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Justin Baldoni Claims Blake Lively Refused to Meet Intimacy Coordinator

It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni revealed a text Blake Lively allegedly sent him turning down an offer to meet with an intimacy coordinator before shooting started, In Touch can exclusively report.

In Touch obtained the alleged text message exchange that Justin submitted as part of his lawsuit against The New York Times. Blake, 37, filed a federal lawsuit against Justin, 40, accusing him of sexual harassment and retaliation.

The actress claimed the director spoke about his sex life on set and improvised unwanted kissing. In her lawsuit, Blake’s lawyer wrote, “Mr. Baldoni improvised physical intimacy that had not been rehearsed, choreographed, or discussed with Ms. Lively, with no intimacy coordinator involved.”

The actress’ lawyer added, “For instance, Mr. Baldoni discreetly bit and sucked on Ms. Lively’s lower lip during a scene in which he improvised numerous kisses on each take. Mr. Baldoni insisted on shooting the full scene over and over again, well beyond what would have been required on an ordinary set, and without advance notice or consent.”

Los Angeles Superior Court

Blake’s complaint continued, “On another occasion, Mr. Baldoni and Ms. Lively were filming a slow dance scene for a montage in which no sound was recorded. Mr. Baldoni chose to let the camera roll and have them perform the scene, but did not act in character as Ryle; instead, he spoke to Ms. Lively out of character as himself.”

Her suit added, “At one point, he leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, ‘it smells so good.’ None of this was remotely in character, or based on any dialogue in the script, and nothing needed to be said because, again, there was no sound — Mr. Baldoni was caressing [Blake] with his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with their roles.”

Justin Baldoni
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During a birthing scene, Blake claimed Justin pressured her to simulate full nudity, despite no mention of nudity for this scene in the script or her contract. Blake also said the set was not closed while she was “mostly nude.”

Blake said she complained about the issues on set. She said she made a list of demands before returning to work. She said Justin hired a crisis PR team to smear her in retaliation.

Justin denied the accusations. In his lawsuit against The New York Times, Justin’s lawyers accused the outlet and Blake of working together to present a one-sided narrative approved of by Blake.

The director and his producer Jamey Heath claimed the outlet cherry-picked text messages to smear him. The director denied he was inappropriate on set. Justin said the article published by The New York Times and Blake “intentionally exclude that Lively refused to meet with the intimacy coordinator to plan out the Film’s sex scenes.”

Blake Lively
Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

His lawyer added, “Baldoni, in turn, was forced to meet with the intimacy coordinator alone and relay any suggestions to Lively separately. Notwithstanding Baldoni’s reluctance, he and Lively would later sketch out the scenes together, absent the intimacy coordinator.” “As part of those creative discussions, Baldoni and Lively sought to personalize and develop their characters and, in doing so, engaged in conversation about their individual experiences,” his lawyer continued. “The Times, taking Lively’s [complaint] as true, characterizes this discussion as an inappropriate attempt by Baldoni to talk about his sex life–it was not. More still, Baldoni consistently acted at the direction of the intimacy coordinator. These baseless accusations do not constitute sexual harassment.”

Justin included an alleged text exchange with Blake. He wrote Blake, “Just hired intimacy coordinator who I LOVE. Will set you up to meet/ FT with her next week for intro.”

In Blake’s alleged text, she replied, “I feel good. I can meet her when we start 🙂 thank you though!”

Justin screenshotted his exchange with Blake and sent it to a female producer.

Blake
Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood

He told the producer, “Just wanted to tell you about this – seems she doesn’t want to meet intimacy coordinator until we start which may mess up the workflow, but I can still meet with her of course.”

The female producer replied, “That’s fine if she doesn’t want to meet her now. You’ll just have to walk her through what you and [the intimacy coordinator] are thinking.”

A spokesperson for The New York Times claimed, “Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported.”

The rep said the reporters had reviewed “thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and email that we quote accurately and at length in the article.” Justin has yet to respond to Blake’s lawsuit. Blake was not a named defendant in Justin’s lawsuit against The New York Times.

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