Blake Lively has accused her It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of the film and a subsequent effort to “destroy” her popularity in a authorized grievance.
The grievance obtained by The Associated Press, which The New York Times reported was filed Friday with the California Civil Rights Department, precedes a lawsuit. It names Baldoni, the studio behind the romantic drama It Ends With Us and Baldoni’s publicists among the many defendants.
In the grievance, Lively accuses Baldoni and the studio of embarking on a “multi-tiered plan” to wreck her popularity following a gathering by which she and her husband Ryan Reynolds addressed “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Baldoni and a producer on the film.
The plan, the grievance stated, included a proposal to plant theories on on-line message boards, engineer a social media marketing campaign and place information tales crucial of Lively.
Baldoni enlisted publicists and disaster managers in a “sophisticated, coordinated, and well-financed retaliation plan” meant to “bury” and “destroy” Lively if she went public together with her on-set considerations, the grievance alleges.
Justin Baldoni attends the “It Ends With Us” New York Premiere at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on August 6, 2024 in New York City.
Cindy Ord/Getty Images
“To safeguard against the risk of Ms. Lively ever revealing the truth about Mr. Baldoni, the BaldoniWayfarer team created, planted, amplified, and boosted content designed to eviscerate Ms. Lively’s credibility,” the grievance states. “They engaged in the same techniques to bolster Mr. Baldoni’s credibility and suppress any negative content about him.”
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The grievance additionally says Baldoni “abruptly pivoted away from” the film’s advertising plan and “used domestic violence ‘survivor content’ to protect his public image.”
Bryan Freedman, a lawyer representing Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, referred to as the claims “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.”
He pushed again towards Lively’s allegations of a coordinated marketing campaign, saying the studio “proactively” employed a disaster supervisor “due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production.”
Freedman additionally stated Lively threatened to not seem on set and never promote the movie “if her demands were not met.”
Those calls for weren’t specified within the assertion, however Lively’s grievance lists 30 calls for that she stated Baldoni and others agreed to after their tense sit-down over her hostile work setting considerations.
Among them: “no more showing of nude videos or images of women” to Lively and others on set and no extra discussions about pornography, sexual experiences or genitalia.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are seen on the set of “It Ends with Us” on January 12, 2024 in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
She additionally stated Baldoni mustn’t ask her coach about her weight with out her consent, mustn’t press her about her spiritual beliefs and will make “no further mention of her dead father.”
An intimacy coordinator was additionally required to be on set every time Lively shared a scene with Baldoni and he was barred from getting into her trailer or the make-up trailer whereas she was undressed.
The calls for additionally stipulated that there can be “no more improvising of kissing” scenes or including of intercourse scenes to the movie exterior of those within the script Lively authorised when she signed on.
“I hope that my 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,” Lively stated in a press release to the Times. A consultant for Lively referred the AP to the Times report, by which Lively denied planting or spreading adverse details about Baldoni or the studio.
It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel, was launched in August, exceeding field workplace expectations with a $50 million debut. But the film’s launch was shrouded by hypothesis over discord between the lead pair. Baldoni took a backseat in selling the movie whereas Lively took centre stage together with Reynolds, who was on the press circuit for Deadpool & Wolverine on the similar time.
Baldoni — who starred within the telenovela send-up Jane the Virgin, directed Five Feet Apart and wrote Man Enough, a ebook pushing again towards conventional notions of masculinity — did reply to considerations that the movie romanticized home violence, telling the AP on the time that critics had been “absolutely entitled to that opinion.”
“If anybody has had that real-life experience, I can imagine how hard it would be to imagine their experience being in a romance novel,” he stated. “To them, I would just offer that we were very intentional in the making of this movie.”
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Philip Marcelo in New York contributed to this report.
© 2024 The Canadian Press