Justin Baldoni Dropped By Agent After Blake Lively Allegations
Justin Baldoni has been ‘dropped’ by his agent after his co-star Blake Lively accused him of sexual harassment.
The actors starred in It Ends With Us over the summer but the release was altered by rumors that there was drama between them.
The novel by Colleen Hoover was released in 2016 with the film hitting the silver screen in August. However, fans were quick to notice that the pair did little to no press together.
Now, Lively has filed a lawsuit claiming that her co-star attempted to start a smear campaign against her, claiming that his actions have caused ‘severe emotional distress’ for herself and her family.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, shared that the lawsuit is full of ‘categorically false accusations’.
It alleged that a meeting was held with her husband, Ryan Reynolds in attendance, while things were in production to talk about the 37-year-olds demands for working on the film. Some of which included: “No more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake, no more mention of Baldoni’s alleged previous ‘p**nography addiction,’ no more discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others, no further mentions of cast and crew’s g**italia, no more inquiries about Blake’s weight, and no further mention of Blake’s dead father.”
She also allegedly demanded that Baldoni did not add more ‘sex scenes, or*l sex or on camera clim*xing’ to the film.
Sony Pictures approved this request, according to the complaint.
Lively also accused her co-star of ‘social manipulation’ and starting a campaign with the intent to ‘destroy’ her reputation.
Freedman shared a statement: “It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions.”
“Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film, to work alongside their own representative with Jonesworks employed by Stephanie Jones, due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met. It was also discovered that Ms. Lively enlisted her own representative, Leslie Sloan with Vision PR, who also represents Mr. Reynolds, to plant negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media, even prior to any marketing had commenced for the film, which was another reason why Wayfarer Studios made the decision to hire a crisis professional to commence internal scenario planning in the case they needed to address.”
Baldoni has since been dropped by WME, his and Lively’s talent agency after the complaint was filed.
One of the messages obtained by a subpoena was sent in response to publicist Jennifer Abel’s, who was allegedly hired by Baldoni in August. She wrote that Baldoni ‘wants to feel like she can be buried’, in alleged reference to Lively.
Crisis management expert, Melissa Nathan, who was hired in August, responded: “Of course – but you know when we send over documents we can’t send over the work we will or could do because that could get us in a lot of trouble,” adding: “We can’t write we will destroy her.”
She followed this up with an additional text, which read: “Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands. You know we can bury anyone but I can’t write that to him. I will be very tough.”
Text messages from Abel on 4 August says she’s having ‘reckless thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week about how horrible Blake is to work with’, adding: “Just to get ahead of it. She’s putting us through hell.”
On 5 August, Baldoni sent Abel a screenshot of a Twitter post thread accusing another female celebrity of bullying women, writing: “This is what we would need.”
To which Abel responded that she had ‘spoken to Melissa about this’, and added to ‘focus on reddit, TikTok IG’.
On 10 August, a text message from Nathan’s team claimed that they were ‘starting to see a shift on social’, with Nathan herself later following up to claim that the ‘majority of the socials are so pro Justin and I don’t even agree with half of them’.
Lively shared a statement: “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”