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For the last week, there has been a bunch of talk and analysis of the 80-page complaint Blake Lively filed against Wayfarer Studios and It Ends With Us’ director Justin Baldoni. Overall, the complaint wants damages for a myriad of reasons, with two big ones being sexual harassment and retaliation. Today, we’re focusing on the retaliation aspect, the claims that the director and his team were astroturfing and led a smear campaign against Lively, and how Hailey Bieber’s name came up in all this.
In the complaint Lively filed against Baldoni’s company Wayfarer Studios, there were a bunch of text messages sent between the director and his PR team that were screenshotted or included. On page 8 of the complaint, which was fully published by NYT, a screenshot of Baldoni’s message is included that features an X thread that’s captioned “Hailey Bieber’s history of bullying many women not just Selena Gomez throughout the years.” After sending that, the Jane the Virgin actor wrote:
This is what we would need
In response, Jennifer Abel, a publicist working with Baldoni wrote:
Yes I literally just spoke to Melissa about this on the break about what we discussed last night for social and digital
She followed that up with a text noting that they should “focus on reddit, TikTok, IG.” The complaint continues to say that the texts said Lively “would be ‘destroy[ed]’ and ‘buried,’ and that:
Wayfarer and Mr. Baldoni directed Ms. Nathan and her team to actively engage in their retaliatory ‘social manipulation’ campaign.
Notably, the attention put on Hailey Beiber and her relationship with her husband’s ex, Selena Gomez, has been a point of online speculation and criticism for years. That is what these texts were referencing.
The texts referring to Bieber came after Melissa Nathan, a crisis PR specialist for The Agency Group, had texted Abel saying “You know we can bury anyone but I can’t write that to him. I will, I’ll be very tough.”
These leaked text messages also included other big names, like Taylor Swift, and detailed the alleged plan in place to make Lively look bad during the promotion of It Ends With Us.
After this complaint was filed, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, called the claims “false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt.” Meanwhile, many celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Feig and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants cast have voiced their support for Lively. Notably, the Gossip Girl star’s It Ends With Us colleagues, including author Colleen Hoover and co-stars Brandon Sklenar and Jenny Slate have voiced their support for her as well.
On top of all that, Justin Baldoni’s ex-publicist filed a lawsuit against her ex-employee Jennifer Abel as well.
At the moment, we’re still waiting to see how things develop following the filing of this massive complaint. A litigator explained that the Civil Rights Department could get involved and that Lively has a case for economic damages.
As we learn more about how this legal situation develops, we’ll be sure to keep you posted.