Justin Baldoni’s attorney has issued a statement about the ‘leaked’ texts in Blake Lively’s lawsuit filing.
Following Lively’s legal action against her co-star and director from It Ends With Us for sexual harassment, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, commented on her lawsuit.
In her explosive legal complaint, the actress accused Baldoni of initiating a smear campaign aimed at ruining her reputation. She provided evidence in the form of messages exchanged between him and his team to support this claim.
Baldoni’s lawyer said the text messages were taken out of ‘critical context.’
He also claims the messages were ‘leaked,’ contradicting the report that Lively allegedly obtained them through a subpoena.
Regarding Baldoni’s crisis management team, The Agency Group PR, which he enlisted during the controversy surrounding It Ends With Us, Freedman justified their utilization of ‘scenario planning’ to damage Lively’s reputation.
Justin Baldoni’s attorney issued a statement claiming ‘leaked’ text messages in Blake Lively’s lawsuit filing were taken out of ‘critical context’; Baldoni pictured December in LA
Days after Lively, 37, sued her It Ends With Us costar and director for sexual harassment, Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman also claimed the messages were ‘leaked,’ contradicting the report that Lively obtained them through subpoena; Lively seen in It Ends With Us movie still
He suggested it was not Baldoni’s fault, rather it was Lively’s own behavior that caused the downfall of her reputation.
The lawyer said in a statement obtained by Us Weekly: ‘TAG PR operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources.
‘The standard scenario planning TAG PR drafted proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively’s own actions, interviews and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful, and responded organically to that which the media themselves picked up on,’ he continued.
‘It’s ironic that the New York Times, through their effort to “uncover” an insidious PR effort, played directly into the hands of Lively’s own dubious PR tactics by publishing leaked personal text exchanges that lack critical context — the very same tactics she’s accusing the firm of implementing,’ Freedman concluded.
Lively filed the lawsuit against her former costar on Friday, December 20 — just one day before The New York Times published the court documents.
In the lengthy filing, there were exhibits referencing ‘thousands of pages of text messages and emails’ that Lively reportedly obtained through a subpoena.
In response to Freeman’s statement and his newest claim that the messages were ‘leaked,’ Lively’s legal team also shared a statement with the outlet claiming that messages featured in Lively’s filing were obtained via subpoena.
‘The subpoena disclosed and referenced in the Complaint was served on Jonesworks LLC,’ the statement read.
In her bombshell lawsuit, the actress claimed Baldoni launched a smear campaign with the intention of ‘destroying’ her reputation and provided messages between him and his team to back up that allegation; pictured together in It Ends With Us
Freedman defended Baldoni’s crisis management team, The Agency Group PR, for their hypothetical ‘scenario planning’ to tarnish Lively’s reputation. He claimed Lively’s own behavior caused the downfall of her reputation; pictured August in London
‘The internal documents referred to in the Complaint were produced subject to that subpoena. We expect that further details regarding the subpoena process will be disclosed during discovery.’
One of the alleged text messages in the filing was from Baldoni’s publicist — who represents him and his production company Wayfarer Studios — to a crisis management expert.
In the message, Baldoni’s publicist said that he ‘wants to feel like she can be buried.’
There was also an exhibit claiming Baldoni ‘set the narrative for the social media campaign’ to smear Lively’s reputation.
In one alleged text exchange, he shared a screenshot of a social media post that appeared to be about Hailey Bieber and accused her of ‘bullying women.’
Baldoni wrote: ‘This is what we would need.’
The court documents from Lively’s filing also claimed Baldoni’s team had a plan that ‘went well beyond standard crisis PR’ and that they proposed implementing ‘astroturfing’ — a concept defined as ‘the practice of publishing opinions or comments on the internet, in the media, etc., that appear to come from ordinary members of the public but actually come from a particular company or political group.’
Taylor Swift, a close friend of Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, was also reportedly mentioned in a ‘scenario planning’ document by Baldoni’s team.
Baldoni’s lawyer said his PR team ‘operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources’; Baldoni is pictured in NYC in August
In addition to the alleged smear campaign, Lively also claimed Baldoni created a hostile workplace environment and sexually harassed her on the set of It Ends With Us. Baldoni has denied all of the accusations; pictured in It Ends With Us
One alleged message read: ‘Our team can also explore planting stories about the weaponization of feminism and how people like Taylor Swift, have been accused of utilizing these tactics to “bully” into getting what they want.’
In addition to the alleged smear campaign, Lively also claimed Baldoni created a hostile workplace environment and sexually harassed her on the set of It Ends With Us.
After experiencing his allegedly inappropriate behavior, she distanced herself from him during their frosty press tour.
When fans started noticing the tension, Baldoni reportedly became ‘concerned’ that his on-set behavior would be exposed and hired his crisis management team to begin ‘scenario planning.’
Baldoni has denied all of the accusations.
After Lively sued him, his attorney released a statement calling her allegations ‘completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.’ Freedman also claimed she filed just to ‘fix her negative reputation.’
Lively also released a statement to The New York Times about her lawsuit, stating: ‘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.’
