Blake Lively wants to go through Justin Baldoni's phone, and she's now fired off a legal demand to get that done ... in hopes of finding a "smear campaign" smoking gun.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00Blake Lively wants to go through Justin Baldoni's phone for...
00:05Even though they're not married.
00:06Even though they're not married, they're not dating,
00:09and yet she still wants to go through his phone.
00:11Because she believes that there is evidence there.
00:14Evidence of the alleged smear campaign against her.
00:19This is part of her lawsuit.
00:20She's suing him for not only sexual harassment, but for...
00:24Retaliation.
00:24Retaliation.
00:25And I think that's the reason she says she wants to go through
00:29the cell phone to see if there are vindictive messages.
00:32Right, and I guess this started with the text messages that she already put in her lawsuit.
00:39The text messages between Justin's PR crisis team,
00:43where they said things like they were out to bury or destroy Blake's career.
00:49So she thinks there's more evidence there.
00:51So she has now subpoenaed three different cell phone carriers.
00:55AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
00:59And she wants to go back a long, long way.
01:01More than two years.
01:03So basically, since they started working on this movie together,
01:08and she wants the cell phone records not only for Justin,
01:11but his two publicists, Jennifer Abel, Melissa Nathan,
01:15the co-founder of his Wayfarer Studios, another crisis manager, and a producer.
01:21Can we just revisit this whole thing we talked about a couple of weeks ago?
01:24About this is feeling less and less like a legal case,
01:29and more like a PR case on both sides.
01:32That, yeah, I mean, maybe it shows that.
01:36But the reality is here that these are two people who ultimately didn't get along,
01:42disliked each other.
01:44The PR people did what PR people do.
01:47And they want to now let all of that stuff surface,
01:51which is, in some respects, the way Hollywood works.
01:55We know that.
01:56We know that.
01:57I would agree with you, unless there actually was sexual harassment.
02:01I want to separate that.
02:03Right, and I want to separate that part.
02:04But the phone thing, to me, is more about the retaliation part,
02:08which is more about the way Hollywood works.
02:10Yes, so this is what Blake's lawyer said about these subpoenas.
02:13They said,
02:22So Brian Friedman, Justin Baldoni's attorney,
02:30reacted, I think, to your point, exactly how you would expect him to react to these subpoenas.
02:35He said,
02:51Justin Baldoni's positioning in this case has been,
03:00I'm showing all of the receipts.
03:02So if Blake Lively's team says,
03:04I want to see all the receipts,
03:05I'm going to go on my own fishing expedition and look through all of the receipts,
03:09he can't really take that position with a straight face.
03:12His whole mode in this is, let's open it all up.
03:15You're right.
03:16Now the question, is that more of a legal thing or a PR thing?
03:19This case is a PR case at this point.
03:21But they're using the tools of litigation, which is fascinating to me,
03:24because subpoenas allow you to have the power to get these documents.
03:28So we're seeing litigation tools used for PR purposes.
03:30It's fascinating.
03:32All of which adds up to no trial, no trial.
03:36Samantha, Ohio, it's giving invasion of privacy.
03:39I don't even feel that comfortable going through my boyfriend's phone.
03:42So I don't know, at this point, Blake and Justin both just need to drop it,
03:47forget about it ends with us, and forget about Colleen Hoover.
03:50Can I tell you who really supports your position?
03:53Me.
03:54Your boyfriend.
03:55Your boyfriend.
03:55Your boyfriend.
03:56And lots of other people in here who were applauding when you said,
04:00you don't want to go through your boyfriend's phone.