After Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni, the ‘It Ends with Us’ director-star sued her, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist

Blake Lively (left); Justin Bladoni (right). Photo:Lia Toby/Getty; Nancy Rivera / SplashNews.com

Blake Lively’s legal team has responded to Justin Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit against the actress over the contentious situation behind the scenes of their film It Ends with Us.

Responding to the director-star’s defamation and extortion suit filed Thursday, Jan. 16, Lively’s legal team said in a statement, “This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook.”

“This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim,” the statement continued. “This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.”

“Wayfarer has opted to use the resources of its billionaire co-founder to issue media statements, launch meritless lawsuits, and threaten litigation to overwhelm the public’s ability to understand that what they are doing is retaliation against sexual harassment allegations,” the statement reads.

Lawyers for Lively, 37, say Baldoni and his associates “are trying to shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni,” the statement continues. “The evidence will show that the cast and others had their own negative experiences with Mr. Baldoni and Wayfarer. The evidence will also show that Sony asked Ms. Lively to oversee Sony’s cut of the film, which they then selected for distribution and was a resounding success.” 

“Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault,” the statement concludes. “Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing.  In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim. The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”

Baldoni, 40, is suing Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s PR firm Vision PR, Inc. on claims of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage. Attorneys for the It Ends with Us actor-director filed on behalf of Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath, publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan.

In a statement, Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman said, “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.” 

The 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.”

Blake Lively (left) and Ryan Reynolds in February 2022. Noam Galai/Getty

Lively sued Baldoni and his associates in a Dec. 20 filing, making claims of sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign orchestrated by him. In that complaint, she claimed Baldoni exhibited “disturbing” and “unprofessional” behavior on the set of the Colleen Hoover adaptation that led to a “hostile work environment.”

It further includes accusations that Baldoni and Heath entered her trailer “uninvited” while she was undressed or “vulnerable,” alleges Baldoni “suddenly” pressured her to “simulate full nudity” in a birth scene and “improvised physical intimacy that had not been rehearsed, choreographed or discussed with Ms. Lively, with no intimacy coordinator involved.”

Lively’s complaint claims that in the aftermath of the experience and the alleged smear campaign against her, the actress-producer “suffered from grief, fear, trauma, and extreme anxiety.”

Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively in ‘It Ends with Us’. Nicole Rivelli

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Baldoni’s new lawsuit followed his legal team filing a $250 million suit against the New York Times for libel on Dec. 31 over their article covering Lively’s complaint. It alleges the publication used “‘cherry-picked’ and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead.”

In that article, Lively provided a statement: “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.”