Lawyers for actress Blake Lively condemn actor and director Justin Baldoni for launching even “more attacks” against their client.
Lively, 37, starred in It Ends With Us alongside Baldoni, 40, who also directed the film, which premiered in theaters last August and is currently streaming on Netflix.
After months of rumors, Lively filed a complaint with the California Department of Civil Rights, alleging that Baldoni had improvised unwanted kissing scenes and created a hostile work environment through sexual harassment and more.
Just one day later, The New York Times published an article revealing that Baldoni hired a crisis PR team to “bury” Lively and destroy her credibility, and Lively then sued Baldoni and his company Wayfarer Studios that same day. .
Baldoni responded by filing a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times for its reporting that he said pushed an “unverified and self-serving narrative.”
Now Lively’s legal team insists to People that Lively’s “serious allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation” are, in fact, “backed by hard facts.”
Lawyers for actress Blake Lively condemn actor and director Justin Baldoni for launching even “more attacks” against their client
Just one day later, The New York Times published an article revealing that Baldoni hired a crisis PR team to “bury” Lively and destroy her credibility, and Lively then sued Baldoni and his company Wayfarer Studios that same day. .
“This is not a ‘dispute’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation,” the statement from Lively’s lawyers began.
“As alleged in Ms. Lively’s lawsuit, and as we will demonstrate in litigation, Wayfarer (Studios) and its associates engaged in illegal astroturfing activities in retaliation against Ms. Lively simply for trying to protect herself and others. on a film set,” the lawyers said. aggregate.
“And your response to the lawsuit has been to launch further attacks against Ms. Lively since it was filed,” they continued.
“Sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and every industry,” the attorneys added as they broke down some “classic tactics” employed by abusers.
“A classic tactic to distract from accusations of this type of misconduct is to ‘blame the victim’ by suggesting that she provoked the conduct, provoked it, misinterpreted the intentions, or even lied,” the statement continued.
‘Another classic tactic is to reverse the relationship between victim and aggressor, and suggest that the aggressor is actually the victim. These concepts normalize and trivialize accusations of serious misconduct,” they stated.
‘Most importantly, media statements are not a defense to Ms. Lively’s legal claims. “We will continue to pursue their claims in federal court, where the rule of law determines who prevails, not hyperbole and threats,” the statement concluded.
Lively claimed in her lawsuit that the smear campaign employed by Baldoni employed cled her to suffer “financial damage” that “continues to the present.”
“This is not a ‘dispute’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation,” the statement from Lively’s lawyers began.
“As alleged in Ms. Lively’s lawsuit, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer (Studios) and its associates engaged in illegal astroturfing activities in retaliation against Ms. Lively simply for trying to protect herself and others. on a film set,” the lawyers said. aggregate
Lively claimed in her lawsuit that the smear campaign employed by Baldoni caused her “financial harm” that “continues to the present.”
She claims her hair care brand, Blake Brown, and her two drink ranges, Betty Buzz and Betty Booze, suffered huge sales losses due to the backlash she received.
The lawsuit claims that Blake Brown’s sales plummeted by up to 78 percent after the “social manipulation campaign” began.
It said: “Based on internal sales projections, the sudden and unexpected negative media campaign launched against Ms. Lively depressed retail sales of Blake Brown products by 56 to 78 percent.”
The lawsuit adds: “This dramatic drop was completely at odds with the high satisfaction scores that Blake Brown products received in major consumer tests conducted before launch or with their initial success after launch.”