Blake Lively has sued It Ends With Us co-star and director, Justin Baldoni, for sexual harassment and an alleged coordinated effort to destroy her reputation, per a lawsuit obtained by TMZ.
According to the suit, things got so bad during filming that an all-hands-on-deck meeting was held to address her claims of a hostile work environment.
The demands that were addressed in that meeting, according to the lawsuit, included not showing nude videos or images of women to Lively; no more mentions of Baldoni’s alleged previous “pornography addiction”; no more discussions about sexual experiences in front of Lively and others; no further mentions of cast and crew’s genitalia; and no more inquiries about Lively’s weight.
The Hollywood Reporter reached out to representatives for Lively and Baldoni.
The Jane the Virgin star’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, released a statement slamming Lively’s claims. He began, “It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions.”
He continued, “These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media. Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film, to work alongside their own representative with Jonesworks employed by Stephanie Jones, due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met. It was also discovered that Ms. Lively enlisted her own representative, Leslie Sloan with Vision PR, who also represents Mr. Reynolds, to plant negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media, even prior to any marketing had commenced for the film, which was another reason why Wayfarer Studios made the decision to hire a crisis professional to commence internal scenario planning in the case they needed to address. The representatives of Wayfarer Studios still did nothing proactive nor retaliated, and only responded to incoming media inquiries to ensure balanced and factual reporting and monitored social activity. What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals.”
More to come.
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