Justin Baldoni’s attorney is not playing around amid the legal battle between the actor and his co-star Blake Lively.
It all started when Lively, 37, filed a sexual harassment case against Baldoni, alleging that there was inappropriate behavior from the 40-year-old while he was on set with the former Gossip Girl Alum.
According to the complaint, the production staff and crew of It Ends with Us and Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds were apparently forced to hold a “meeting” to discuss Baldoni’s behavior toward Lively, resulting in the actress listing some protective measures while filming alongside him on set.
This included “no more improvising of kissing” and “no more personal, physical touching of, or sexual comments by, Mr. Baldoni or Mr. Heath to be tolerated by [Blake Lively] and/or any of her employees, as well as any female cast or crew without their express consent,” per the document.
Other requests included: “No more adding of sex scenes, oral sex or on camera climaxing by BL outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project,” all of which Baldoni and the filmmakers agreed to.
Lively also claimed in the filing that Baldoni subsequently participated in a “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” her reputation following the movie’s release.
However, just days later, Baldoni hit back with major claims of his own, starting with a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times for facilitating Lively’s claims without doing their due diligence and gathering all the facts before publishing the story.
According to the Independent, the claims the Times “relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self-serving narrative” and disregarded “an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives.”
The outlet was also accused of “cherry-picking” text messages out of context, giving the wrong impression to the public in order to defame him.
This is precisely the reason why his attorney appeared on NBC News last week to state that Baldoni will be releasing every text exchange between the pair to help give better context to the situation.
Speaking on behalf of the star, Bryan Freedman said: “We plan to release every single text message between the two of them,” in an interview on January 2. “We want the truth to be out there. We want the documents to be out there. We want people to make their determination based on receipts.”
Freedman, who filed the suit on his behalf, also told E! News in a statement last month that the newspaper “cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting of the revered publication by using doctored and manipulated texts and intentionally omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative.”
His attorney also added that his team would “unite to take down” the NYT, accusing the outlet of embracing “partial truths.”
In a counter-statement, the outlet hit back at the lawsuit, stating that they will defend themselves “vigorously.”
“We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit,” the NYT said in a statement posted on January 1. “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported.”
They continued: “It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”