The actor and director Justin Baldoni plans to sue his co-star Blake Lively after she accused him of sexual harassment and launching a smear campaign against her, Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s attorney, told NBC.
While Freedman did not share any details about what the lawsuit will include, he said he was prepared to release a trove of text messages that he said would add the context needed to prove his client’s innocence.
“I am more than willing to take every single text message that exists out there, lay them out, put them on a website for the world to see, have them see the truth and determine the truth for themselves,” Freedman said in an interview that aired Friday.
Baldoni and Lively starred in the film It Ends with Us. On 20 December, Lively accused Baldoni, who also directed the film, his production company and his public relations team of creating a hostile work environment and leading a smear campaign against her. In the complaint, filed with California’s civil rights department, Lively accuses Baldoni of improper actions such as walking into her dressing room while she breastfed and commenting on her weight.
On 22 December, the Monday after Lively’s complaint was filed, the New York Times detailed the harassment Lively says she faced and the alleged effort by Baldoni and his team to discredit her. Baldoni quickly rejected the claims and on 31 December filed a $250m lawsuit against the New York Times for libel, accusing the paper of bending the knee to Lively and her A-list husband, Ryan Reynolds.
The same day, Lively filed a federal lawsuit against Baldoni, his production company and others, alleging harassment and “a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others, from speaking out”.
Despite the continuing messiness, Freedman said Baldoni never wanted to “do anything negative toward [Lively].
“Justin Baldoni, from the get-go, said: ‘I don’t wanna do anything negative toward her, I don’t wanna hurt her.’”
Freedman said: “I think there’s always some behavior that can make people uncomfortable. I don’t think anyone has the intention to do that. The question in this case is: does it rise to the level of sexual harassment?”
