Blake Lively is suing her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni.
During the press tour for the movie adaption of Colleen Hoover‘s best-selling novel, there was a lot of speculation and reports that Blake, 37, and Justin, 40, were feuding since they didn’t do any interviews together, they didn’t pose for photos together at the premiere, and Blake didn’t share any public comments about working with Justin.
On Saturday (December 21), it was reported that Blake has filed a lawsuit against Justin after his alleged behavior on set caused her “severe emotional distress.”
Keep reading to find out more…According to TMZ, there was a meeting held during production to address Blake‘s claims and demands for working on the movie. There were several people in attendance, including Blake‘s husband Ryan Reynolds.
Some of the alleged demands that were addressed, according to the lawsuit, included “no more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake, no more mention of Baldoni’s alleged previous ‘pornography addiction,’ no more discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others, no further mentions of cast and crew’s genitalia, no more inquiries about Blake’s weight, and no further mention of Blake’s dead father.”
Other alleged demands included, “No more adding of sex scenes, oral sex or on camera climaxing by BL [Blake Lively] outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project.”
According to TMZ, the lawsuit states that Sony Pictures, who distributed the movie, approved Blake‘s requests. However, the actress claims in the lawsuit that Justin then took part in “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” her reputation soon after.
The suit claims that this campaign allegedly caused harm to Blake‘s business and caused her family “severe emotional distress.”
It was also reported that there was a major conflict over how the movie would be marketed, with Justin wanting the focus to be on domestic violence while Blake wanted a more positive pitch about her character’s resilience.
Justin‘s lawyer Bryan Freedman then hit back at Blake‘s lawsuit with the below statement shared to JustJared.com:
“It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions. These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media. Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film, to work alongside their own representative with Jonesworks employed by Stephanie Jones, due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met. It was also discovered that Ms. Lively enlisted her own representative, Leslie Sloan with Vision PR, who also represents Mr. Reynolds, to plant negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media, even prior to any marketing had commenced for the film, which was another reason why Wayfarer Studios made the decision to hire a crisis professional to commence internal scenario planning in the case they needed to address. The representatives of Wayfarer Studios still did nothing proactive nor retaliated, and only responded to incoming media inquiries to ensure balanced and factual reporting and monitored social activity. What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals.”
One of the movie’s stars recently addressed all of the rumored drama between the cast.
It Ends With Us is available for streaming on Netflix now.