Jennifer Abel, the publicist for “It Ends With Us” director and star Justin Baldoni, refuted any notion that her client engaged in a campaign to ruin Blake Lively’s reputation amid her sexual harassment and other on-set complaints, saying, “The Internet was doing the work for us.”
Abel posted her side of the story this weekend on a private Facebook group for marketing professionals: “I never thought the day would come when I needed to defend myself with my own peers, but this certainly has been an interesting, and devastating quite frankly, couple of days, so here we are.”
Lively recently filed a complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department, accusing him of sexual harassment, creating a hostile work environment and mounting a campaign, including social media attacks, to smear her reputation.
Through his lawyer Bryan Freedman, Baldoni refuted the complaint as “categorically false” and said any negative online attention for Lively was entirely organic, which Abel’s statement supports.
“There was no ‘smear’ implemented,” Abel wrote. “No negative press was ever facilitated, no social combat plan, although we were prepared for it as it’s our job to be ready for any scenario, but we didn’t have to implement anything because the Internet was doing the work for us.”
Read her entire statement, below:
Hi, I never thought the day would come when I needed to defend myself with my own peers, but this certainly has been an interesting, and devastating quite frankly, couple of days, so here we are. But here are the facts:
No, I was never subpoenaed. I found out my private text messages and emails were included in the complaint after I received it on Friday night, and then NYT contacted me 1.5 hours after receipt. They had already reviewed the 80-page document and had questions prepared, and apparently also received “thousands of pages of documents” with our correspondence that we never saw. So it was clear this was a coordinated effort, but nothing we haven’t seen before since I’ve been working in talent PR for over 15 years now. I had recently left my previous firm, at which I was still with during this campaign (with a team who all participated in the campaign and a boss who oversaw) and who had access to my work emails and work phone, so you can deduce from that what you will.
What the cherry-picked messages don’t include, although not shockingly as it doesn’t fit the narrative, is that there was no “smear” implemented. No negative press was ever facilitated, no social combat plan, although we were prepared for it as it’s our job to be ready for any scenario, but we didn’t have to implement anything because the internet was doing the work for us. Sure we talked about it, contemplated if we needed certain things, flagged accounts that we needed to monitor, worked with a social team to help us stay on top of the narrative so we could act quickly if needed, and yes, we rejoiced and joked in the fact that fans were recognizing our client’s heart and work without us having to do anything but keep our heads down and focus on positive interviews for our client… as the texts show, we sophomorically reveled and again, joked, privately to each other about the internet’s feedback to the woman whose team was making our lives incredibly difficult over the course of the campaign.
I’m human. The long hours, months of preparation, on top of my day-to-day scope … it felt good to see that although we were prepared, we didn’t have to do anything over the top to protect our client.
Incredibly difficult you say? In what way? Funny you should ask. I was notified at the start of the campaign that the opposing team had been planting horrible stories about my client as a “fail safe” if my client did not comply with the demands set forth for the campaign. Which is why we brought on crisis, as it’s not something that I do. My sole job was to put together interviews, screening opportunities and speaking opportunities for my client in support of the film, a standard scope of work. I did my job.
Now what kind of woman would work against another woman who was a victim of all the things being claimed? Thanks for asking. After reviewing the evidence, facts, hard proof that countered every single thing that was being claimed and demanded at the start of production, I made a choice to stand by my client of almost 5 years, who had dedicated his life to the equal treatment of others, especially women. Who had no incidents of negative treatment of others, and who had a wonderful community and team at Wayfarer who all held the same moral fortitude and lived their life accordingly. As representatives, we all have to make that choice. So I did that to the best of my ability, and felt good about our efforts.
Is my client perfect? No. In fact, he says that he’s not perfect so constantly to the point I tell him he needs to be less self-deprecating because it could be taken the wrong way. Are Blake’s feelings valid? It’s not my position to say or speculate what she was feeling in these moments that she claims, and I would never slam a woman for speaking her truth. But at the end of the day, if it’s not the truth and there is evidence that proves otherwise, then as a representative I have to do what I feel is right as well.
