On December 20, 2024, Blake Lively filed a legal complaint against It Ends with Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni. She accuses Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath, and Wayfarer Studios LLC (Baldoni’s company) of harassment and retaliation.
She claims that there was a hostile work environment while filming, and that during press Baldoni and his team allegedly orchestrated a smear campaign against her to ruin her image because of her accusations.
The New York Times released an article titled ‘We can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine on December 22, which detailed an alleged smear campaign against Blake Lively that was orchestrated by Baldoni and his team.
On December 31, Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times for libel. The suit claims the publication deceived the public by purposefully ignoring evidence that didn’t fit Lively’s narrative.
Lively is now suing Baldoni for “severe emotional distress” as of December 31. Also included in the lawsuit are “crisis manager” Melissa Nathan, publicist Jennifer Abel, and Wayfarer Studios. This is a result of the alleged harassment she experienced on set and the alleged public campaign against her.
Her lawsuit claims she has suffered “severe emotional distress and pain, humiliation, embarrassment, belittlement, frustration, and mental anguish” and is entitled to compensation at an amount to be determined in trial.
Lively’s complaint alleges that CEO of Wayfarer and producer Jamey Heath (second from left) showed her an inappropriate video of his wife. The video in question was of Heath’s wife giving birth at home.
Baldoni's lawsuit claims that this was shown during a discussion of filming a birth scene and states, “To distort this benign event into an act of [] misconduct is outrageous and emblematic of the lengths to which Lively and her collaborators are willing to go to defame plaintiffs.”
Lively’s lawsuit also includes further distressing and strange claims. She alleges that Baldoni claimed “he could speak to the dead, and on several occasions told her that he had spoken to her dead father.”
Lively’s father, Ernie, passed away in 2021, but according to her, Baldoni claimed a personal relationship with the deceased. Her sister Robyn took to social media on December 22 to show her support and ask for justice.
There’s been a lot of discourse surrounding the “fat-shaming” allegedly experienced by Lively. Baldoni admits to asking his trainer, who had been introduced to him by Lively, how much Lively weighed because he has back problems and needed to perform a scene in which he lifted her.
Lively alleges that while she was sick with strep throat, Baldoni offered to connect her with an expert to help her. However, the “expert” was a weight-loss specialist according to Lively, which made her feel shamed for her weight. She was also only four months post-partum when they began filming.
Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, was present during filming and some meetings. Baldoni claims that Reynolds “berated” him for his treatment of Lively, specifically referencing Baldoni asking his trainer how much Lively weighed.
Baldoni apologized but claims the question was asked in “good faith” to ensure he wouldn’t reinjure his back. His lawsuit infers that the this particular “inappropriate and humiliating berating” may have purposefully been done in the couple’s penthouse and celebrities came and went.
Lively and Baldoni didn’t promote the film together, and went about very different ways of doing it. According to Lively’s lawsuit, she followed the set Marketing Plan, which was to “[f]ocus more on [her character’s] strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.”
The lawsuit alleges that Baldoni decided to not follow the Marketing Plan in order to explain why the rest of the cast didn’t appear with him. He instead focused survivors and domestic violence organizations. This in turn painted Livley in a negative light in the public’s eyes.
As the public watched Lively launch her hair care line and celebrate female friendships while Baldoni centered on the seriousness of domestic violence, Lively became the story's villain. Press videos of Lively in the past being rude to interviewers also surfaced at the time, making the public think she had a history of inappropriate behavior and needed to be “canceled.”
Baldoni’s lawsuit claims that “the backlash against Lively was the inevitable fallout of her own tone-deaf messaging and self-promotional tactics, amplified by her inability to read the room in addressing such a serious subject.” However, as stated, Lively’s lawsuit claims that she was following the agreed upon Marketing Plan while Baldoni was the one who diverged as part of a coordinated smear campaign to ruin her reputation and save his.
Lively’s lawsuit reveals alleged text messages between Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel and “crisis manager” Melissa Nathan. When speaking on what Baldoni wants to hire Nathan to do, Abel says “He [Baldoni] wants to feel like she [Lively] can be buried.” Nathan responds saying she cannot say what she will do in writing, but that “you know we can bury anyone.”
In later text messages, Nathan says how well press is going for Baldoni and states, “It’s actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women.”
