The text messages in Blake Lively’s lawsuit against Justin Baldoni have since been revealed.
The Gossip Girl actor is suing Baldoni over allegations of sexual harassment and ‘destroying’ her reputation via a ‘social manipulation’ campaign.
The two starred in an 2024 adaption of Colleen Hoover’s book, It Ends With Us, which Baldoni also directed. Following the film’s release, rumours of a rift between Lively and Baldoni began to circulate as fans began to notice them appearing to avoid each other on press junkets and the red carpet, as per USA Today.
And yesterday (21 December), Lively has filed a lawsuit (which was obtained by the New York Times), adding in the claim that his behaviour has caused ‘severe emotional distress’ for both her family and her.
Baldoni’s lawyer has responded to the claims made in the lawsuit, calling them ‘categorically false’ and accused her of planting fake stories in a ‘desperate attempt to fix her negative reputation’.
Lively denied that she or her representatives had spread negative information about Baldoni or Wayfayer Studios.
She also told The New York Times: “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.”
And now, the text messages from the lawsuit have been revealed.
Blake Lively has sued her co-star Justin Baldoni (Steve Granitz/FilmMagic)
As shown by The New York Times, one of the messages obtained by a subpoena was sent in reply to publicist Jennifer Abel’s, who was reportedly hired by Baldoni in August, according to The Daily Mail, text in which she says that Baldoni ‘wants to feel like she can be buried’, in alleged reference to Lively.
Crisis management expert, Melissa Nathan, who was also reportedly 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 another 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.”
Later on 5 August, Baldoni sent Abel a screenshot of a Twitter thread accusing another female celebrity of bullying women, writing: “This is what we would need.”
To which Abel responds 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 suggested 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’.
Blake and Justin starred in It Ends With Us (Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
The legal complaint also claims that a meeting was held during production to address Lively’s claims and demands for working on It Ends With Us, with her husband Ryan Reynolds, in reportedly in attendance.
Some of these demands addressed allegedly included: “No more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake, no more mention of Baldoni’s alleged previous ‘pornography addiction,’ no more discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others, no further mentions of cast and crew’s genitalia, no more inquiries about Blake’s weight, and no further mention of Blake’s dead father.”
