Justin Baldoni sued Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds on Thursday, alleging that the Hollywood power couple hijacked his film, “It Ends With Us,” and sought to destroy him with false allegations of sexual harassment.
In the 179-page complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York, Baldoni and his publicists accuse Lively and Reynolds of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy. The suit seeks at least $400 million in damages.
The lawsuit marks the latest salvo in the all-out war between the “It Ends With Us” co-stars, as each seeks the upper hand in the contest over public opinion.
“At bottom, this is not a case about celebrities sniping at each other in the press,” Baldoni’s lawsuit states. “This is a case about two of the most powerful stars in the world deploying their enormous power to steal an entire film right out of the hands of its director and production studio… When Plaintiffs have their day in court, the jury will recognize that even the most powerful celebrity cannot bend the truth to her will.”
Lively filed her own lawsuit against Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel on Dec. 31, 10 days after lodging her initial complaint against them with the California Civil Rights Department.
Lively accused Baldoni and others of orchestrating a clandestine media smear campaign against her, in retaliation for her complaints about sexual harassment on the set of the film. Her complaint quoted extensively from Baldoni’s publicists’ text messages, in which they were seen to be claiming to be able to “bury” her.
In response, Baldoni first sued the New York Times — which first reported Lively’s CRD complaint — alleging that the paper had worked with Lively’s team, taking the text messages out of context in order to defame him. At the time, his lawyer, Bryan Freedman, promised that more lawsuits would follow.
“This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media,” Freedman said in a statement on Thursday. “It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret.”
The latest lawsuit reiterates many of the points made in the New York Times suit, arguing that the full record shows that Lively’s suit offered a skewed version of events.
“Blake Lively was either severely misled by her team or intentionally and knowingly misrepresented the truth,” Freedman continued. “Ms. Lively will never again be allowed to continue to exploit actual victims of real harassment solely for her personal reputation gain at the expense of those without power. Let’s not forget, Ms. Lively and her team attempted to bulldoze reputations and livelihoods for heinously selfish reasons through their own dangerous manipulation of the media before even taking any actual legal action. We know the truth, and now the public does too. Justin and his team have nothing to hide, documents do not lie.”
Freedman has also promised to sue Stephanie Jones, Baldoni’s former publicist, who turned over the explosive text messages to Lively’s team, in response to a subpoena. The new lawsuit does not name Jones as a defendant, but does take a number of swipes at her, saying that Wayfarer Studios — the company that produced the film — cut ties with Jones due to her “bizarre” behavior and “rage-filled rants.”
The suit alleges that Jones took revenge on Wayfarer and Baldoni by working with Lively’s camp to make it appear that Baldoni and his publicists had engaged in a smear campaign. Freedman is still expected to file another lawsuit against Jones.
The suit also alleges that after the film’s premiere, Lively and Reynolds worked through their agency, WME, to try to get Baldoni and his allies to publicly apologize for unspecified “mistakes” during production. At the time, rumors were swirling of a rift between the two co-stars. Such a statement would have required Baldoni and Heath to take the blame for the rift, and thus “fall on their sword, despite having done nothing wrong,” the lawsuit states.
According to the suit, they were warned that if they did not issue the statement, “the gloves would come off.” Baldoni and Heath feared that such a confession would be career-ending, and they refused to do it, the suit states.
“They took a stand, knowing full well that Lively and Reynolds would bring the full might of their celebrity artillery against them,” the lawsuit states. “And that is precisely what happened.”
The suit also makes reference to the ongoing fires in Los Angeles, alleging that Lively arranged to serve the L.A.-based defendants in her case while they were monitoring evacuation orders and packing up “go-bags” in case they had to flee their homes.
From Variety US