Justin Baldoni‘s publicist, Jennifer Abel, dismissed the “cherry picked messages” between herself, Baldoni, and management expert Melissa Nathan, which were leaked in Blake Lively’s harassment lawsuit against her It Ends With Us co-star.
Abel made the comments in several lengthy posts in a Facebook group, which have since been deleted but were seen and confirmed by Rolling Stone. She denied that a “smear” campaign against Lively was implemented, as the actress has claimed.
“No negative press was ever facilitated, no social combat plan, although we were prepared for it as it’s our job to be ready for any scenario,” Abel wrote. “But we didn’t have to implement anything because the internet was doing the work for us.”
Lively filed her lawsuit this weekend, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment on set and coordinating a smear campaign against her amidst the movie’s tumultuous release. (Baldoni has denied the claims.) To back up the smear claims, the suit included exhibits like a pre-release strategy to shift the online conversation toward criticism of Lively, as well as the aforementioned text messages.
In the messages between Abel and Nathan, the two spoke about Baldoni’s concern that there was “not much defense” in the planning document if Lively went on the offensive. “You know we can bury anyone but I can’t write that to [Baldoni],” Nathan wrote to Abel. In another message, Abel said, “I’m having reckless thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week of how horrible Blake is to work with… Just to get ahead of it.”
Baldoni also sent Abel and Nathan a threaded tweet about “Hailey Bieber’s history of bullying many women,” which had over 19 million views at the time. “This is what we would need,” Baldoni wrote.
As the press cycle around It Ends With Us churned, Baldoni’s team appeared to celebrate that Lively was the primary focus of the coverage. “So are we in the clear now?! Did we survive?!,” Abel asked Nathan, who replied: “We survived. All press is so overwhelming. We’ve confused people. So much mixed messaging. It’s actually really funny if you think about it.”
While Abel denied ever carrying out a smear campaign, she did say, “Sure we talked about it, contemplated if we needed certain things, flagged accounts that we needed to monitor, worked with a social team to help us stay on top of the narrative so we could act quickly if needed.” She also acknowledged that they “rejoiced and joked in the fact that fans were recognizing our clients heart and work without us having to do anything but keep our heads down and focus on positive interviews for our client.”
Abel said they “sophomorically reveled” in private about the online feedback to “the woman whose team was making our lives incredibly difficult.” To that end, she claimed at the start of the campaign, “the opposing team had been planting horrible stories” about Baldoni as a “fail safe” if he “did not comply with the demands set forth for the campaign.”
Abel also defended Baldoni from the harassment accusations: “Now what kind of woman would work against another woman who was a victim of all the things being claimed? Thanks for asking,” she wrote. “After reviewing the evidence, facts, hard proof that countered every single thing that was being claimed and demanded at the start of production, I made a choice to stand by my client of almost 5 years, who had dedicated his life to the equal treatment of others, especially women. Who had no incidents of negative treatment of others, and who had a wonderful community and team at [Baldoni’s production company] Wayfarer who all held the same moral fortitude and lived their life accordingly. As representatives, we all have to make that choice. So I did that to the best of my ability, and felt good about our efforts.”
Bryan Freedman, who is representing Baldoni, Abel, and Nathan in the suit, echoed the sentiment of Abel’s posts in a statement shared with Rolling Stone. He said Nathan’s company, The Agency Group (TAG) PR, “operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources.”
He continued: “The standard scenario planning TAG PR drafted proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively’s own actions, interviews and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful, and responded organically to that which the media themselves picked up on.”
As for how the text messages were leaked in Lively’s lawsuit, Abel denied speculation that they were subpoenaed. Instead, she noted that she’d recently left her previous PR firm, Jonesworks, where she was working during the It Ends With Us campaign. She said the company “had access to my work emails and work phone, so you can deduce from that what you will.”
Freedman, in a longer statement to The Hollywood Reporter, alleged that in late August, Joneswork “utilized a lawyer and security guard to take possession of Wayfarers confidential information through confiscation of Jen Abel’s phone. We are continuing to investigate the use of that confidential information but demands are being made to Stephanie Jones and Leslie Sloan and once we obtain the evidence, anyone actively involved in any possible connection with this abhorrent conduct will be sued into oblivion.”
A rep for Jonesworks did not immediately return a request for comment.