Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively.
Getty Images (2)Justin Baldonilawyer of Brian Friedman shoot back Blake Livelyresponse to director’s $400 million lawsuit.
“After my clients filed a comprehensive lawsuit filled with nearly 200 pages of undisputed facts and documentary evidence that dispelled their false allegations of a smear campaign by providing forged communications to New York TimesBlake and her legal team have only one disgusting point left, and that is to double down on the disgustingly false sex charges against Mr. Baldoni,” Friedman said Deadline in a Saturday, January 18, statement.
Baldoni, 40, sued Lively, 37, earlier this weekseeking $400 million in damages. In the file received by usBaldoni’s legal team claims Lively was “determined to make Baldoni the real villain in her story” to cover up her allegedly “tone deaf” promotion of their film It ends with us.
Baldoni directed and starred in the 2024 adaptation Colleen Hoovera novel of an abusive relationship. Lively portrays the main character Lily Bloom on screen and also serves as an executive producer. Baldoni plays Lily’s husband, Ryle Kincaid.
Justin Baldoni is leaning on his loved ones amid the ongoing legal battle against Blake Lively. “We’re thankful to be with the family, man,” Baldoni, 40, told photographers on Friday, Jan. 17, at Los Angeles International Airport in a video obtained by TMZ. “We have great friends, family and faith.” Baldoni shares of her daughter Maya, (…)
Months after the film premieres in August 2024, Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and fostering a “hostile work environment.” She also alleged in her December 2024 lawsuit that Baldoni tried to coordinate a concerted campaign to ruin her reputation. (Friedman, on behalf of Baldoni, denied the allegations at the time.)
Shortly after Baldoni sued Lively last week — also naming her husband, Ryan Reynoldsand their team of publicists in the suit — she denied the allegations.
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.
Theo Wargo/WireImage“This latest lawsuit by Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and his associates is another chapter in the abusers’ book. It’s an old story: a woman comes forward with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation, and the abuser tries to turn the victim over.” Lively’s lawyers said us in a statement. “This is what the experts call a GIFT. I refuse. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender. Wayfarer chose to use the resources of its billionaire co-founder to issue media statements, launch frivolous lawsuits, and threaten litigation to overcome the public’s ability to understand that what they were doing was retaliation against sexual harassment allegations.
Update: 1/7/24, 12:00 PM ET — Brian Friedman, who is Justin Baldoni’s attorney, issued the following statement in response to Lively’s team: “It’s painfully ironic that Blake Lively is accusing Justin Baldoni of weaponizing the media when her own team orchestrated this vicious attack by sending New York Times grossly redacted documents before (…)
The publicists named in the suit also issued a statement.
“It is devastating that we are being forced to respond to this viciously self-serving ongoing litigation filled with documented and provable lies in the midst of tragedy affecting California where we live,” the statement shared with us reads. “Five months ago, Ms. Lively chose to promote a film about domestic violence in a way that caused an immediate negative and organic reaction due to her own highly publicized actions. Instead of taking responsibility, she decided to harshly blame us. This malicious attack on private persons by Ms. Lively and her team in which they chose to spoon feed New York Times with forged, decontextualized and edited text messages in an attempt to paint himself as the victim set off a chain of events that is damaging beyond measure.
The statement continued: “To be clear, Ms. Lively and her team initiated this smear campaign in the media with the sole intention of gaining undeserved public sympathy for their own missteps. Over the past month we have had death threats, vile insults and vile anti-Semitic slurs directed at us because of her decision to use us as scapegoats for her own election promoting her million dollar movie. With this documentation, we lift our own curtain on what happens when the empowered use power, fear and money as weapons to destroy, intimidate and harass those who stand in their way.
Meanwhile, Baldoni was staying focused on his family in light of the situation.
“We’re thankful to be with the family, man,” he told photographers at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, January 17. “We have great friends, family and faith.”
Baldoni shares daughter Maya, 9, and son Maxwell, 7, with his wife, Emily Baldoni.
