included stopping Baldoni from further mentions of genitalia, inquiries about Lively’s weight or “mention by Mr. Baldoni of him ‘speaking to’ [Lively’s] dead father.”
Lively came under fire for film’s promotion
It Ends With Us had a successful opening in August after months of speculation about problems on set and controversies around the sometimes lighthearted promotion of the film, which focused on themes of domestic violence.
A clip of Lively urging potential viewers to “grab your friends, wear your florals and head out to see it,” for example, drew heavy criticism.
Karen Mason, co-founder and executive director of Supporting Survivors of Abuse and Brain Injury through Research, was among those who criticized Lively at the time.
She now says she’s now questioning whether she was duped by a social media campaign against the actor.
“The news of her lawsuit has made me stop, and think and wonder, ‘Was I a victim of a campaign that was out there specifically designed to make her look bad, to make her look like she was minimizing the impacts of domestic violence?'” Mason said, speaking with CBC News.
“And Justin Baldoni was out there doing interviews and speaking about survivors, which was the right thing to do strategically. But if it didn’t come from a place of authenticity, then many of us got sucked into that narrative that wasn’t real. And that’s disturbing.”
Hollywood stars back Lively
Many people have drawn parallels between Lively and Amber Heard — especially because Johnny Depp, Heard’s ex-husband, also hired Nathan for crisis management during his defamation trial against Heard.
Heard, who was ordered to pay millions in a case some felt was unduly influenced by Depp’s social media campaign against her, spoke out in seeming support of Lively in a statement to NBC News on Monday.
“Social media is the absolute personification of the classic saying, ‘A lie travels halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on,'” she said. “I saw this first hand and up close. It’s as horrifying as it is destructive.”
America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn and Alexis Bledel, actors who starred alongside Lively in the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, also spoke out in support of Lively, issuing a joint statement on Instagram on Sunday.
“Throughout the filming of It Ends with Us, we saw her [Lively] summon the courage to ask for a safe workplace for herself and colleagues on set, and we are appalled to read the evidence of a premeditated and vindictive effort that ensued to discredit her voice,” they wrote.
Colleen Hoover, author of the bestselling 2016 novel the film was based on, posted a photo of herself with Lively, who she described as “honest, kind, supportive and patient,” and shared the post from Ferrera, Tamblyn and Bledel.
Lively’s It Ends With Us co-stars, Brandon Sklenar and Jenny Slate, have also backed her.
In a statement to Today.com, Slate said: “What has been revealed about the attack on Blake is terribly dark, disturbing and wholly threatening. I commend my friend, I admire her bravery, and I stand by her side.”