Who’s Telling the Truth: Blake Lively or Justin Baldoni?
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s legal battle has reached a crescendo as their dueling lawsuits offer deeply contrasting perspectives.
While Lively alleges that Baldoni sexually harassed her and then attacked her career by orchestrating a “smear” campaign against her with his publicist and crisis manager, Baldoni argues that it was Lively who planted negative stories about him and added the lawsuit to seal the deal on destroying his reputation—in an effort to salvage her own after an embarrassing press tour that offended domestic violence victims.
Each has filed more than 80 pages’ worth of claims and “evidence” about who the aggressor was—but which details rise above the noise?
How It Started
The film that brought the two stars together, It Ends With Us, follows a woman who struggles to get out of an abusive relationship. Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, bought the rights to adapt Colleen Hoover’s novel of the same name for the screen. Baldoni was best known for his role as Rafael on the CW’s Jane The Virgin, but had also developed a brand as an advocate for women, primarily through his Man Enough podcast.
Lively on the other hand, was already a household name after years on Gossip Girl, appearances in several hit movies, and, of course, as one half of a Hollywood power couple with Ryan Reynolds. When she signed on to star in It Ends With Us last year, there didn’t seem to be any cause for alarm—just a meeting of the minds to make a summer movie (with a dark twist). But the first sign of trouble came during filming last year, when the two stars were spotted in a heated exchange that was leaked online.
What happened between the pair wouldn’t be made public for months, but the internet erupted when the press tour began over the summer and none of the cast appeared alongside Baldoni. Many had also unfollowed him on Instagram.
It set off a barrage of speculation about a potential feud, but the stars wouldn’t comment. Baldoni continued the press tour, highlighting domestic violence awareness and portraying the film as a gift to survivors. Lively, on the other hand, made several “tone deaf” missteps in interviews to promote the film as she seemed to avoid the topic of domestic violence as she told fans to “grab your friends, wear your florals,” to see the film.
The Internet Turns on Lively—Hard
As clips of her press interviews made the rounds online, the internet narrative turned against her—and sleuths dug up old interviews to fan the flames. One clip in particular, a 2016 interview with entertainment journalist Kjersti Flaa that showed the star being less than friendly, seemed to really seal the deal. Around that same time, stories emerged from “sources” claiming she and Baldoni had clashed over creative differences on the movie—but also revealed that Lively felt criticized by his comments about her weight. It only stirred further speculation, and who was really in the wrong remained unclear.
By the end of the movie’s tour, Lively’s public perception was less than positive. The narrative of her as a “mean girl” reached Netflix’s special Torching 2024: A Roast of the Year, during which one comedian referred to her as a “c--t.” Just as the story was starting to fade from the public memory, Lively filed the lawsuit against Baldoni that rocked Hollywood.
What Lively Accuses Baldoni (and his producing partner) of
In that suit, Lively alleges that Baldoni and his producing partner Jamey Heath subjected her to “invasive, unwelcome, unprofessional and sexually inappropriate behavior.” This behavior included Heath “showing nude videos or images of women” to her and other employees. She also alleges Baldoni would burst into her dressing room without asking—including while she was breastfeeding, made disparaging comments about her weight to the film’s trainer, and “improvised physical intimacy” without her consent by taking a kiss scene too far. In addition to those claims, she said Baldoni initiated multiple “inappropriate” conversations about sex—like inquiring whether she and Reynolds “climax simultaneously during intercourse.”
The suit reveals that she raised these concerns about his behavior during production, prompting a meeting in which Baldoni had to agree to “demands” to stop the behaviors in order to continue with the film. Lively claims Baldoni then began the “smear” campaign to stop her from making his behavior during production public. In the suit, she provides subpoenaed text messages between Baldoni, his crisis PR manager Melissa Nathan (the same one Johnny Depp used in his battle with ex-wife Amber Heard), and his publicist, Jennifer Abel. These messages show Baldoni and his team expressing their glee at Lively’s social media downfall.
Baldoni Snaps Back: What He Says Really Happened
When the suit dropped and Lively participated in an investigation of her claims with The New York Times that published the following day, Baldoni received immediate backlash. He was dropped by his agent at WME, had a women’s advocate award rescinded, and Liz Plank, his only female host, left his Man Enough podcast. Social media users expressed remorse for turning on Lively online. Hollywood stars came out in support of her and shared their own experiences with being “smeared” for speaking out against male costars. But this week, Baldoni addressed several of Lively’s claims with his own “evidence,” in a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times for “uncritically advancing Lively’s unsubstantiated claims of sexual harassment against Heath and Baldoni.”
The “nude video” Lively refers to in her suit, Baldoni and his lawyer Bryan Freedman assert, was a home birth video that Heath received permission from his wife to show her, in preparation for the birth scene in the film. The suit features a still photo from that video, which is not sexual in nature. As for a kiss scene that Lively says in the suit that was without consent, Baldoni’s suit shows text messages between him and Lively that show her declining to meet with the film’s intimacy coordinator prior to filming, which according to the suit “put Baldoni in the awkward position of meeting with the intimacy coordinator alone and later relaying sex scene suggestions to Lively in the intimacy coordinator’s absence.”
As for the conversation about orgasms—Baldoni said it was in the context of discussing their characters’ orgasms while filming a sex scene. Baldoni claims in the suit that he was simply engaging in a conversation that Lively had started. “In response to a proposal from the intimacy coordinator that [Baldoni’s character] not orgasm after he satisfied [Lively’s] Lively remarked: ‘I’d be mortified if that happened to me,’ to which Baldoni, following Lively’s lead in what seemed like an attempt to connect and develop their characters, remarked that ‘those have been some of the most beautiful moments with [my wife] and I.’”
When it comes to the exchange Baldoni had with his trainer about Lively’s weight, the suit says Baldoni was “training for a physically demanding scene” in which his character would have to lift Lively’s. As Baldoni “suffers from back issues and has multiple bulging discs,” he asked the question “in good faith” to “ensure he could safely perform the lift without injury.”
He adds, “Unfortunately, the trainer relayed this information to Lively, who then informed Reynolds,” who Baldoni claims accused him of “fat shaming” his wife and also gave him an “inappropriate and humiliating berating” in front of their “celebrity friends.” Sources told TMZ Friday that Reynolds was “angry and stern” in confronting Baldoni, but the exchange didn’t equate to berating.
He even has an explanation for entering Lively’s trailer while she was breastfeeding: Baldoni provided texts that show “Lively invited Baldoni into her trailer (while pumping) to ‘work out their lines[.]’”
All the claims together show a he-said, she-said back and forth that often leaves the truth in the eye of the beholder, as several of the text message exchanges provided in both lawsuits are from the same conversations. Baldoni’s lawyer argues in the Times suit that the paper and Lively “cherry picked” messages from the exchanges, leaving out “emojis” and “preceding” messages that provide the “context.”
What Happens Next
As women in Hollywood have a long history of sharing stories about harassment by male colleagues, with career and reputation damage in the aftermath, Lively’s claims require a serious look at the evidence presented. Baldoni, the less famous and wealthy figure, is using the defense that Lively had been wielding her “power” in the industry to get her way creatively on the production and is doing the same to salvage her reputation. His lawyer referred to Lively and Reynolds as “two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites” in a statement to the Daily Beast.
The only thing that’s been proven without a shadow of a doubt is each party’s determination to clear their name. Baldoni’s lawyer told NBC News on Friday that he is planning to file another lawsuit against Lively herself “soon.” He also plans to release “every single text message between the two of them” so people can “make their determination based on receipts.”
