The legal drama surrounding It Ends With Us continued to intensify over the weekend. On December 20, Blake Lively filed a legal complaint against Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director of the film, accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of the Netflix drama.
She also alleged that Baldoni had orchestrated a retaliatory smear campaign against her with the help of a crisis PR team.
The controversy deepened on Saturday when the Daily Mail reported that Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, planned to file a countersuit as soon as courts reopened on January 2.
This suit would involve Baldoni, his business partner and Wayfarer Studios CEO Jamey Heath, and publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, who were named in Lively’s complaint.
The countersuit would accuse Lively’s team, headed by publicist Leslie Sloane, of planting negative stories about Baldoni and the working conditions on It Ends With Us in the press.
While Freedman did not specify a timeline for filing the countersuit, he confirmed the plans to Deadline on Saturday. He promised that the countersuit would expose the “demonstrably false narrative” surrounding Baldoni.
“It is going to shock everyone who has been manipulated into believing a demonstrably false narrative,” Freedman stated.
In response, Sloane preemptively denied the accusations reported in the countersuit. She issued a statement to People magazine, asserting that she did not plant any stories about HR complaints on the set and claiming she had only been informed of such complaints by someone closely connected to Baldoni’s PR team.
“It’s clear that Mr. Baldoni and his Wayfarer Associates are suggesting that I originated press stories about HR complaints on set, which is false,” Sloane said.
The 80-page complaint, filed in California, included Lively’s allegations that Baldoni created a “hostile work environment” on set, particularly in scenes requiring physical intimacy and nudity.
Lively claims that Baldoni pressured her into performing more nudity than initially agreed upon and that when she voiced concerns, his team retaliated by launching a smear campaign on social media.
The complaint included text messages that appeared to show Baldoni coordinating with his PR team to undermine Lively’s credibility.
It Ends With Us, based on the bestselling novel by Colleen Hoover, follows Lively’s character, a young woman who faces physical and emotional abuse from her husband, played by Baldoni.
The film’s release in August was overshadowed by rumors of a feud between Lively and Baldoni, as well as negative social media attention directed at Lively.
Since filing the complaint, Lively has received support from industry peers, including her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-stars and director Paul Feig.
Meanwhile, Baldoni has been dropped by his agency, WME, and other industry figures are distancing themselves from the controversy.
On Tuesday, Baldoni’s former publicist, Stephanie Jones, filed a complaint in New York Supreme Court, accusing his PR team of undermining her in a coordinated effort to deflect blame for the alleged smear campaign against Lively.
