Blake Lively’s legal team has responded to the recently leaked It Ends With Us video, claiming the move itself proves just what they’ve said about Justin Baldoni the whole time.
What did Lively’s team say about the leaked video?
In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Lively’s attorneys said that the videos are nothing more than “manufactured media stunts” and that they show off exactly what they’ve been saying about Baldoni from the very start, calling the video “damning” and corroborating what Lively’s complaint alleged.
“Justin Baldoni and his lawyer may hope that this latest stunt will get ahead of the damaging evidence against him, but the video itself is damning,” said Lively’s attorneys. “Every frame of the released footage corroborates, to the letter, what Ms. Lively described in paragraph 48 of her complaint. The video shows Mr. Baldoni repeatedly leaning in toward Ms. Lively, attempting to kiss her, kissing her forehead, rubbing his face and mouth against her neck, flicking her lip with his thumb, caressing her, telling her how good she smells, and talking with her out of character. Every moment of this was improvised by Mr. Baldoni with no discussion or consent in advance, and no intimacy coordinator present.”
The new video came courtesy of Baldoni’s legal team, which released a selection of behind-the-scenes footage from the filming of It Ends With Us. In the footage, Baldoni and Lively can be seen dancing together for one of the film’s scenes.
In the video, the pair can also be heard talking, joking about whether or not they talk when dancing with their significant others, and also joking about how big Baldoni’s nose is. The reason the video is important, according to Baldoni’s legal team, is due to Blake Lively’s original complaints of sexual harassment against the filmmaker.
According to Lively’s complaint, during a scene in which the pair are slow dancing, Baldoni stopped acting in character and began commenting on Lively’s looks and smell in a way that was not in character and had nothing to do with the movie. According to Baldoni’s legal team, the video debunks those claims and allegedly refutes some of Lively’s claims. It’s unclear exactly how much of the video was released, however, and whether or not any more footage was captured that might show Baldoni doing what Lively claimed.
Lively’s complaint alleges that Baldoni created a hostile work environment
The lawsuit stems from a formal complaint that Blake Lively made against Baldoni last month. In it, she states that things got so bad during the filming of It Ends With Us that an all-hands-on-deck meeting was called in response to her claims of a hostile work environment. During the meeting, Lively asked that Baldoni stop showing her nude videos or images of women, that he stop mentioning his pornography addiction to her, that Baldoni stops discussing sexual experiences in front of her, and that he also stop mentioning Lively’s weight.
The complaint also claims that an agreement was made between production company Wayfarer Studios and the cast, in which the promotion of the movie would focus “more on [Lively’s character’s] strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.” However, Lively claims that Baldoni would renege on that and instead spoke in interviews about the film’s serious story.
Lively also claimed that Baldoni and his PR manager, Melissa Nathan, discussed ways to start a social media campaign to harm her reputation. The filing by Lively includes 22 pages of texts between Baldoni’s publicist and Nathan, in which they discuss wanting to have Lively “buried.”
