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Blake Lively officially sued her This Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment and retaliation on Tuesday, according to documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
Lively, 37, initially filed a complaint against Baldoni with the California Department of Civil Rights on Dec. 21, accusing Baldoni (who also directed the film) of sexual harassment while working on the drama.
She also claimed that after raising concerns, he and his crisis PR team mounted a retaliatory campaign aimed at destroying her career.
Blake Lively has accused Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment in a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday, December 31. (Getty Images)
Lively’s federal lawsuit was made public Tuesday shortly after Baldoni filed his $250 million defamation suit against the New York Times, which he said published an article “rife with inaccuracies, distortions and omissions.”
“Nothing in this lawsuit alters Ms. Lively’s claims with the California Division of Civil Rights or her federal complaint filed earlier today,” Lively’s representatives told Fox News Digital.
Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni in December following rumors of an altercation on the set of It Ends With Us. (Getty Images)
“This lawsuit is based on the patently false premise that Ms. Lively’s administrative complaint against Wayfarer et al was a ruse based on her choice ‘not to file suit against Baldoni, Wayfarer’ and that ‘litigation was never her ultimate goal.’ As the federal complaint filed today by Ms. Lively shows, that frame of reference for the Wayfarer lawsuit is false. While we will not challenge this matter in the press, we encourage people to read Ms. Lively’s complaint in its entirety. We look forward to hearing each of Wayfarer’s allegations in court.”
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants actress. In its federal filing, it alleged that Baldoni, the film production company Wayfarer Studios and several associates were involved in a “sophisticated, coordinated and well-resourced scheme of retaliation to silence her and others.”
Lively alleged that Baldoni, along with a crisis PR firm, devised a “multi-layered plan” to tarnish her reputation after she (along with her husband Ryan Reynolds) was subjected to “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Baldoni and the producer Jamie Heath (who is named in the lawsuit).
Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively on the set of It Ends With Us on January 12, 2024. (Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
She also claimed that Baldoni and Heath “discussed their personal sexual experiences and previous porn addiction” on the set, according to the documents.
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Baldoni’s representatives did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. He previously told the Times that Lively’s initial statements were “totally false, outrageous and deliberately obscene to publicly offend and reframe the media narrative.”
Baldoni filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the New York Times after they published a story headlined ‘We Can Bury Anyone:’ Inside the Hollywood Smear Machine, which reported that private emails and text messages showed a “textbook carrying out smears that are almost impossible to detect.” company in the digital age” about Lively.
However, Baldoni and other plaintiffs, including Hollywood PR gurus, claim that the Times article “deliberately omitted portions of the text exchanges and other information that contradicts the actress’ version of events.” They allege the Times defamed them in the process by omitting critical context from reports disputing many of Lively’s claims.
Baldoni not only starred in the adaptation of the novel, but also became a director. (Getty Images)
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“The article’s central thesis, wrapped in a defamatory headline designed to immediately mislead the reader, is that the plaintiffs mounted a public relations campaign to retaliate against Lively for making statements about sexual harassment—a premise that is categorically false and easily disproved.” — 87- A suit filed in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County by Atty By Brian Friedman.
A freedman told Variety that the Times “bowed to the whims and whims of two powerful ‘out-of-touch’ Hollywood elites, flouting the journalistic practices and ethics that once belonged to a respected publication, using fake and manipulated texts and deliberately omitting texts that challenged their chosen PR narrative.”
“The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts wherever they lead. Our story was scrupulously and responsibly published. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including text messages and emails, which we accurately quote and detail in the article,” said Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha Fox News Digital.
“We published them full statement also in response to the accusations in the article, she continued. – We plan to resolutely defend against the lawsuit.”
Brian Flood of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
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