Hollywood star Blake Lively has sued It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni, accusing him of “repeated sexual harassment” on set and a massive smear campaign after the film's release.
Lively filed the complaint, which is leading to a lawsuit, on Friday with the California Department of Human Rights, The Associated Press reports. Baldoni, his publisher and executives at Wayfarer, Baldoni's studio behind the 2024 movie, were all named as plaintiffs.
“I hope that my legal actions will help stop these retaliatory measures from harming those who speak out and protect those who may be victimized,” Lively said in a press release.
Baldoni, known for speaking out about “toxic masculinity” and supporting women, did not personally respond to the allegations. His legal team, however, has called them “completely false”.
Here's what we know about the controversy:
What was the movie It Ends With Us about?
The August 2024 drama is based on author Colleen Hoover's best-selling 2016 novel of the same name. The film is set in Boston, Massachusetts, following the story of flower artist Lily Bloom, played by Lively. Lily was raised by an abusive father who often beat her mother and ended up marrying neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, played by Baldoni.
When her first love, Atlas, played by Brandon Sklenar, re-enters her life, Lily begins to see Ryle's sarcastic side. Finally she finds the courage to leave the marriage, motivated by the need to protect her daughter and promise that the destruction will end with her.
Lively co-produced the film while Baldoni directed it. The video was met with mixed reviews with some critics criticizing the makers of domestic violence. However, it was a box office hit, grossing $351m worldwide and costing $25m to make. Other big Hollywood names in the movie include Jenny Slate and comedian Hasan Minhaj.
What happened on the set of this movie?
During the filming of the film from April 2023 to the beginning of 2024, Lively complained that Baldoni and Wayfarer CEO Jamey Heath violated physical boundaries and directed her sexually, inappropriately, according to the legal complaint, which was obtained by The New York Times.
According to the complaint, Lively complained about Baldoni before the shooting and said that he was against the sexual activity that he wanted to add and that he felt it was unnecessary.
Later, she said, Baldoni talked to her about her sex life, pressed her about her religious beliefs and called her a fitness instructor about her post-pregnancy weight gain behind her back. The actress gave birth to her fourth child in February 2023.
In November 2023, Lively approached Wayfarer, demanding that protections be placed on the film.
During a meeting with Baldoni, Heath and the other producers, they complained that Baldoni had engaged in unwanted kissing and discussed her sex life, revealing details of her experiences where she may not have received consent.
Heath, Lively says, showed her a video of his wife naked and watched the star in her trailer while she stripped. Both men, she added, entered her trailer unannounced while undressed, including while breastfeeding.
Wayfarer agreed that both men are not allowed to enter Lively's trailer and will not show or talk to Lively about nude videos or pictures of women or other sexual, masturbation or pornographic experiences. Baldoni was not allowed to exercise, ask about Lively's weight, press her on her religious beliefs or mention her late father. The studio also brought in a public relations coordinator to oversee Baldoni and Lively's show.
According to The New York Times, Lively later told people she worked with that the men's behavior had changed.
Why does Lively say she had a bad campaign?
However, Lively said in Friday's complaint that Baldoni and Wayfarer fired her after the film was released in a “high-profile and financial scheme” to damage her reputation in retaliation for speaking out. Wayfarer co-founder Steve Sarowitz was also named in the complaint.
The artist supported his complaint with thousands of pages of messages and emails between Baldoni and his team obtained through a subpoena, according to a New York Times report.
Lively said in the complaint that Baldoni hired the media to create stereotypes about her online and post articles against her. Mr Baldoni's group “created, planted, cultivated, and developed material designed to ensure Ms Lively's integrity”, the complaint read. “They took the same steps to strengthen Baldoni's credibility and prevent anything negative about him.”
According to communications attached to the complaint, Wayfarer and Baldoni hired Melissa Nathan, a public affairs manager with high-profile clients, including actor Johnny Depp and rapper Drake.
In the first conversation, Baldoni told Nathan that he wanted a stronger PR plan than the one he offered. “He wants to feel like he can be buried,” Jennifer Abel, Baldoni's publicist, later texted Nathan, according to documents in the legal complaint.
Later, the PR team agreed to use an “impossible” communication strategy that would work to “change the story” around Lively, portraying her as the harasser on set and portraying Baldoni as the victim. The team also worked to file articles that revealed Baldoni had engaged in inappropriate behavior on set, according to the documents.
Was Lively's reputation damaged in any way?
Lively was met with negative reviews online after the film's release although it is unclear how much of it was produced or inspired by outside forces. The advertising company that hired Lively released a report in August which concluded that she may have been a “cyberattack”.
The critics accused her of being “tone-deaf” because in several scenes, she wore flowery colors in line with her character's style in the film. Many also accused her of failing to support domestic violence in the campaign to watch the video.
Social media users also began posting stories suggesting that Lively had been rude or unkind in the past. In another instance, Norwegian entertainment journalist Kjersti Flaa re-uploaded a 2016 interview she did with Lively on YouTube. In the video, Lively shot down the reporter to comment on the child actress' hit. Flaa said that what he was doing was not part of a planned campaign.
What does Baldoni say about this argument?
Baldoni did not personally respond to the allegations. Bryan Freedman, a lawyer representing Wayfarer and its executives, has denied Lively's claims, saying they are “absolutely false, malicious and willful”.
Freedman said Lively threatened not to appear or promote the film if her demands were not met. Wayfarer added that it had hired a crisis manager to “deal with” what it called “a lot of demands and threats”.
Lively's complaint alleges that Baldoni played a major role in the campaign against her, promoting her group and placing social media models to use.
In some cases, however, documents reviewed by The New York Times also revealed that he complained about articles criticizing Lively. “How can we say otherwise that we are not doing this – it looks like we want to take him down,” he said in one statement.
Baldoni disappeared from several appearances during the telecast and was never photographed with Lively.
On Monday, the global non-profit Vital Voices, which focuses on empowering women, withdrew the December 9 award it presented to Baldoni for her work with women. Baldoni's podcast co-host Liz Plank also announced Tuesday that she is leaving her Man Enough show.
What are other stars saying?
After the release of the film, netizens quickly noticed that It Ends With Us, Colleen Hoover, was not following Baldoni on Instagram. In addition, in a statement posted on the social media site on Saturday, Hoover described Lively as “honest, kind, supportive, and patient”. He refrained from directly commenting on Baldoni's singing.
Co-star Sklenar defended Lively in an Instagram post, saying it was “upsetting to see the amount of negativity that's happening” to the women in the film, adding that the negative publicity was undermining the film's message.
America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn and Alexis Bledel who starred alongside Lively in the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants also supported her in a joint statement released on Instagram on Sunday.
“Throughout the filming of 'It Ends with Us', we saw him muster the courage to ask for a safe place for himself and his crew shortly after, and we are shocked to read the evidence of the preparation and revenge of what happened to humiliate him. The statement,” said the statement.