Blake Lively has declared legal war on her former "It Ends with Us" costar/director Justin Baldoni, laying out her allegations of sexual harassment and what she claims is a coordinated effort to destroy her reputation, but Baldoni's team has fired back calling the allegations a false attempt to rehab her reputation.
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00:00This is unbelievable, and not just about what Blake Lively is alleging against Justin Baldoni,
00:07but what publicists and crisis managers have done to essentially tarnish her reputation
00:16all over town, in some cases with lies.
00:19Yeah, that's the most shocking part.
00:21It is, to me, the most shocking part.
00:23But we're going to start with Blake Lively.
00:25So, Blake Lively, you know where she was doing the movie, It Ends With Us, and there was
00:32a huge rift between Blake and Justin Baldoni.
00:36So we know that.
00:38Blake was getting just trashed on social media especially, but really all over the place
00:43because they said she was difficult to work with, she was lying about things that Justin
00:48had allegedly done, and Blake sued over the weekend, and she filed this lawsuit alleging
00:56sexual harassment against Justin Baldoni, but it went even beyond sexual harassment,
01:04and she outlined a lot of things she says he did while they were filming this movie,
01:11and then she gets into something we're going to get into, what the publicist crisis managers
01:16were doing to lie about her and create a narrative that would just trash her.
01:22Yeah, I mean when all of that was going on online, it was shocking.
01:25I mean, Blake Lively has been pretty beloved, and all of a sudden there was this hate train,
01:29and it was like, where did it come from?
01:31As you read through this complaint, it was clear, oh, a lot of this was generated, and
01:36all it took it seems was some money to do it.
01:39That's right, that's right.
01:40Now here's what Blake is alleging.
01:41She is saying, among many other things, that there was an HR meeting, a human resources
01:51meeting during filming because Blake was so upset about things, and Justin was there.
01:57As a matter of fact, Ryan Reynolds, her husband was there, and what she was saying was she
02:03wanted the following demands.
02:05No more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake that she says Justin and others
02:11were doing just for kicks.
02:13No more mention of Baldoni's alleged previous pornography addiction.
02:17No discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others.
02:22No further mention of cast and crew's genitalia.
02:26No more inquiries about Blake's weight, and no further mention of Blake's dead father.
02:33I mean, this was all out in the open with this huge HR meeting, and Justin apparently
02:41said point taken.
02:42Yeah, I mean, the fact that you even have to ask those things is really shocking, and
02:47she basically said, you know, they had to pause on filming due to the strikes, and she
02:50said, I'm not even going to come back to set unless you meet these demands, which are very
02:54normal demands, and they shouldn't have been happening anyways.
02:57Right.
02:59So she's alleged all that, and also in this lawsuit, there is this unbelievably orchestrated
03:08attempt to trash her by his crisis managers.
03:13They're publicists who specialize in crisis management.
03:17So there's a crisis manager named Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, and the two of them
03:24work together, and here are, just here's an example of what they said.
03:30This is Jennifer Abel saying, he, meaning Justin, wants to feel like she can be buried,
03:36and Melissa Nathan responds, you know we can bury anyone, and she says, but I can't write
03:42that to him.
03:43So there is an attempt to trash Blake Lively, because they say they can do anything.
03:51And look, we do know that.
03:52I mean, we always talk about Hollywood fixers and these people who can do those things,
03:56and so we do kind of expect that level, but when you see it in writing, you are kind of
04:01shocked at how far people will go to take someone down.
04:05And she wrote and wrote and wrote, and all of these texts and emails were unearthed and
04:13put in this lawsuit, and there's mention of, we'll bury her like Haley Bieber.
04:19Yeah.
04:20That's just unbelievable, and then you've got to wonder, who did that to Haley Bieber?
04:25Exactly, and the fact that, you know, that came from Justin.
04:28He's looking at X, he sees a thread, and he says, you know, this is what we need to do.
04:32So clearly, you know, it shows he had motivation as well.
04:36So she had been in touch, Melissa Nathan, with various media outlets, including us,
04:44and they were taking glee in saying that they got websites here and there not to do
04:52stories about the HR complaints, and they were engineering all of this when there really
04:57was an HR complaint, when there really was an HR meeting.
05:02And all of this got unearthed, and it is just the underbelly of Hollywood that just came
05:08to the surface.
05:09And to be so confident to be having these exchanges on a company, you know, phone, that
05:15was what was most shocking.
05:16I mean, I don't know if I would ever want someone who was a fixer who wasn't a little
05:19more discreet about it, but it's good that we had this, because we know, again, how far
05:23people are willing to go.
05:25This story is so crazy to me that he would be on set and just be talking to her so much
05:31that she, like, had a meeting with the HR to do all this and, like, still showed up
05:35to work.
05:36Like, she's a big actress, she's rich.
05:38I don't understand how, like, he could be talking about my dead dad and me being like,
05:42oh, let me still go to work the next day.
05:45Well, but what is the option?
05:46The option is quitting the film?
05:48Yeah.
05:49Is that really on her to do?
05:50It's just, I don't know.
05:51I just don't understand how she could have kept going.
05:54Like, it's so crazy.
05:55Well, but they ended up having a big meeting, and Justin backed off.
06:00Yeah.
06:01It is scary, though, to think, like, someone as big as Blake Lively, and she's saying those
06:05things are happening to her on set.
06:06If there's a lesser actress, I can't even imagine what could be happening to them.
06:11I really found it fascinating that Ryan Reynolds showed up at this HR meeting.
06:17I thought that was really interesting.
06:19I mean, I would, too.
06:20I mean, I would expect that, especially considering, you know, the allegations she was making.
06:23I would want my husband in the room to protect me.
06:26Hi.
06:27I'm Imani.
06:28I'm from Atlanta.
06:29And, honestly, reading those text messages and that lawsuit, it was giving its own Colleen
06:33Hoover novel.
06:35And I truly believe, like, as an employee, if you're going that far to sabotage, like,
06:38someone's reputation, like, I don't know, it just brings this very, like, audacious
06:43to me to do something like that.
06:44I was shocked.
06:45Yeah.
06:46I was actually really shocked.
06:47Not a lot shocks me.
06:49This lawsuit, when I read it, really, really stunned me.
06:53It was one of the most interesting complaints I've ever read.
06:55It was 80 pages, and, like, it was a Colleen Hoover novel in itself.
06:59It really, honest to God.