The legal drama surrounding “It Ends With Us” continued to rage over the weekend.
On December 20, Blake Lively accused Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director of the movie “It Ends with Us,” of sexual harassment on the set of the Netflix drama and launched a retaliatory smear campaign against him. I filed a complaint. She was assisted by a crisis communications team.
On Saturday, the Daily Mail reported that Baldoni’s lawyer, Brian Friedman, plans to file a counterclaim once court resumes on January 2nd. The lawsuit will also be filed by Baldoni and his business partner, Wayfarer Studios CEO Jamie Heath. Publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan are named in Lively’s complaint. Lively’s team, led by publicist Leslie Sloan, will be accused of running a smear campaign by planting negative stories in the press about Baldoni and working conditions.
Friedman did not say when the counterclaim would be filed, but confirmed the plan at Saturday’s deadline. “It will be a shock to everyone who was manipulated into believing a clearly false story,” Friedman said.
On Saturday, Sloan preemptively denied the allegations made in the counterclaim. In a statement to People magazine, she said she did not plant stories about personnel complaints on the set of “It Ends with Us,” and in fact has close family ties to Baldoni’s public relations team. The person claimed to have been informed of the complaint. .
“It is clear that Mr. Baldoni and his Wayfarer Associates are suggesting that I created a press article regarding a personnel complaint on set, which is false,” she said.
Mr. Sloan and Mr. Friedman did not respond to requests for comment Sunday.
In an 80-page complaint filed in California, Mr. Lively alleges that Mr. Baldoni improvised physical intimacy during a scene with a woman on the set of the domestic-violence drama “Apocalypse.” The company accused the company of creating a “hostile work environment” by creating a “hostile work environment”. She was active and pressured the actor to perform more nudity than originally agreed. Lively claims that Baldoni’s team orchestrated a smear campaign on social media when she raised concerns about conditions on set. The complaint contained dozens of toxic text messages that showed Mr. Baldoni was working with a public relations team to undermine Mr. Lively’s credibility and improve his own. .
The film, based on the novel by Colleen Hoover, follows the character of Lively, a young woman who is physically and emotionally abused by her husband, played by Baldoni. The August release was largely overshadowed by rumors of a feud between Baldoni and Lively and negative buzz about Lively on social media.
Since filing the complaint, the “Gossip Girl” star has received an outpouring of support from friends and collaborators in the industry, including her “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” co-stars and director Paul Feig. .
Meanwhile, Baldoni was dropped from his agency WME. Others are trying to distance themselves from the “it’s our end” debate. On Tuesday, Baldoni’s former publicist Stephanie Jones filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court, accusing Baldoni’s public relations team of undermining her in a systematic effort to avoid responsibility for defamation allegations against Lively. did.
