Is Justin Baldoni’s Legal Team Taking a ‘Blame the Victim’ Approach Against Blake Lively?

The ongoing back-and-forth accusations between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have generated more than their hit drama It Ends With Us, a film where this debacle officially began. Lively first filed a complaint with California’s Civil Rights Department against Baldoni, citing sexual harassment and a calculated smear campaign to sully her name during the film’s promotion.

This was then followed by a lawsuit from Stephanie Jones, who was once the head of Baldoni’s old PR firm, who alleged defamation and breach of contract against Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel.

Not one to have all the attacks against him, Baldoni then sued The New York Times for $250 million, which alleged that their piece reporting Lively’s claims was libel. Finally, on New Year’s Eve, Lively doubled down on her CRD filing by filing a sexual harassment lawsuit in New York against Baldoni and his team. It’s all hard to keep up and more is to come, but Lively’s lawyers say that Baldoni’s suit against The New York Times only serves to “blame the victim” in the media.

Per Deadline, Lively’s Manatt, Phelps & Phillips attorneys want to make it clear that their client filings are very serious and aren’t about media attention or distorting the truth. The lawyer team said, “Ms. Lively’s federal litigation before the Southern District of New York involves serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation, backed by concrete facts.”

They then go on to insist that the lawsuit isn’t about creative differences over a film or a feud playing out between a director and big Hollywood players. This is something that references claims made by Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, after an appearance on NewsNation that took aim at the New York Times article, Lively, and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.

“This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences; or a ‘he said/she said’ situation. As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set. And their response to the lawsuit has been to launch more attacks against Ms. Lively since her filing.”

The It Ends With Us Drama Has Been a He Said/She Said Close

All of this drama has been playing out in the media between their respective lawyers. Probably on the advice of their attorneys, Lively hasn’t spoken publicly about the matter and neither has Baldoni. What is happening instead is both sides trying to create their own narratives of what happened as they all try to fix their respective images.

At the moment, Lively has proved more successful in changing the attitudes of public opinion with more high-profile support, while Baldoni has been dropped by his agency, WME. From Baldoni’s side of things, he and his team have seemed to try to present all of this as two powerful Hollywood figures who used their status to bully him and his team during and after the filming of It Ends With Us.

Related ‘It Ends with Us’ Author Colleen Hoover Weighs In on the Blake Lively Lawsuit

“I am done being afraid to post in fear of the comment section hurting my reputation.”

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On the one hand, Lively’s lawyers want to keep the focus on sexual harassment and how it has no place in any work environment. Lively’s legal team said:

“While we go through the legal process, we urge everyone to remember that sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and in every industry. A classic tactic to distract from allegations of this type of misconduct is to “blame the victim” by suggesting that they invited this conduct, brought it on themselves, misunderstood the intentions, or even lied. Another classic tactic is to reverse the victim and offender and suggest that the offender is actually the victim.”

For Baldoni’s part, his attorney states that:

“We are releasing all of the evidence which will show a pattern of bullying and threats to take over the movie. None of this will come as a surprise because, consistent with her past behavior, Blake Lively used other people to communicate those threats and bully her way to get whatever she wanted. We have all the receipts and more.”

Yeah, this isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

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It Ends With Us PG-13

Based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel, It Ends With Us is a drama-romance film directed by Justin Baldoni. The film follows a recent college graduate named Lily, who meets a man named Ryle and falls in love with him. However, a traumatic incident compounded with her former high-school sweetheart re-entering her life complicates her plans.

Release Date August 9, 2024 Director Justin Baldoni Runtime 130 Minutes Cast Blake Lively , Justin Baldoni , Brandon Sklenar , Jenny Slate , Hasan Minhaj , Amy Morton , Kevin McKidd , Isabela Ferrer , Alex Neustaedter , Robert Clohessy , Robyn Lively , Megan Robinson , Robin S. Walker , Emily Baldoni , Adam Mondschein , Caroline Siegrist , Steve Monroe , Daphne Zelle Main Genre Romance Expand