Justin Baldoni’s former publicist has filed a lawsuit against him for breach of contract, amid his legal battle with his former co-star Blake Lively.
Lively sued Baldoni last week, accusing him of sexually harassing her and fostering a toxic work environment on the set of her film It Ends With Us, in which he directed and starred with her. He has strongly denied the allegations.
In her complaint, Lively claimed that Baldoni worked to tarnish her reputation with a team that included her publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis public relations expert Melissa Nathan, who previously worked with Johnny Depp. Abel has denied having carried out a “smear campaign.”
Now Baldoni, his company Wayfarer Studios, Nathan and Abel are being sued by Abel’s former boss, Stephanie Jones, director of public relations at Jonesworks.
Abel represented Baldoni while he worked for Jonesworks, but was allegedly fired last summer after Jones discovered he was “stealing documents and client information” from the company to aid a plot to start a rival company, according to a copy of the Jones lawsuit obtained by the New York Times.
Jones accuses Abel of conspiring with Nathan “to poach Baldoni and Wayfarer as Jonesworks clients, and defame Jones and Jonesworks in the press,” for example by blaming Jones for PR’s alleged takedown of Lively .
DailyMail.com has contacted Jones and a representative for Baldoni for comment.
Justin Baldoni’s former publicist filed a lawsuit against him for breach of contract, amid his legal battle with his former co-star Blake Lively; Baldoni photographed in August
Lively’s lawsuit contains a series of allegations against Baldoni, who she claims showed her nude images and videos of other women, “improvised physical intimacy” during a scene without prior discussion, entered her trailer while she was “naked” and She allowed her “friends” to watch her film sex scenes.
In the lead-up to the film’s August 9 release, rumors began to circulate about a breakup between Lively and Baldoni, and Lively now claims that around that time, Nathan and Abel worked for Baldoni on a specific strategy to vilify her.
Late last summer, Lively repeatedly went viral online when social media users criticized her “bad girl” behavior in interviews, a trend she now insists was the result of an “astroturfing” campaign undertaken by the Baldoni’s public relations team.
Echoing Lively’s lawsuit, Jones claims in his own legal filing that Nathan and Abel orchestrated “a smear campaign against Lively to benefit Baldoni and Wayfarer.”
He further claimed that Nathan and Abel planned to “publicly blame Jones for this smear campaign, when Jones had no knowledge of or involvement in it.”
Lively’s legal complaint included alleged screenshots of text messages, many of them between Nathan and Abel, that allegedly showed the PR takedown was being planned.
In his own legal complaint, Jones includes several alleged screenshots of text messages between Abel and Nathan, which are said to come from Abel’s Jonesworks company phone.
The messages show Abel and Nathan plotting to rob Baldoni and Wayfarer of Jonesworks, as well as Abel disdainfully mocking Baldoni.
Lively sued Baldoni last week, accusing him of sexually harassing her and fostering a toxic work environment on the set of her film It Ends With Us.
In her complaint, Lively claimed that Baldoni worked to tarnish her reputation with a team that included her publicist Jennifer Abel (pictured) and crisis public relations expert Melissa Nathan.
Now Baldoni, his company Wayfarer Studios, Nathan and Abel are being sued by Abel’s former boss, Stephanie Jones (pictured), public relations director for Jonesworks.
“I can’t stand it,” Abel is said to have texted Nathan in reference to Baldoni. It’s so pompous. A men’s retreat during liberation, are you crazy? And being off the grid during the summer because you’re overworked… it’s like calming down. You’re not that important and no one gives a damn how hard your life is.
Jones’ legal documents say the texts were “forensically extracted directly from the company phone Abel used during his employment at Jonesworks,” which is said to have been “voluntarily returned to Jonesworks upon his termination” with an employment attorney present.
In his lawsuit, Jones says Abel conspired to steal clients from him and damage his reputation in the public relations business, even allegedly enticing “nearly half of Jonesworks’ employees” to take jobs elsewhere, as a result of which two people allegedly left. the company “work for competitors.”
Since leaving Jonesworks over the summer, Abel continued to represent Wayfarer, this time through his own company.
Jones’ lawsuit became public just hours after Abel broke her silence about the unfolding drama in a statement denying that she and Nathan had launched a “smear” campaign.
“What the carefully selected messages do not include, although it is not surprising that it does not fit the narrative, is that no ‘smear’ was implemented,” he wrote.
“No negative press, no social combat plan was ever provided, although we were prepared for it because it is our job to be prepared for any scenario. But we didn’t have to implement anything because the Internet did the work for us.’
She claims the messages simply show that she and Nathan joked around and ‘reveled in their sophomore year’ with genuine social media reactions to Lively.
In the lead-up to the film’s August 9 release, rumors began circulating about a breakup between Lively and Baldoni, who appear in the film.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, has similarly argued: ‘What is clearly missing from the selected correspondence is evidence that no proactive steps were taken with the media or others; “Just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize, which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals.”
Since news of Lively’s lawsuit broke on Saturday, Baldoni’s career has collapsed, with his agency William Morris Endeavor firing him and his podcast co-host Liz Plank announcing she was leaving the show.
Lively, who is married to Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds and is close friends with pop superstar Taylor Swift, has seen former colleagues join her.
Her It Ends With Us co-stars, Brandon Sklenar and Jenny Slate, have spoken out in support of her, as has Colleen Hoover, author of the novel on which the film is based.