Originally appeared on E! Online
Several fellow celebrities are mentioned in Blake Lively's legal complaint against Justin Baldoni.
In the documents, filed with the California Civil Rights Department and obtained by E! News Dec. 21, the actress accuses her "It Ends With Us" director and costar of sexually harassing her on the set of their movie and then later working to try to destroy her reputation in retaliation after she raised her concerns about him to their production team.
Lively alleged in her filing that Baldoni and his publicist worked with a crisis PR expert to launch a "retaliation campaign" against her. The complaint includes copies of alleged text conversations from them in which they discuss tactics to suppress any negative reports about the director while reinforcing negative ones about the actress.
In one, Baldoni shared a person's unverified Aug. 4 social media post that alleges Hailey Bieber has a "history of bullying many women," telling his publicist, "This is what we would need."
READ Blake Lively's Legal Complaint Against Justin Baldoni Includes Alleged Texts About Smear Campaign
Ryan Reynolds, Lively's husband, is mentioned several times in her legal complaint.
Entertainment News
According to the filing, in January, he joined his wife at an "all-hands" meeting with Baldoni and their coproducers aimed at addressing "the hostile work environment." That meeting later led to the director's studio Wayfarer to issue a contractual rider that promised to implement more safeguards and also stated Lively was not to be retaliated against for raising her concerns.
The legal complaint also alleges that during production of "It Ends With Us," Baldoni "intrusively" asked Lively a question about her sex life with Reynolds after sharing an intimate anecdote about his and his partner's relationship while discussing a scene.
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Lively's legal complaint includes a document allegedly from Baldoni's PR team that lays out strategies on how to protect the director's reputation should the actress and her team "make her grievances public," and one section includes tactics to use if Reynolds came forward in her defense.
In addition to avoiding "direct engagement" if this happened, the document also notes that "as part of this, our team can also explore planting stories about the weaponization of feminism and how people in Lively’s circle like Taylor Swift, have been accused of utilizing these tactics to 'bully' into getting what they want."
In the same document, Baldoni’s PR crisis management team allegedly proposed that if Lively hinted at her "experience" working with him in the press, and a reporter reached out for comment and it was obvious she was indeed referring to the director, that "speculation can be turned to another one of the many people she’s had issues working with" in the past.
Three actors are named as examples — fellow "Gossip Girl" alum Leighton Meester, Anna Kendrick — who starred with Lively in "A Simple Favor" — and her "The Town" director and costar Ben Affleck.
E! has reached out for comment from Baldoni's PR team and all the celebs named in the complaint and has not heard back.
In his statement to The New York Times, Baldoni's lawyer Bryan Freedman called Lively's allegations a "desperate attempt to 'fix' her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film."
Freedman said Wayfarer Studios "made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film" due to alleged "multiple demands and threats" from Lively.
"What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise," he added, "just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals."
In her own statement to The New York Times, Lively said, "I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted."
