Blake Lively has now filed a second lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, less than two weeks after her previous legal complaint against him went public.
Accusations have been made against Baldoni by an actress regarding sexual harassment and creating a negative work environment during the filming of the movie “It Ends With Us”. This movie involved both of them, with Baldoni directing and acting alongside the actress. However, Baldoni has strongly refuted these accusations.
Lively, in her initial complaint, also suggested that Baldoni collaborated with his publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis PR Melissa Nathan, who has had prior dealings with Johnny Depp, to damage her reputation. Despite this, Abel has denied any involvement in what was described as a ‘smear campaign’ against Lively.
Initial complaints were lodged by Lively with the California Civil Rights Commission, following which she proceeded to take legal action against Baldoni in a federal court in New York, as per reports from TMZ.
Her new lawsuit targets Baldoni, Abel and Nathan as defendants, as well as Baldoni’s production company Wayfarer Studios.
In her latest legal action, Lively accuses the defendants of inflicting mental pain and anguish and emotional distress, as well as causing lost wages.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Nathan, Abel and Wayfarer Studios, as well as representatives for Lively and Baldoni for comment.
Blake Lively has now filed a second lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, less than two weeks after her previous legal complaint against him went public
Since news of Lively’s first lawsuit broke earlier this month, Baldoni’s career has imploded, as he was dropped by his agency William Morris Endeavor.
Liz Plank, one of the co-hosts of Baldoni’s Man Enough podcast that billed itself as a space for ‘positive masculinity,’ announced she was quitting the show.
Lively, who is married to Deadpool lead Ryan Reynolds and who is close friends with pop superstar Taylor Swift, has seen former colleagues rally around her.
Her It Ends With Us co-stars Brandon Sklenar and Jenny Slate have spoken out to support her, as has Colleen Hoover, author of the novel on which the film is based.
Lively’s first lawsuit contained a raft of accusations against Baldoni, whom she says showed her nude images and videos of other women, ‘improvised physical intimacy’ during a scene without prior discussion, entered her trailer while she was ‘nude’ and allowed his ‘friends’ to watch her filming sex scenes.
In the run-up to the movie’s August 9 release, rumors began swirling of a rift between Lively and Baldoni – and Lively now claims that around this time, Nathan and Abel worked for Baldoni on a targeted strategy to vilify her.
During the run-up to the release of It Ends With Us, Lively repeatedly went viral as social media users slammed her ‘mean girl’ behavior in interviews – a trend she now insists was the result of an ‘astroturfing’ campaign waged by Baldoni’s PR team.
Lively’s first complaint included purported screen-grabs of text messages, many of them between Nathan and Abel, allegedly showing the PR takedown being planned.
In the run-up to the movie’s August 9 release, rumors began swirling of a rift between Lively and Baldoni, who are pictured in the movie
She has accused him of sexually harassing her and fostering a toxic work environment on the set of It Ends With Us, claims he denies; they are pictured on the set in January
One exchange, obtained by subpoena, showed Abel allegedly saying that Baldoni ‘wants to feel like she [Lively] can be buried.’
Nathan supposedly replied: ‘Of course – but you know when we send over documents we can’t send over the work we will or could do because that could get us in a lot of trouble,’ adding, ‘We can’t write we will destroy her.’
She allegedly also texted Abel: ‘Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands. You know we can bury anyone but I can’t write that to him. I will be very tough.’
In Lively’s first suit, she also submitted an alleged text that Baldoni purportedly sent Abel – a screenshot of an X thread about bullying allegations against Hailey Bieber, along with the message: ‘This is what we would need.’
There is no suggestion that Bieber was in any way involved or associated with the alleged smear campaign against Lively.
Along with her claims of sexual harassment, Lively’s first complaint accused Baldoni of ‘other behaviors that were shocking and emotionally distressing.’
Lively has seen former colleagues rally behind her, including her It Ends With Us co-star Brandon Sklenar, whom she is pictured promoting the film with at a screening in June
One example of such was her allegation that he insisted he could speak to the dead and had communicated with her late father Ernie Lively.
‘It was off putting and violative for Ms. Baldoni [sic] to claim a personal relationship with her recently deceased father,’ that lawsuit stated.
Ernie Lively, an actor and acting coach, died of cardiac complications aged 74 in June 2021, less than two years before principal photography began on It Ends With Us.
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman responded to Lively’s first lawsuit by calling her claims ‘false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt’.
He argued that Lively’s suit was a gambit to ‘fix her negative reputation’ after rumors spread that she had been difficult to work with during the making of the film.
This included her allegedly ‘threatening to not show up to set [and] threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release,’ Freedman asserted.
