January 9 : The legal team of actor and director Justin Baldoni has suggested they will highlight what they describe as a ‘pattern of bullying’ by actress Blake Lively in their countersuit after she accused Baldoni’s team of launching ‘attacks’ following the lawsuit.
The dispute between Blake and Justin became the talk of town after she filed a complaint against her ‘It Ends with Us’ co-star and director alleging sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign, as per The Hollywood Reporter.
In the latest barb of allegations, Bryan Freedman, Justin Baldoni’s attorney — comment confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter, accused the actress of sending ‘grossly edited documents’ to the New York Times before filing her complaint.
“It is painfully ironic that Blake Lively is accusing Justin Baldoni of weaponizing the media when her own team orchestrated this vicious attack by sending the New York Times grossly edited documents prior to even filing the complaint, 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.”
Earlier, Blake Lively accused the Baldoni team of using the ‘blame the victim’ tactic to turn the situation in their favour while speaking to the People magazine.
Lively’s lawyer said, “This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation,'” read the statement from Lively’s lawyers. “As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer [Studios] 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 lawyer’s statement continues “A classic tactic to distract from allegations of this type of misconduct is to ‘blame the victim’ by suggesting that they invited the conduct, brought it on themselves, misunderstood the intentions, or even lied.”
Meanwhile, Baldoni’s legal team has asserted that Lively’s accusations were false and part of a tactic to rebuild her image, suggesting that her publicist, Leslie Sloane, orchestrated a smear campaign against Baldoni.
Justin Baldoni’s legal team is yet to file a countersuit against Blake Lively for her complaint.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni worked together in the film ‘It Ends With Us’.
