With minutes to spare earlier than a court docket imposed deadline of midnight ET, legal professionals for Blake Lively have simply filed an amended criticism in opposition to Justin Baldoni within the Gossip Lady vet’s sexual harassment and smear marketing campaign motion on her It Ends With Us co-star and director.
With a blast radius that was already fairly giant legally and culturally, issues simply obtained an entire lot greater
Additionally, with a settlement nowhere in sight, mediation rejected by all sides, and contested telecomm subpoenas, this saga of alleged misconduct, cash, astroturfing and profession crash and burning now finds Full of life including a defamation declare and civil conspiracy in her 141-page FAC (First Amended Grievance) There are additionally two new however not sudden defendants in Disaster PR agency Avenue Relations and its founder Jed Wallace.
Maybe extra importantly, this time, in a criticism 48 pages longer than the New Year’s Eve complaint Lively first filed, there are different ladies cited. Different ladies that supposedly suffered by the hands and actions of Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios CEO Jamey Heath. People whose names are omitted of the doc now, however intend to be witnesses within the trial beginning subsequent 12 months in federal court docket in NYC.
In search of to see Baldoni’s personal amended criticism tossed out, Full of life’s amended criticism places new emphasis on the harassment and the retaliation that she detailed in earlier filings. It states:
The harmful local weather of threats, harassment, and intimidation fueled by the Defendants’ retaliation marketing campaign has required Ms. Full of life to change her private {and professional} life, and to take steps to guard harmless bystanders reasonably than exposing them to additional hurt. Thus, this Amended Grievance doesn’t consult with sure witnesses by identify, nor does it present display screen photographs of their textual content messages. Importantly, nevertheless, these witnesses have given Ms. Full of life permission to share the substance of their communications on this Amended Grievance as contained herein, and they’re going to testify and produce responsive paperwork within the discovery course of.
Naming distributor Sony’s Ange Gianetti as being conscious of the uneasy she and different probably corroborating ladies allegedly felt on IEWU, Livley’s new submitting goes on to say:
Extra importantly, the Defendants’ false narrative crumbles underneath the indeniable fact that Ms. Full of life was not alone in complaining about Mr. Baldoni and raised her considerations contemporaneously as they arose in 2023, not in reference to some imagined energy play for management of the Movie in 2024. The experiences of Ms. Full of life and others have been documented on the time they occurred beginning in Might of 2023. Importantly, and opposite to the complete narrative Defendants have invented, Mr. Baldoni acknowledged the complaints in writing on the time. He knew that girls apart from Ms. Full of life additionally have been uncomfortable and had complained about his habits.
Additionally, with many conferences, situations and reproduced textual content messages repeated from Full of life’s first court docket submitting on the finish of final 12 months (such because the obvious derailment of “the long-planned launch of her haircare line, Blake Brown” due to the alleged on-line smear marketing campaign) as we speak’s amended criticism seeks as an example the stakes in some very actual and probably horrifying methods:
The Defendants’ actions have created such a poisonous local weather of on-line vitriol in opposition to Ms. Full of life, her household, different members of the solid, and varied reality witnesses, that all the above have obtained disturbing threats. One reality witness identified to publicly help Ms. Full of life lately obtained a written risk indicating that the witness’s household could be sexually assaulted and killed except the witness agreed to “make a press release and provides the reality.” One of these local weather was the predictable, if not inevitable, results of the retaliatory marketing campaign launched by the Baldoni-Wayfarer events, each earlier than and after the litigation started.
Just like the January 31 FAC that Baldoni and crew filed in opposition to Full of life and Ryan Reynolds for defamation and extortion, changing their initial $400 million complaint of January 16, Tuesday’s paperwork from Full of life supplants her NYE swimsuit that adopted the December 20 filing in California’s Civil Rights department. In each Baldoni’s FAC and Full of life’s FAC new defendants have been added. It was the New York Times within the transfer by the Jane the Virgin actor, after suing them individually on December 31 for $250 million. Tonight, the Sisterhood of the Touring Pants actress introduced onboard Avenue Relations chief and alleged social media manipulator Wallace together with earlier defendants Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, its CEO and its moneyman, plus publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, and Nathan’s The Company Group.
The inclusion of Wallace and Avenue Relations was anticipated over the previous few weeks.
Nonetheless, with a desired protecting order in opposition to lead Crew Baldoni lawyer Bryan Freedman developing quick with Decide Lewis J. Liman in the case’s first actual hearing earlier this month, the defamation declare now takes on an much more pointed function – with the previous Megyn Kelly lawyer named very particularly. “The statements Wayfarer, Baldoni, and Heath, via their brokers, together with Bryan Freedman, revealed about Ms. Full of life are moderately understood to state and suggest that Ms. Full of life fabricated claims of harassment and filed false claims of harassment with the Civil Rights Division of the State of California and with this Courtroom,” the part on the defamation declare says.
After the FAC was put within the court docket docket simply earlier than Wednesday ET, Full of life’s principal attorneys Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb outlined for Deadline the place issues, are and the place they see this all going:
Ms. Full of life has filed an amended criticism as we speak that gives important extra proof and corroboration of her authentic claims. That proof consists of beforehand undisclosed communications involving Ms. Full of life, representatives of Sony and Wayfarer, and quite a few different witnesses. The criticism consists of important contemporaneous proof that Ms. Full of life was not alone in elevating allegations of on-set misconduct greater than a 12 months earlier than the Movie was edited; in addition to proof detailing the threats, harassment, and intimidation of not simply Ms. Full of life, however quite a few harmless bystanders which have adopted defendants’ retaliatory marketing campaign.
The amended criticism has additionally added a brand new declare for defamation based mostly on the repeated false statements the defendants have made about Ms. Full of life since she filed her authentic criticism, and provides Jed Wallace and his firm as defendants.
Over the subsequent a number of weeks, we are going to transfer to dismiss the completely meritless lawsuits introduced in opposition to Ms. Full of life and Mr. Reynolds, and we are going to transfer full pace forward with discovery that we count on will reveal stunning particulars in regards to the depth to which the Defendants have sunk of their never-ending efforts to “bury,” “spoil,” and “destroy” Ms. Full of life and her household.
(L-R) Justin Baldoni & Blake Full of life star in It Ends With Us
Sony
Representatives for Baldoni and the opposite defendants, Freedman and Sony didn’t reply to request for remark from Deadline on Full of life’s amended criticism. If any of them do, this put up will likely be up to date.
With greater than a 12 months to go earlier than the entire thing precise begins a trial on March 29, 2026, it is rather possible (like sure) that there will likely be many extra filings to come back. Future filings right here don’t even embody the opposite lawsuits orbiting what went on throughout manufacturing of IEWU and the retaliation Full of life alleges she was subjected to on-line final summer time by Baldoni’s publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel and self-described “employed gun” Wallace.
Full of life’s workforce lately pulled a deposition demanding submitting in Texas in opposition to Wallace as a prelude to placing his identify and that of his firm on this amended criticism. On February 5, the Texas-based Wallace sued Lively for $7 million as a result of he says his identify being in her CRD criticism and developing time and again within the matter has triggered “tens of millions of {dollars} in reputational hurt with a projected loss to his firm that exceeds one other million.”
Now, simply days after Full of life and Reynolds walked the purple carpet at 30 Rock and participated within the SNL50: The Anniversary Particular, Wallace has now been hauled into the massive present. A present that’s certain to get lots wilder earlier than subsequent 12 months’s trial begin dates comes round.
