A new lawsuit filed by Justin Baldoni's former publicist Stephanie Jones have bolstered support for Blake Lively's allegations that her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni orchestrated a smear campaign against her.
Stephanie Jones, hired to represent Baldoni in 2017, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in New York state court, which said that last August, Baldoni and his production company assigned publicists to tarnish Lively's reputation after allegations of sexual misconduct and toxic work environment whilst working on It Ends With Us emerged.
Among the defendants named by Jones is Jennifer Abel, a former employee, she says, is responsible for the smear campaign against Lively and attempts to tarnish Jones' reputation.
The lawsuit claims that Abel's firing happened in light of Jones learning in August that the former had stolen more than 70 proprietary and sensitive business documents and additional client leads from her firm, Jonesworks, while Abel was gearing up to leave it and start her own publicity company, aiming to poach Baldoni and his company as clients.
Jones also alleged that Abel collaborated with crisis management expert Melissa Nathan to influence the media narrative against Lively and Jones. Melissa Nathan had notably previously represented Johnny Depp amidst his issues with Amber Heard. The latter recently expressed solidarity for Lively.
In Lively's legal complaint, Lively had accused Baldoni and his company of launching a multi-step plan to damage her reputation following a meeting in which she and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, addressed repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour by Baldoni and a producer on the movie.
As per the complaint, the plan included planting theories related to Lively on online forums and negative news stories on various social media platforms such as Tiktok, Reddit, and X while simultaneously trying to boost, through his PR and crisis teams, Baldoni's credibility and sink any negative story concerning him.
Bryan Freedman, an attorney representing Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, rubbished the claims as "completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious," adding that Lively threatened to neither show up on set nor promote the film had her demands not been met.
Lively and Ryan Reynolds had meetings with Wayfarer to address their demands, reported to include "not showing nude videos or images of women to Lively; no more mentions of Baldoni's alleged previous 'pornography addiction'; no more discussions about sexual experiences in front of Lively and others; no further mentions of cast and crew's genitalia; and no more inquiries about Lively's weight."
The demands also stipulated that an intimacy coordinator be present on set whenever Lively was required to do a scene with Baldoni, and the latter was barred from entering her trailer or make-up trailer while she was changing. The conditions also stated that no improvising of kissing or sex scenes outside of the ones she approved of in the script would be allowed.
Baldoni denied the accusations, and later, the talent agency WME dropped him as a client.
