WME denied that client Ryan Reynolds pressured Justin Baldoni’s agent to drop him following lawsuits filed by Reynolds’ wife Blake Lively against her “It Ends With Us” costar for sexual harassment.
“In Baldoni’s filing there is a claim that Reynolds pressured Baldoni’s agent at the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ premiere. This is not true,” the agency said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Baldoni’s former representative was not at the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ premiere nor was there any pressure from Reynolds or Lively at any time to drop Baldoni as a client,” the statement continued.
On Tuesday, Baldoni sue the New York Times for $250 million for their Dec. 21 article about Lively’s claims, titled: “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.” Baldoni was dropped by his WME agent the day the article was published.
Lively starred in the Sony movie “It Ends With Us,” with Baldoni playing her physically abusive husband. Lively later sued him for sexual harassment and also alleged that he had run a “smear campaign” to discredit her allegations.
WME continues to represent Reynolds and Lively, who have been married since Sept. 2012. Her costars from one of her earlier films, “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” have sided with her in the conflict.
