Were the alleged smear campaigns against Blake Lively and against the producers of Rebel Wilson’s directorial debut “The Deb” intertwined? Lawyers for the latter say yes, according to a cross complaint filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court that names a new defendant familiar to those following Lively’s legal battle against Justin Baldoni‘s crisis publicist Melissa Nathan.
According to the new filing, the “Pitch Perfect” star expressed interest in “one of those sites,” in an apparent reference to a series of anonymous websites that appeared a month later targeting “The Deb” producer Amanda Ghost last summer with “grotesque” lies.
Last year, Ghost and fellow “Deb” producers Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden sued Wilson for defamation over a series of social media posts in which Wilson accused them of “inappropriate behavior towards the lead actress of the film [and] embezzling funds from the film’s budget.” In Thursday’s filing, they go a step further and point to the hidden PR apparatus behind Wilson’s alleged smear campaign against Ghost, citing a text message written by Nathan that was recently unearthed as part of the sprawling Lively-Baldoni litigation.
“So basically Rebel wants a one of those sites… Should be a mixture of that document that I think Carolina pulled about Amanda goes [sic] or the intern pulled… It can be really really harsh… Russian oligarchs and making her a madam basically lol[.],” Nathan wrote in August 2024 to another publicist at TAG PR, the same firm at the center of Lively’s claims that she was the victim of an untraceable smear campaign. (The message is included in Thursday’s filing.)
Later that month, anonymously written sites like amandaghost.com and amandaghostsucks.com popped up and claimed that Ghost was “the Indian Ghislaine Maxwell” and “madame for one of the world’s richest men.” (Ghost is of Indian descent. Multibillionaire Len Blavatnik’s AI Films financed “The Deb.”)
“Behind the scenes, [Wilson] used paid PR professionals to launch a shockingly low and racially-charged attack on another professional woman, all to get her own way in a business dispute and destroy the reputation of a woman who dared to stand up to her,” the complaint says in reference to Ghost.
Ghost, who is represented by Sheppard Mullin partner Camille Vasquez, seeks compensatory and punitive damages, alleging that Wilson crossed every possible line in her bid to claim a writing credit on the Australia-set musical that premiered last year at the Toronto Film Festival but remains without a distributor.
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“The increasing use of these disturbing PR tactics in Hollywood and elsewhere function like a cancer in our society,” Vasquez said in a statement. “They manipulate the public, destroy reputations, and have taken a real and palpable toll on their victims. It’s time to shine a light on these trolls hiding behind their keyboards and hold them accountable for the damage they cause.”
Nathan declined comment.
The 21-page complaint paints Wilson as a faux feminist who weaponized her platform to destroy the reputations of her business partners when they refused acquiesce to her demands.
But it’s the link to the Lively-Baldoni case that will likely raise eyebrows. Lively has claimed that TAG masterminded a smear campaign against her the same month that the mysterious and disparaging websites about Ghost first surfaced. Separately, but related, Baldoni’s former publicist Stephanie Jones is suing Baldoni, Nathan and publicist Jennifer Abel for trashing her reputation. According to her own legal filings, Jones was disparaged via anonymous websites including http://www.stephaniejonesleaks.com and made a declaration in June that she was “unable to identify the true identity of the individual or individuals who created the defamatory websites.” But that would appear to be at odds with the docket. According to a separate exhibit, web hosting company Hostinger International Ltd. responded to a Jones subpoena five months prior to her declaration that shows stephaniejonesleaks.com was created by Courtney Engel, a former employee of Jones’ who doesn’t appear to have any professional connection to Nathan or TAG.
Still, Vasquez, who previously worked with Nathan when she represented Johnny Depp in his courtroom battle with the Amber Heard case, looks to draw a direct line between a campaign Wilson allegedly carried out against Ghost and the Lively-Baldoni case.
“Ms. Ghost is informed and believes, and thereon alleges that … a person named ‘Jed’ … was involved in coordinating and directing the publication of defamatory materials via the websites, in collusion with Ms. Nathan and her staff, and with Rebel,” the cross-complaint states.
That would be a reference to Jed Wallace, another key figure in the Lively-Baldoni case. The Texas-based social media guru worked with TAG to bolster Baldoni’s image last summer when the media and influencers began to write about a mysterious rift between the director and Lively on the set of the film “It Ends With Us.” Lively is suing and being sued by Wallace for defamation.
From Variety US