Blake Lively has sued her It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni for sexual harrassment on Saturday. According to Variety, the actress also alleged that Baldoni attempted to mount a smear campaign against her and this has caused her family severe emotional distress. Baldoni’s team has reacted to the allegations and said that these are “categorically false accusations.”
According to the lawsuit obtained by TMZ, a meeting was reportedly held during the production of It Ends With Us to address Liverly’s claims and her demands for working on the film. The meeting was allegedly also attended by Lively’s husband and actor Ryan Reynolds. Reportedly, some of the demands included “no more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake, no more mention of Baldoni’s alleged previous pornography addiction, and 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.”
The demands also included that Baldoni cannot make any last minute changes with regards to intimate or sexual scenes apart from what the actress has already approved of before beginning the shoot. These requests were allegedly approved by film’s distributor Sony Pictures. The lawsuit filed by Blake reportedly also accuses Baldoni of “social manipulation” and launching a campaign to “destroy” Lively’s reputation.
In a statement to Variety, Baldoni’s team claimed, “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.”
The statement further read, “These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media. 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.”
The statement concluded, “The representatives of Wayfarer Studios still did nothing proactive nor retaliated, and only responded to incoming media inquiries to ensure balanced and factual reporting and monitored social activity. What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals.”
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s press tour of It Ends With Us generated a lot of buzz as it was evident that the two were not seeing eye to eye. At the time, many noted that the two celebrities promoted the film separately and it was rumoured that this was due to an on-set feud between the two.
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