A little over 10 days after dropping Justin Baldoni, his agency, WME, which also represents his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, has released a statement insisting the married stars didn’t pressure WME to drop Baldoni.
The clarification comes a day after Baldoni sued the New York Times, which reported on Lively’s legal complaint early on Dec. 21, for claims related to fraud, breach of contract and libel, saying the publication conspired with Lively’s team to advance an “unverified and self-serving narrative” using “cherry-picked and altered communications stripped of necessary context” and ignored evidence that contradicted her claims. Baldoni’s suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday.
The lawsuit alleges that Baldoni learned that Reynolds approached his WME agent at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere and demanded that the rep drop Baldoni.
“The wielding of power and influence became undeniable,” the lawsuit states. “Baldoni and Wayfarer grew increasingly fearful of what Lively and Reynolds were capable of, as their actions seemed aimed at destroying Baldoni’s career and personal life.”
Now WME says what Baldoni claims didn’t happen.
“In Baldoni’s filing there is a claim that Reynolds pressured Baldoni’s agent at the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ premiere. This is not true,” the agency said New Year’s Day in a statement. “Baldoni’s former representative was not at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere nor was there any pressure from Reynolds or Lively at any time to drop Baldoni as a client.”
Baldoni was swiftly dropped from WME on Dec. 21, just hours after news broke of Lively accusing him of sexual harassment in a legal complaint filed the day before.
On Tuesday Lively and Baldoni both filed lawsuits related to their ongoing legal battle around Lively’s claims that Baldoni sexually harassed her and that his PR team launched a campaign to undermine her reputation.
In addition to Baldoni’s suit against the Times, Lively sued Baldoni for sexual harassment and orchestrating the smear campaign, claiming her It Ends With Us co-star and director and his team put together the attack plan as retaliation for her speaking up about sexual misconduct on the set of the Sony-distributed movie based on the Colleen Hoover book of the same name.
Lively’s lawsuit, filed in New York federal court, comes 10 days after she made a legal complaint against Baldoni, alleging harassment and a coordinated effort by Baldoni’s team to destroy her reputation. The suit names Baldoni, his production company Wayfarer, which produced It Ends With Us, and public relations representatives Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, who are alleged to have helped lead the effort to go after Lively.
In her suit, Lively shares multiple claims of inappropriate interactions with Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath and others on set, including alleging that Baldoni tried to add in a graphic sex scene without her consent and asked about her and Reynolds’ sex life, that he and Heath pressured her to simulate full nudity for the scene of her character giving birth, that Baldoni made inappropriate comments toward her and in her presence and that Heath walked into her trailer “while she was topless and having body makeup removed by makeup artists” and kept staring at her despite her asking him to keep his back turned.
The lawsuit also states that Lively had expressed concerns before It Ends With Us filming began regarding Baldoni allegedly improvising “physical intimacy that had not been rehearsed, choreographed, or discussed with Ms. Lively, with no intimacy coordinator involved.”
And the suit states that Lively made several attempts to raise concerns about Baldoni and Heath’s alleged misconduct but the reports often went uninvestigated.
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