Documents from actress Blake Lively’s legal complaint about her It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni claim to show how his PR team deliberately “planted pieces of how horrible Blake is to work with” in the press and on social media.
The legal complaintfiled to the California Civil Rights Department on Friday, contains pages of text messages allegedly sent between Baldoni and his PR team.
Lively, 37, claims that Baldoni, 40, who is also the director of the film, hired crisis PR management to engage in a “multi-tiered” plan to damage her reputation after she and her husband Ryan Reynolds, 48, complained of “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour” on set of the movie.
A lawyer representing Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios says the allegations are “completely false, outrage and intentionally salacious”.
He adds that the studio and its PR team “did nothing proactive nor retaliated” against Lively – and that it hired crisis PR managers “due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms Lively during production”.
Blake Lively on being an actor and producer
The text messages, which Lively says she acquired through a subpoena, involve exchanges between Jennifer Abel, of PR firm RWA Communications, Melissa Nathan, of The Agency Group PR, and Baldoni.
They include:
- Details of two quotes of PR packages – one costing “£175k” for a “3-4 month period” including “full reddit, full social account take downs”;
- Another PR package costing “$25k per month” for “min 3 months” that includes “creation of social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts, helping to change the narrative and stay on track”;
- Baldoni asking Ms Abel “What is the TikTok strategy” and saying “I’d like you guys to start posting me ONLY talking about domestic violence and clips and why this movie is so important”;
- Ms Abel telling Ms Nathan she was “having reckless thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week of how horrible Blake is to work with”;
- Ms Abel saying: “The narrative online is so freaking good and fans are still sticking up for Justin” and telling Ms Nathan “you did such amazing work”;
- Ms Nathan telling Ms Abel: “The majority of socials are so pro Justin and I don’t even agree with half of them lol”;
- Ms Nathan replying to Ms Abel: “Narrative is CRAZY good”;
- Ms Nathan telling Ms Abel: “We can’t write it down to him… We can’t write we will destroy her”;
- Ms Nathan adding: “you know we can bury anyone”;
- Ms Nathan saying to Ms Abel: “Don’t worry, I didn’t kill her and send her in a box to your house”, to which Abel replies: “DAMNIT”;
- Ms Nathan telling Ms Abel socials are “really really ramping up”, to which Ms Abel adds: “It’s actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women”.
The text messages appear to date between 15 May and 18 August this year. It Ends With Us was released on 9 August.
In one other exchange, Baldoni expresses concerns his PR team may have been deploying fake “bots” to “take her [Lively] down” on social media, to which Ms Nathan replies: “I can fully confirm we do not have bots.”
The legal documents also include the alleged list of conditions Lively submitted for her “returning to production” after she alleged sexual harassment on set.
They include “no one entering… BL’s trailer while she is in a state of undress” and “no discussions of personal experience with sex or nudity”.
Lively’s legal complaint claims Baldoni “abruptly pivoted away from” the film’s marketing plan and “used domestic violence ‘survivor content’ to protect his public image” after the sexual harassment allegations came out.
Baldoni at the world premiere in New York on 6 August. Pic: AP
Baldoni brands Lively’s claims ‘shameful’
Mr Freedman, representing Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, says in his statement: “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.
“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.”
Lively says in a statement to the New York Times: “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.”
The August release of It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel, was shrouded by speculation over discord between the lead pair.
Baldoni took a backseat in promoting the film while Lively took centre stage along with Reynolds, who was on the press circuit for Deadpool & Wolverine at the same time.
Sky News has contacted Jessica Abel and RWA Communications for comment.
