Blake Lively has alleged Justin Baldoni sexually harassed her during the filming of It Ends With Us, before engaging in “a sophisticated press and digital plan in retaliation” against the actress when his behaviour threatened to come to light.
Baldoni’s alleged actions during filming and his subsequent PR campaign against Lively are laid out in court documents seen by The London Standard.
In the Blake Lively v. Wayfarer Studios LLC, Lively’s representatives allege that Baldoni bit the actress on the lip during filming, came into her trailer while she was breastfeeding her newborn, tried to discuss pornography with her, and brought his friend on set to play a doctor during a birth scene where Lively was pressured to perform nude.
Lively has alleged that Baldoni’s plan for “social manipulation” to “destroy” her public reputation was backed by the “virtually unlimited resources” of Steve Sarowitz, the millionaire entrepreneur invested in Baldoni’s production company Wayfarer Studios.
Baldoni’s legal representatives have denied the allegations.
What has Lively accused Baldoni of?
Lively alleges that Baldoni subjected her, along with the cast and crew, to “invasive, unwelcome, unprofessional and sexually inappropriate behavior”. Baldoni starred in and directed It Ends With Us, while his company Wayfarer Studios financed and ran production for the film. “Everyone answered to Mr. Baldoni,” states the filing.
Baldoni allegedly “improvised physical intimacy” without Lively’s consent, including a kissing scene where he “bit and sucked on [her] lower lip” then insisted on shooting the scene repeatedly.
In another “shocking and emotionally distressing” incident, Baldoni allegedly told Lively he could speak to dead people, and on “several occasions” told the actress he had spoken to her late father, who died in 2021.
Lively alleges that during a car ride together Baldoni made a “suggestion that he had engaged in sexual conduct without consent” with a previous partner. When Lively exited the car, her driver told her they did not want the actress to be left alone with Baldoni again.
Lively alleges that Baldoni repeatedly tried to add scenes where she simulated orgasm on camera, insisting they show their characters climaxing together. Baldoni stressed this scene was “important to him” because “he and his partner climax simultaneously during intercourse”. “Mr. Baldoni then intrusively asked Ms. Lively whether she and her husband climax simultaneously during intercourse, which Ms. Lively found invasive and refused to discuss,” states the filing. Lively is married to fellow celebrity Ryan Reynolds.
Baldoni allegedly ambushed Lively on the day of filming a birth scene to “simulate full nudity” despite no mention of this in the script. “Mr. Baldoni insisted to Ms. Lively that women give birth naked, and that his wife had ‘ripped her clothes off’ during labor,” reads the filing. Baldoni allegedly failed to close the set or turn off monitors during this scene, leaving Lively “mostly nude with her legs spread wide in stirrups and only a small piece of fabric covering her genitalia” while various cast and crew milled about. Lively alleges she was not provided with anything to cover herself between takes, despite asking.
Lively reported feeling “alarmed” when Baldoni bought his “best friend” on set to play the role of an obstetrician-gynecologist rather than a local actor. “Ms. Lively felt that the selection of Mr. Baldoni’s friend for this intimate role, in which the actor’s face and hands were in close proximity to her nearly nude genitalia for a birth scene, was invasive and humiliating,” reads the filing.
“To add insult to injury” Baldoni’s co-producer Jamey Heath allegedly tried to play a video of a naked woman for Lively, which she mistook for pornography. Heath allegedly said the video was of his wife giving birth, prompting Lively to ask if his wife knew he was sharing the video. Heath’s alleged response was to say his wife “isn’t weird about this stuff”.
Baldoni and Heath allegedly tried to engage Lively in conversations about their “previous porn addiction”. When Lively attempted to shut these conversations down, Baldoni told the cast and crew that Lively had never seen porn in an “incredible invasion of her privacy”.
Incidents in the court filing allege that co-producer Jamey Heath “arrived unannounced” at Lively’s trailer “while she was topless” with her makeup artists to discuss Baldoni’s behaviour. Heath allegedly refused to wait until she was clothed but agreed to keep his back turned. According to the filing: A few minutes into the conversation, Ms. Lively noticed that Mr. Heath was staring directly at her while she was topless”.
Baldoni and Heath both allegedly entered Lively’s trailer while she was breastfeeding her infant child without her consent.
What are the smear campaign allegations?
Lively alleges that Baldoni and Wayfarer hired Melissa Nathan, the crisis communications specialist used by Johnny Depp, to manage his reputation while smearing her own. The filing includes screenshots of emails and texts between Baldoni, Nathan and her team where they discuss how to plant stories that make Lively look unreasonable.
Her lawyers argue that this “went well beyond standard crisis PR” and was tantamount to “astroturfing” – where information presented as coming organically from the public is in fact an orchestrated campaign to seed stories.
“The Baldoni-Wayfarer team would then feed pieces of this manufactured content to unwitting reporters, making content go viral in order to influence public opinion and thereby cause an organic pile on,” reads the filing.
In some of the messages reproduced in the filing, Nathan’s team say: “We can’t write we will destroy her… Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands.”
Lively told the New York Times that she hopes taking legal action “helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”