Justin Baldoni has spoken out against the reported gag order that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are attempting to get against Baldoni’s lawyer, calling it nothing more than a scare tactic.
What did Baldoni say about the requested gag order?
Baldoni’s counsel and associates released a letter on Thursday (via THR) that explained why they released several videos from the set of It Ends With Us, calling them necessary to protect Baldoni against allegations of sexual harassment made by Lively. When it came to the gag order, the letter said that trying to invoke one was an “intimidation tactic,” and was outrageous.
“Having publicly made ruinous allegations that the Wayfarer Parties can prove are false, the Lively Parties now invoke attorney disciplinary rules as an intimidation tactic,” the letter states. “The Lively Parties’ desire to force the Wayfarer Parties to defend themselves privately against allegations made publicly is not a proper basis for a gag order. It is tactical gamesmanship, and it is outrageous.”
The gag order ask came from Lively’s team, and seeks to have Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, stop releasing things related to the case, as Baldoni’s team did with a batch of It Ends With Us videos this past week. The gag order ask accuses the legal team for Baldoni of continuing to try and smear Lively’s name in the press.
“All Justin wants to do,” according to the source, is “release videos and text messages to prove the allegations are false.” The source adds, it’s “unbelievable that Blake Lively would go on a takedown campaign against Justin and then immediately turn around and say she wants a gag order so that Justin can’t defend himself.”
Baldoni’s video alleges that Lively lied about complaint
The 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 dance 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.”
