Justin Baldoni has sued Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, claiming that the Hollywood couple sought to “destroy” him and his career after they appropriated his movie, “It Ends With Us”.
Baldoni’s lawsuit is the latest escalation in the ongoing legal battle over the film that Baldoni directed and co-starred in with Lively.
“This is not a case about celebrities criticizing each other in the press. This is a case about two of the most powerful stars in the world wielding their enormous power to steal an entire movie from the hands of its director and production studio,” the lawsuit states.
“Lively wields immense power as one of the world’s most recognizable celebrities,” the lawsuit continues, alleging that Lively ‘used that power to seize control of the film,’ which was directed by Baldoni and produced and co-financed by Baldoni’s production company. “He set out to destroy the plaintiffs’ livelihoods and businesses if they did not bow to his incessant demands, and when they refused to give in, he did exactly that, accusing them of vile and reprehensible sexual behavior.”
The 179-page lawsuit, in which Baldoni is seeking $400 million and a jury trial, was filed in the Southern District of New York on behalf of Baldoni, his company Wayfarer Studios, as well as his producing partner Jamey Heath, his crisis manager Melissa Nathan, his publicist Jennifer Abel and It Ends With Us LLC. The defendants are accused of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.
“Lively stole Wayfarer’s movie, hijacked Wayfarer’s premiere, destroyed the plaintiffs’ personal and professional reputations and livelihoods, and aimed to put the plaintiffs out of business altogether,” the lawsuit claims.
Lively’s legal team told CNN in a statement Thursday that Baldoni’s lawsuit “is another chapter in the abuser’s playbook. This is an age-old story: a woman comes forward with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation, and the abuser tries to turn it around.”
“They are trying to shift the narrative toward Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she took creative control and alienated Mr. Baldoni’s cast. 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 the Sony edit of the film, which they then selected for distribution and which was a resounding success,” the statement also said.
The ongoing saga between Lively and Baldoni erupted in December, when Lively filed a civil rights complaint for the first time, claiming that she was sexually harassed by Baldoni during the production of the film and was then retaliated against for speaking out about her alleged mistreatment. Baldoni immediately denied Lively’s claims.
Lively finally escalated her civil rights complaint, officially filing a lawsuit against Baldoni just a few weeks ago.
Lively alleged that after being sexually harassed with inappropriate comments and behavior on set, Baldoni’s team orchestrated a smear campaign against her to ruin her reputation in the public sphere. Lively’s complaint contained hundreds of text messages between Baldoni and his crisis public relations team, including a text that said they could “bury her.”
Baldoni’s new lawsuit presents a very different perspective, accusing Lively of actually defaming Baldoni.
“Although Lively claimed that Baldoni was the one defaming her, the reality is that it was Lively and her team who carefully planned and implemented a vile smear campaign against Baldoni and Wayfarer to divert attention and blame for Lively’s disastrous errors of judgment,” Baldoni’s lawsuit claims. “Lively would re-present herself as the long-suffering martyr by portraying Baldoni and Wayfarer as her persecutors: the masterminds behind a smear campaign that evidence will show did not exist.”
The public legal battle has exposed the inner workings of the teams behind the Hollywood stars with multiple lawsuits, all of which have accused publicists on both sides of wrongdoing.
Lively and Reynolds’ publicist, Leslie Sloan, is also named as a defendant alongside Lively and Reynolds in the complaint filed on Thursday.
Sloan did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on her behalf or for her clients, Lively and Reynolds.
Baldoni’s team has said that Lively’s lawsuit contained “selective” text messages that only told her side of the story.
After Lively filed her initial complaint, Baldoni sued the New York Times for $250 million, accusing the newspaper, which was the first to report on Lively’s allegations, of working with Lively’s team to publish a one-sided article that benefited Lively and contained manipulated evidence. Baldoni’s lawsuit against the publication contained more text messages that appeared to show additional context.
The New York Times has denied Baldoni’s accusations and said it stands by its reporting.
Bryan Freedman, the lawyer representing Baldoni and all the plaintiffs, told CNN in a statement on Thursday that he has an “overwhelming amount of unmanipulated evidence” showing that Lively, Reynolds and their team tried to destroy Baldoni and his team by “disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and manipulated information to the media.”
“Justin and his team have nothing to hide, the documents don’t lie,” Freedman said. ”Ms. Lively can no longer continue to exploit real victims of real harassment solely for her personal reputation gains at the expense of the powerless.”
Creative differences
“It Ends With Us” explores domestic violence. The central couple is played by Baldoni and Lively. The film, based on the successful book of the same name, grossed more than $350 million worldwide at the box office.
“It is heartbreaking that a film that Baldoni envisioned years ago that would honor survivors of domestic violence by telling their story, with the noble goal of having a positive impact on the world, has now been eclipsed beyond recognition, solely as a result of Lively’s actions and cruelty,” the lawsuit claims.
Baldoni’s lawsuit claims that Lively sought to take over much of the creative direction of the film, including getting her husband, Reynolds, to rewrite a scene and make “unauthorized changes to the script in secret.” (Reynolds had no formal role in “It Ends With Us.”)
The lawsuit claims that Lively “summoned” Baldoni to the penthouse apartment she shares with Reynolds in New York City for a meeting about the script, where Reynolds, along with a “famous person close” to the couple, praised Lively’s proposed revisions to the script.
“As the meeting was winding down, a famous person with a public friendship with Reynolds and Lively entered the room and similarly began to praise Lively’s script,” the lawsuit states. ”Baldoni understood the subtext: he needed to comply with Lively’s direction for the script.”
One of the text messages included in Baldoni’s lawsuit appears to show an exchange between Baldoni and Lively about the script: “I really love what you did. It really helps a lot. It makes it so much more fun and interesting. (And I would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor),” he wrote with a winky emoji. “You really are talented in every way. I’m so excited and grateful to be doing this together.”
Although Baldoni’s text message does not include a last name for “Taylor,” Lively is a close friend of the artist Taylor Swift. CNN has contacted representatives for Baldoni, Lively, Reynolds and Taylor Swift to ask if the “Taylor” mentioned in Baldoni’s text is indeed Swift.
According to Baldoni’s lawsuit, a screenshot of a text message shows that Lively later replied to Baldoni: “I really appreciate it,” and then wrote: “We’re in this together.” In that same text message, Lively later wrote: “I have no motive other than for you to win. As an actor. As a studio. As a writer. If you win, I win. If you win, our movie wins. We are aligned. And I will bring everything I have to this.”
CNN has not independently verified any text messages included in Baldoni or Lively’s lawsuits.
The new lawsuit also claims that Reynolds once “insulted Baldoni and accused him of embarrassing his wife because of her weight” at the couple’s New York home. Baldoni denied the accusation in his lawsuit, claiming that he asked his trainer about Lively’s weight so that he could prepare for a scene in which he was supposed to lift her, while working with a back injury.
Baldoni’s latest lawsuit involves Reynolds, one of the highest-paid Hollywood stars, in the legal drama. Baldoni’s previous documents mentioned Reynolds, but now he is officially listed as a defendant for helping his wife take over the movie and ruining Baldoni’s career.
After Lively initially accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, the talent agency WME, which also represents Lively and Reynolds, dismissed him as a client. Baldoni’s lawsuit accuses Reynolds of encouraging WME to dismiss Baldoni, something the agency has denied.
