After publicizing misconduct allegations over the filming of It Ends With Us, Blake Full of life has sued Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment and orchestrating a marketing campaign to smear her.
Full of life, in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in New York federal court docket, accuses Baldoni and his public relations staff of marshaling a classy, multi-tiered plan to undermine her fame in retaliation for talking up about sexual misconduct on the set of the movie. The criticism names Baldoni; his movie studio, Wayfarer and the general public relations representatives, Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, each of whom are alleged to have helped lead the trouble to undermine the actress.
In a press release, Full of life’s attorneys mentioned she was subjected to “additional retaliation and assaults” after she went public with misconduct allegations towards Baldoni and his public relations staff in a New York Occasions report. “Wayfarer and its associates have violated federal and California state regulation by retaliating towards her for reporting sexual harassment and office security issues,” she added. “Now, the defendants will reply for his or her conduct in federal court docket. Ms. Full of life has introduced this litigation in New York, the place a lot of the related actions described within the Criticism happened, however we reserve the proper to pursue additional motion in different venues and jurisdictions as acceptable underneath the regulation.”
Within the formal lawsuit, Full of life says she had already expressed issues earlier than It Ends With Us filming started relating to Baldoni allegedly improvising “bodily intimacy that had not been rehearsed, choreographed, or mentioned with Ms. Full of life, with no intimacy coordinator concerned.”
Full of life additionally claims that Baldoni tried so as to add in a graphic intercourse scene, with out her consent, which noticed her character orgasm on-camera. In keeping with the go well with, he defended the scene, saying, it needed the characters “to orgasm collectively on their marriage ceremony night time, which he mentioned was essential to him as a result of he and his associate climax concurrently throughout intercourse.” Full of life claims Baldoni proceeded to ask private particulars about her and husband, Ryan Reynolds, relationship.
Elsewhere in Tuesday’s go well with, Full of life accuses Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath of pressuring her to do issues for scenes she wasn’t snug with. For instance, Full of life alleges that on the day of filming the start scene, they pressured her to simulate full nudity for the scene, “regardless of no point out of nudity for this scene within the script, her contract, or in earlier artistic discussions.” Baldoni defended his reasoning, saying it’s “not regular” for girls to maintain their hospital robes on whereas giving start, Full of life claims. At one level, Full of life remembers Heath simply coming as much as her and displaying her and her assistant a video of his totally nude spouse giving start.
Full of life’s go well with claims there have been a number of inappropriate interactions she had with Baldoni and Heath, together with Baldoni suggesting to her throughout a automotive journey that he had beforehand engaged in sexual conduct with out consent. On the primary day of filming, she alleges that Baldoni and Heath additionally described their previous sexual relationships to her, in addition to mentioned their “earlier porn addictions.”
The go well with additionally alleged that Baldoni would usually confer with ladies on-set as “horny,” together with Full of life. The criticism states that one other castmember additionally filed a sexual harassment criticism in Could 2023 about Baldoni’s “gross” and “undesirable remark[s]” in the direction of her and others.
Full of life alleges that Heath and Baldoni additionally entered her hair and make-up trailer unannounced on a number of events, whereas she was getting dressed. On one event, Heath walked into her trailer “whereas she was topless and having physique make-up eliminated by make-up artists” to debate a matter. Although Full of life requested him to maintain his again turned, she observed that he stored looking at her instantly. When she known as him out, Full of life claims he simply brushed her off.
“Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath had been additionally continuously hugging and touching forged and crew. When Ms. Full of life or others prevented this touching, Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath would retaliate by changing into irritated, chilly, and uncollaborative. The outcome was an unwelcoming and mercurial atmosphere for Ms. Full of life, her workers, and others on set,” the criticism reads.
In keeping with the go well with, Full of life made a number of makes an attempt to boost issues relating to Baldoni and Heath’s alleged misconduct, nevertheless, the studies usually went uninvestigated. As soon as filming was set to renew in November 2023 following the writers and actors strikes, Full of life went to Wayfarer Studios with a letter, in search of safeguard on set previous to returning. They ended up holding an “all-hands, in-person” assembly with Full of life, Baldoni, Heath and different producers, the place Full of life was capable of categorical her issues and resulted in an inventory of provisions to guard forged and crew members, together with having an intimacy coordinator current always when Full of life as on set.
The lawsuit states that Wayfarer Studios agreed to the phrases, writing, “Wayfarer, Sony and Manufacturing respectfully acknowledge that [Ms. Lively] has issues relating to security, professionalism and office tradition. Though our perspective differs in lots of facets, making certain a protected atmosphere for all is paramount.”
When it got here to the promotion of It Ends With Us, the lawsuit claims that’s when issues took one other flip. The forged and crew had been additionally underneath a contractual obligation to advertise the movie as beforehand decided within the calls for, which they determined would focus “extra on Lily’s [Lively’s character] energy and resilience versus describing the movie as a narrative about home violence.” They had been additionally speculated to “keep away from speaking about this movie that makes it really feel unhappy or heavy [sic]—it’s a narrative of hope.”
Nonetheless, within the days main as much as the movie’s launch in August, the go well with accuses Baldoni of pivoting and beginning to deal with extra severe facets of the story. It alleges that Baldoni and his staff did so in an effort to elucidate why lots of the movie’s forged and crew unfollowed him on social media and refused to look with him in public. “To that finish, he and his staff used home violence ‘survivor content material’ to guard his public picture,” the lawsuit states.
Full of life alleged that this was additionally the beginning of a “social manipulation” marketing campaign launched by Baldoni and firm to allegedly “destroy” her fame. The lawsuit additionally consists of quite a few textual content exchanges between Baldoni, Nathan and Abel, together with about how the actor-director “needs to really feel like [Ms. Lively] may be buried,” to which Nathan replied, “We are able to’t write we are going to destroy her.”
Full of life is in search of a jury trial and compensation for “psychological ache and anguish and extreme and severe emotional misery.”
Bryan Freedman, who represents Baldoni and his public relations staff, beforehand denied all of Full of life’s allegations in her preliminary criticism filed on Dec. 20. On Tuesday, Freedman didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Full of life’s authorized motion was filed across the identical time Baldoni sued the Occasions for allegedly conspiring with Full of life’s public relations staff to advance an “unverified and self-serving narrative” whereas ignoring proof that contradicted her claims.