Actor Blake Lively has formally sued ‘It End’s With Us’ director Justin Baldoni and several others tied to the romantic drama on New Year’s Eve, alleging harassment and a coordinated campaign to attack her reputation.
The federal lawsuit was filed in New York just hours after Baldoni and many of the other defendants in Lively’s suit sued The New York Times for libel for its story on her allegations, saying the newspaper and the Star were the ones conducting a coordinated smear campaign.
Lively’s suit said that Baldoni, the film’s production company Wayfarer Studios and others engaged in “a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others, from speaking out.”
She accuses Baldoni and the studio of embarking on a “multi-tiered plan” to damage her reputation following a meeting in which she and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, addressed “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Baldoni and a producer Jamey. Heath, who is also named in both lawsuits.
Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman called the same allegations “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.”
Lively’s lawsuit comes the same day as the libel lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Baldoni and others against the Times seeking at least USD 250 million.
In his lawsuit against The New York Times, Baldoni claimed that Lively’s husband, Reynolds, berated him during a heated meeting, accusing him of “fat-shaming” Lively and pressuring his agency, WME, to sever ties with him during the ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’ premiere.
The new legal drama that is unfolding has the internet divided. While some are taking sides with ‘Team Blake’ and ‘Team Baldoni’, others are tapping out of the drama, drawing parallels to the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp libel case. Some have even found themselves comparing Blake’s lawsuit similar to Heard’s case against Depp, which she ultimately lost and had to pay the actor $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
“It’s looking like Blake lively may be ‘Amber Heard’-ing herself and sad to hear Ryan Reynolds sounds like a bully from that interaction documented in the article with witnesses,” read a tweet.
“Blake is conning all these poor people that are supporting her … like someone named Amber did,” said another.
Others asked why the actress was not pursuing a criminal case against the director, but instead asking for ‘punitive damages’. “Blake Lively knows the burden of proof is severely lessened with civil lawsuits and that she would not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” read another tweet. Citing Blake’s BFF, Taylor Swift’s own lawsuit asking for USD 1 dollar, another asked why the actress was looking for monetary gains from the filing, saying, “During Taylor Swift’s civil lawsuit she requested $1 because it wasn’t about the money. Meanwhile Blake Lively has tried to use her movie press tour to promote her failed hair business.”
Still another took a jibe at the actress and asked, “Has anyone ever seen Blake Lively and Amber Heard in the same room? Asking for a friend.”
Another commented, “Everyone deserves to know the truth since his reputation is in line. I hope justice is given to the right person whether it’s him or Blake Lively.”
In the ongoing legal battle, Blake has claimed that Baldoni through his PR team, planted theories on online message boards, engineered a social media campaign and placed news stories critical of Lively. Meanwhile, Baldoni’s libel lawsuit says the allegations made against him in the newspaper article, “relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self-serving narrative, lifting it nearly verbatim while disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives.”
Baldoni’s lawsuit says that “If the Times truly reviewed the thousands of private communications it claimed to have obtained, its reporters would have seen inconvertible evidence that it was Lively, not Plaintiffs, who engaged in a calculated smear campaign.”
Lively is not a defendant in the libel lawsuit.
