Blake Lively accuses 'It Ends With Us' director Justin Baldoni of
harassment and smear campaign
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[December 23, 2024]
By MALLIKA SEN
Blake Lively has accused her “It Ends With Us” director and co-star
Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of the movie and a
subsequent effort to “destroy” her reputation in a legal complaint.
The complaint obtained by The Associated Press, which The New York Times
reported was filed Friday with the California Civil Rights Department,
precedes a lawsuit. It names Baldoni, the studio behind the romantic
drama “It Ends With Us” and Baldoni's publicists among the defendants.
In the complaint, Lively 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 Ryan Reynolds addressed “repeated sexual
harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Baldoni and a producer on
the movie.
The plan, the complaint said, included a proposal to plant theories on
online message boards, engineer a social media campaign and place news
stories critical of Lively.
Baldoni enlisted publicists and crisis managers in a “sophisticated,
coordinated, and well-financed retaliation plan" meant to “bury” and
“destroy” Lively if she went public with her on-set concerns, the
complaint alleges.
“To safeguard against the risk of Ms. Lively ever revealing the truth
about Mr. Baldoni, the BaldoniWayfarer team created, planted, amplified,
and boosted content designed to eviscerate Ms. Lively’s credibility,”
the complaint states. “They engaged in the same techniques to bolster
Mr. Baldoni’s credibility and suppress any negative content about him.”
The complaint also says Baldoni “abruptly pivoted away from” the movie's
marketing plan and “used domestic violence ‘survivor content’ to protect
his public image.”
Bryan Freedman, an attorney representing Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and
its representatives, called the claims “completely false, outrageous and
intentionally salacious.”
He pushed back against Lively's allegations of a coordinated campaign,
saying the studio “proactively” hired a crisis manager “due to the
multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production."
Freedman also said Lively threatened to not appear on set and not
promote the film “if her demands were not met.”
Those demands were not specified in the statement, but Lively's
complaint lists 30 demands that she said Baldoni and others agreed to
after their tense sit-down over her hostile work environment concerns.
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Blake Lively poses for photographers upon arrival at the UK Gala
Screening for the film 'It 'Ends With Us' on Thursday, Aug, 8, 2024
in London. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File)
Among them: “no more showing of nude
videos or images of women” to Lively and others on set and no more
discussions about pornography, sexual experiences or genitalia.
She also said Baldoni should not ask her trainer about her weight
without her consent, should not press her about her religious
beliefs and should make “no further mention of her dead father.”
An intimacy coordinator was also required to be on set whenever
Lively shared a scene with Baldoni and he was barred from entering
her trailer or the make-up trailer while she was undressed.
The demands also stipulated that there would be “no more improvising
of kissing” scenes or adding of sex scenes to the film outside of
the ones in the script Lively approved when she signed on.
“I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these
sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about
misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted,” Lively
said in a statement to the Times. A representative for Lively
referred the AP to the Times report, in which Lively denied planting
or spreading negative information about Baldoni or the studio.
“It Ends With Us,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling
2016 novel, was released in August, exceeding box office
expectations with a $50 million debut. But the movie's release was
shrouded by speculation over discord between the lead pair. Baldoni
took a backseat in promoting the film while Lively took centerstage
along with Reynolds, who was on the press circuit for “Deadpool &
Wolverine” at the same time.
Baldoni — who starred in the telenovela send-up “Jane the Virgin,”
directed “Five Feet Apart” and wrote “Man Enough,” a book pushing
back against traditional notions of masculinity — did respond to
concerns that the film romanticized domestic violence, telling the
AP at the time that critics were “absolutely entitled to that
opinion.”
“If anybody has had that real-life experience, I can imagine how
hard it would be to imagine their experience being in a romance
novel,” he said. “To them, I would just offer that we were very
intentional in the making of this movie.”
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Philip Marcelo in New York contributed to this report.
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