The legal battles related to “It Ends With Us” are indeed never-ending, this time as director/actor Justin Baldoni has sued co-star Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds for $400 million over what he claims are “falsified stories” meant to destroy his reputation.
“Lively could not tolerate her publicly tainted image for even a moment, and
further could not accept that it was entirely of her own making. She needed a scapegoat,” he wrote in Thursday’s filing, obtained by TheWrap. “Rather than admit and take accountability for her own mishaps, she chose to blame Plaintiffs, in a malicious and unforgivably public manner. When she and Reynolds could not force Baldoni and Wayfarer to read a statement she and her representatives prepared, extorting them to ‘take accountability’ in defense of Lively’s actions, she lay in wait for months, preparing to publicly attack Baldoni by falsely claiming that he had sexually harassed her.”
“The same falsified stories she had calculatingly devised and used throughout the production of this film in order to take control were now being used publicly to destroy Baldoni and Plaintiffs,” Baldoni continued.
“Lively stole Wayfarer’s movie, hijacked Wayfarer’s premiere, destroyed Plaintiffs’
personal and professional reputations and livelihood, and aimed to drive Plaintiffs out of business entirely,” he further alleged. “It further appears that Lively worked for months with the equally powerful New York Times to prepare a false and damaging narrative to deploy against Plaintiffs.”
This update came after Lively sued Baldoni on Dec. 31 for breach of contract over what she called an “unconscionable” smear campaign directed at her. Baldoni similarly sued the Times for $250 million over its “defamatory” reporting on Lively’s Dec. 20 sexual harassment complaint against him.
“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,” Lively told NYT following her initial complaint against the director.
In response, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said, “These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.”
Following Thursday’s filing, Freedman told TheWrap, “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. 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.”
“Blake Lively was either severely misled by her team or intentionally and knowingly misrepresented the truth. 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,” his statement continued. “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.”
Additionally, the publicists involved issued the following statement: “It is devastating that we are forced to answer this viciously selfish ongoing litigation littered with documented and provable lies in the midst of the tragedy impacting California where we reside. Five months ago, Ms. Lively chose to promote a film about domestic violence in a way that caused instant negative and organic backlash due to her own highly publicized actions. Instead of accepting responsibility, she decided to cruelly blame us.”
“This malicious attack on private individuals by Ms. Lively and her team in which they chose to spoon feed The New York Times with doctored, out of context and edited text messages in an effort to paint herself as a victim set off a chain of events that has been harmful beyond measure. To be clear, Ms. Lively and her team initiated this smear campaign in the media for the sole intention of gaining undeserved public sympathy for her own missteps,” they continued. “Over the last month, we have received death threats, abhorrent abuse and vile anti-semitic slurs hurled at us due to her decision to use us as scapegoats for her own choices promoting her film in which she made millions of dollars. With this filing, we lift our own curtain of what happens when the entitled weaponize power, fear and money to destroy, intimidate and bully those who get in their way.”
“It Ends With Us” is now streaming on Netflix.
