"It Ends With Us" director and star Justin Baldoni fought back against allegations from co-star Blake Lively that he created a hostile work environment and helped engineer a smear campaign against her, claiming the actress undermined him throughout the filmmaking process and ultimately edited the final cut of the film, according to a suit he filed against the New York Times.
US actor Justin Baldoni at the New York premiere of "It Ends With Us" on Aug. 6, 2024.
Baldoni outlined his allegations against Lively in an 87-page lawsuit he filed Dec. 31 against the Times, accusing the newspaper of libel after it published an explosive story into Lively's claims of harassment and what she called a "smear campaign” aimed at her reputation over the production of "It Ends With Us” (Lively was not named as a party in the lawsuit).
Much of Baldoni’s allegations run in opposition to Lively’s claims (which are fully explored in this story).
In the lawsuit, Baldoni claims he was steamrolled on set by Lively’s constant attempts to change things about the film, was "aggressively berated" by Lively's husband Ryan Reynolds over a misunderstanding about fat shaming, and said that Lively persistently tried to overstep Baldoni in the editing process.
Baldoni's complaint says Lively's behavior amounted to a "pattern of vindictiveness" that included an attempt to have him banned from the film's premiere, and that he was ultimately permitted to attend "under humiliating conditions" (Baldoni was "barred from the exclusive afterparty," his lawsuit says, and was not photographed with the rest of the cast at the event).
The lawsuit also claims Reynolds and Lively, referred to in the complaint as “powerful 'untouchable' Hollywood elites,” pressured talent agency WME to drop Baldoni, though the agency has since refuted the claim the couple was involved in its decision to separate from the actor.
Baldoni also countered claims Lively made in a Dec. 20 civil rights complaint that he created a hostile work environment, instead alleging it was she who threw tantrums on set and issued ultimatums to studio executives, including one that ended in Baldoni’s cut of the film being shelved in favor of a version of the movie she edited.
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Baldoni's lawsuit against Lively. Freedman told NBC’s "Today" his client will "absolutely" file his own lawsuit, but wouldn't say exactly what the countersuit will allege. Freedman didn’t say when the lawsuit will be filed, but that his team is “working on it now.” He did say the filing will show new text messages between the film’s two stars "for the world to see.”
Lively has not commented on specific allegations made by Baldoni but, in a statement to Business Insider, her attorneys said that his filing doesn't change anything about the initial claims made in her complaint.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni on the set of "It Ends with Us" on Jan. 12, 2024.
Lively made her initial claims against Baldoni in a Dec. 20 complaint with the California Civil Rights Department and repeated many of the same allegations in a Dec. 31 lawsuit in New York federal court against Baldoni, his publicist, Wayfarer Studios and other defendants for "retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns." Much of Lively’s lawsuit hinges on bombshell text messages largely sent between Baldoni, his publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis management expert Melissa Nathan that appear to show him encouraging his P.R. team to spread damaging narratives about Lively, flagging social media posts for them to use and showing concern the negative press could be traced back to him and his team. In his lawsuit against the Times, however, Baldoni presents other private communications in which he seems to tell Nathan and Abel he is "more worried about” the perception that they are “planting … stories which is not true obviously" and "How can we say somehow that we are not doing any of this — it looks like we are trying to take her down." Other messages show Nathan reassuring Baldoni that the negative media about Lively around the release of "It Ends With Us" was inevitable, and that the press and fans had enough ammunition to criticize her without his team’s help. The lawsuit calls the attacks on Lively “self-induced backlash” and says her claims of a smear campaign are a response to her embarrassment and “a dubious attempt to resuscitate her public image.” Lively also claims in her lawsuit that she was subject to sexual harassment, specifically saying Baldoni would enter her trailer without consent while she was undressed and sometimes breastfeeding her newborn baby. The Baldoni lawsuit includes text messages meant to counter Lively’s version of events, including one from the actress in which she invites him to work on a scene, saying, "I'm just pumping in my trailer if you wanna work on our lines."
Baldoni's lawsuit also accuses the Times of misunderstanding the intent of the upside-down smile emoji, which they say is meant to convey irony or sarcasm. The Times cited a text message in which Abel praises Nathan for influencing an anti-Lively news article in its report, writing, “You really outdid yourself with this piece”—but omitting the emoji that followed—“????.” Nathan responded with “That's why you hired me right? I'm the best." Baldoni's lawsuit argues the use of the emoji makes it clear Abel was joking—and Nathan didn't have anything to do with the story.
He says yes. The lawsuit against The New York Times accuses the paper of ignoring that Leslie Sloane, Lively's publicist, planted her own negative stories about Baldoni, including that he "was a sexual predator." The lawsuit accuses Sloane of feeding false stories to the Daily Mail and the New York Post, including one article alleging there were multiple HR complaints against Baldoni made during production. In a statement to Deadline, Sloane said claims she was the origin of stories about HR complaints on set are "false."
Lively claimed in her lawsuit that Baldoni repeatedly objectified her on set, including by "finding back channel ways of criticizing her body and weight." The example she cited was one in which Baldoni “secretly called her fitness trainer, without her knowledge or permission, and implied that he wanted her to lose weight in two weeks,” the lawsuit claims. It went on: “Mr. Baldoni told the trainer that he had asked because he was concerned about having to pick Ms. Lively up in a scene for the movie, but there was no such scene.” In his own lawsuit, Baldoni said he did ask the trainer about Lively's weight but only to "ensure he could safely perform the lift without injury," citing bulging discs in his back. Baldoni's lawsuit claims Lively later "refused to perform the lift scene, even though it had already been rehearsed with a stunt double."
In his lawsuit, Baldoni also claimed that he was the target of an "inappropriate and humiliating berating" from Reynolds in front of other celebrity friends during production. Baldoni said that at a meeting before filming resumed after Hollywood strikes, Reynolds "launched into a tirade" at him over a list of grievances he and Lively had compiled in what Baldoni described as a "traumatic encounter." He said he had "never been spoken to like that in his life" and that a representative for Sony later expressed regret for not stepping in. Baldoni said Reynolds called for him to apologize for fat shaming his wife, among other demands. Reynolds hasn’t publicly commented on Baldoni’s allegations.
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds attend the "It Ends With Us" New York Premiere at AMC Lincoln Square ... [+]
While promoting the film, Baldoni said Lively was "involved in every aspect of the film" and called her a "powerhouse of a creative and a wonderful collaborator.” In his New York Times lawsuit, however, he says both Lively and her husband overstepped in their attempts to control the film and that he wasn’t respected as the movie’s director. He cited an interview Lively gave during the movie's press tour in which she says her husband wrote one of the film's iconic scenes, and said the interview was the first time he learned Reynolds "made unauthorized changes to the script in secret." The lawsuit says Lively interfered with his authority in the editing process and despite Baldoni "incorporating seven pages of her notes" into his edit, she allegedly created her own cut of the film and threatened not to promote the film if her version wasn't seriously considered for release. The studio ultimately agreed to "audience test" both versions of the film under the condition that Lively would support whichever performed better, the lawsuit says, but "despite Baldoni's cut scoring significantly higher with audiences... Lively reneged on her promise" and the studio "once again conceded."
Rumors of a rift developing between Lively and Baldoni started to emerge ahead of the film's premiere and were fueled by the press tour, during which the pair made no joint appearances (an odd arrangement for a film's star and its director and co-star). Lively appeared to avoid mention of Baldoni in interviews, though he repeatedly praised her work on the film, and the two were never photographed together during promotion. Lively, Reynolds, several cast members and Hoover also all unfollowed Baldoni on Instagram around the time of the movie’s release. As rumors of a feud grew, Baldoni hired Melissa Nathan, a crisis PR manager who had represented Johnny Depp in his defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard. At the same time, several unflattering narratives about Lively started to spread on social media. Lively was the subject of intense criticism online targeting how she promoted the film as fans slammed her for upbeat tone on the press tour and said she was attempting to promote the movie as a lighthearted love story, cheapening its serious take on domestic abuse. Lively appeared to respond to the criticism on her Instagram story on Aug. 13, when she shared several posts talking about how the film gets "a message so important out there to the masses" and shared statistics on domestic violence. Lively was also criticized for seeming to promote her newly launched hair-care line, and a resurfaced video clip of a 2016 interaction with an interviewer also drew fresh critique. Lively claimed in her civil rights complaint that the negative narratives were part of the calculated campaign orchestrated by Baldoni. She repeated the claim in the lawsuit against Baldoni, his publicist, Wayfarer Studios and other defendants.