It has been more than a week since Blake Lively sued her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni for alleged sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign against her, followed by a bombshell New York Times article titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Campaign”.
The allegations, along with the text messages published in the article detailing conversations between Baldoni and his PR team have divided the internet since Lively’s previously maintained good image was tainted during the film's promotion back in August.
Now, the Jane the Virgin actor has responded with a lawsuit against The New York Times, suing them for USD 250 million for “libel and false light invasion of privacy”.
In addition to Baldoni, ten plaintiffs are named in the lawsuit, including his publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, who were also dragged in the article written by Megan Twohey, Mike McIntire, and Julie Tate.
According to It Ends With Us producers Jamey Heath and Steve Sarowitz, named among the plaintiffs, the text messages exposed in the Times investigative piece lacked proper context and were “cherry-picked” to suit Lively’s narrative.
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The lawsuit also attempts to negate a few of the accusations levied by Lively’s team. The NYT article stated, “[Baldoni] repeatedly entered her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including when she was breastfeeding,” but according to text messages in Baldoni’s suit, the Age of Adaline actress had invited him to her trailer. “I’m just pumping in my trailer if you wanna work out our lines,” the text read.
Lively had also accused Heath of showing her pornographic videos of the producer’s wife. Responding to the allegation, the suit included, “The video in question was a (non-pornographic) recording of Heath’s wife during a home birth — a deeply personal one with no sexual overtone. To distort this benign event into an act of sexual misconduct is outrageous and emblematic of the lengths to which Lively and her collaborators are willing to go to defame plaintiffs”.
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The New York Times responds
Responding to the lawsuit, a New York Times representative told Variety, “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article. To date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the other subjects of the article and their representatives have not pointed to a single error. We published their full statement in response to the allegations in the article as well. We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
Blake Lively files a formal complaint
On December 31, Lively filed a formal lawsuit against Baldoni, this time citing “severe emotional distress”. In court documents, Lively alleged that “things got so bad during filming, there was an all-hands-on-deck meeting to address what she claims was a hostile work environment.”
The 37-year-old also claimed that Baldoni tried to "hurt" and "silence" her, adding that he and his PR team “weaponized a digital army” to tarnish her image.
In the previous 80-page lawsuit filed by Lively, the actress claimed that she did not feel safe working on set, adding that she was asked to do a full nude shot during the childbirth scene, which was not discussed prior to the shooting. Baldoni claimed that it was “unrealistic” to give birth in a hospital gown.
During the promotion of the movie – based on a book by Colleen Hoover, which details sexual harassment and domestic abuse – Baldoni was raising awareness of the trauma that women experience in abusive relationships, while Lively was promoting her newly launched haircare line.
It is alleged that Baldoni and his team orchestrated this PR strategy to badmouth Lively in the fear that she might expose the events that occurred on set.
