Blake Lively has filed a lawsuit against her It Ends With Us costar Justin Baldoni accusing him of inappropriate behavior on the set of their film.
The Gossip Girl alum, 37, that Baldoni organized a smear campaign in an effort to ruin her reputation after the two clashed on set, according to TMZ. In the court documents obtained by the outlet, a staff meeting was held in order to address what Lively described as a hostile work environment. Her husband, Ryan Reynolds, was allegedly in attendance at the meeting as well.
In the lawsuit, Lively claimed the demands were addressed, including prohibiting Baldoni from showing her naked photos of other women, mentions of his sexual conquests in front of her and other employees, no more discussions of cast and crew’s genitalia, no talk of Baldoni’s alleged previous “pornography addiction,” no more mentions of Lively’s father, Ernie Lively, who died in 2021 and no more inquiries about Lively’s weight.
The documents also demanded “no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex or on camera climaxing by BL outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project,” according to the outlet. Furthermore, the lawsuit reportedly claimed that the studio was on board with Lively’s demands.
Ultimately, It Ends With Us didn’t perform well, partially because Baldoni and Lively were at odds on how the film should be marketed. Lively wanted to focus on her character’s resilience with a more upbeat marketing campaign while Baldoni thought there should be a spotlight on the domestic abuse that is a major plot point in the movie.
Lively claimed that because she and Baldoni were at odds, the former Jane the Virgin star attempted to “destroy” her reputation with a “social manipulation” campaign. A text from Baldoni’s publicist to the studio’s publicist included in the documents said that Baldoni “wants to feel like [Ms. Lively] can be buried” and “We can’t write we will destroy her.” The lawsuit claimed that Baldoni’s alleged smear campaign caused “severe emotional distress” for her and her family.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, fired back at Lively’s claims in the suit and said they were “false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt” and were created to “fix her negative reputation.” Freedman also claimed that Lively was hard to work with, “threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release.”
It was previously reported that Baldoni asked his trainer how much Lively weighed. While he claimed that it was because he had back problems and needed to know in order to keep himself from getting injured, the mom of four alleged that Baldoni was fat-shaming her.
Rumors of a feud between Baldoni and Lively began swirling after he was mysteriously absent from set photos and press events shortly before It Ends With Us was released on August 9. Social media users also pointed out that Lively, Colleen Hoover (who wrote the book the film is based on) and others had unfollowed Baldoni on Instagram, according to The Sun.
