Blake Lively formally filed a lawsuit Tuesday in opposition to her “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment and retaliation, in keeping with paperwork obtained by Fox News Digital.
Lively, 37, initially recorded a criticism in opposition to Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department on Dec. 21, and accused Baldoni (who additionally directed the movie) of sexual harassment whereas engaged on the drama.
She additionally claimed that after elevating issues, he, together with a disaster PR crew, orchestrated a retaliation marketing campaign geared toward ruining her profession.
Blake Lively accused Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Dec. 31. (Getty Images)
Lively’s federal go well with was launched Tuesday shortly after Baldoni filed his personal $250 million defamation suit in opposition to the New York Times, which he claimed printed an article “rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions.”
“Nothing on this lawsuit modifications something in regards to the claims superior in Ms. Lively’s California Civil Rights Department Complaint, nor her federal criticism, filed earlier at the moment,” Lively’s representatives informed Fox News Digital.
Lively filed a criticism in opposition to Baldoni in December after rumors of an on-set feud on “It Ends With Us.” (Getty Images)
“This lawsuit is predicated on the clearly false premise that Ms. Lively’s administrative criticism in opposition to Wayfarer and others was a ruse based mostly on a selection ‘to not file a lawsuit in opposition to Baldoni, Wayfarer,’ and that ‘litigation was by no means her final objective.’ As demonstrated by the federal criticism filed by Ms. Lively earlier at the moment, that body of reference for the Wayfarer lawsuit is fake. While we won’t litigate this matter within the press, we do encourage folks to learn Ms. Lively’s criticism in its entirety. We stay up for addressing every one among Wayfarer’s allegations in court docket.”
The “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” actress alleged in her federal submitting that Baldoni, the Wayfarer Studios movie manufacturing firm and a handful of associates had been concerned in a “fastidiously crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others, from talking out.”
Lively claimed Baldoni, together with a disaster PR firm, crafted a “multi-tiered plan” to wreck her fame after she (alongside along with her husband Ryan Reynolds) addressed “repeated sexual harassment and different disturbing conduct” by Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath (who is called within the lawsuit).
Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively seen on the set of ‘It Ends with Us’ on Jan. 12, 2024 (Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
She additionally alleged Baldoni and Heath “mentioned their private sexual experiences and former porn habit” on set, in keeping with paperwork.
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Representatives for Baldoni didn’t instantly reply to Fox News Digital’s request for remark. He beforehand informed the Times that Lively’s preliminary claims had been “utterly false, outrageous and deliberately salacious with an intent to publicly harm and rehash a story within the media.”
Baldoni filed a $250 million libel lawsuit in opposition to the New York Times after they printed a narrative headlined, “We Can Bury Anyone:” Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine, which reported that non-public emails and textual content messages present a “playbook for waging a largely undetectable smear marketing campaign within the digital period” about Lively.
However, Baldoni and different plaintiffs, together with Hollywood public relations gurus, assert that the Times article “intentionally omitted parts of textual content exchanges and different info that contradicted the actress’s model of occasions.” They declare the Times defamed them within the course of, leaving out crucial context from communications that dispute lots of Lively’s claims.
Baldoni not solely starred within the movie adaptation of the novel, but in addition directed the film. (Getty Images)
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“The article’s central thesis, encapsulated in a defamatory headline designed to right away mislead the reader, is that plaintiffs orchestrated a retaliatory public relations marketing campaign in opposition to Lively for talking out about sexual harassment — a premise that’s categorically false and simply disproven,” the 87-page lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by legal professional Bryan Freedman, claimed.
Freedman told Variety that the Times “cowered to the desires and whims of two highly effective ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics as soon as befitting of the revered publication through the use of doctored and manipulated texts and deliberately omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative.”
“The function of an unbiased information group is to observe the details the place they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based mostly on a overview of 1000’s of pages of authentic paperwork, together with the textual content messages and emails that we quote precisely and at size within the article,” Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha informed Fox News Digital.
“We printed their full statement in response to the allegations within the article as nicely,” she continued. “We plan to vigorously defend in opposition to the lawsuit.”
Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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