Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have filed competing lawsuits that ramp up a battle over allegations of what happened on the set of their film, It Ends With Us.
Lively filed a lawsuit in New York against the actor and his publicity team on Tuesday, alleging sexual harassment on the set of the film and a scheme to “destroy” her reputation.
Baldoni, meanwhile, has filed a lawsuit against The New York Times, which first reported Lively’s legal complaint, accusing journalists of working with the actress to damage his reputation and ignoring evidence which contradicted her claims.
The newspaper has denied his allegations and said their original story was “meticulously and responsibly reported”.
Lively’s legal case includes many of the same accusations which appeared in her civil rights complaint, often a precursor to a lawsuit, which was filed in California in December.
She asks for compensatory damages, including “lost wages” and money for “mental pain and anguish”. She does not specify a monetary amount.
In his own lawsuit against The New York Times, first reported by Variety, Baldoni claims libel and fraud, He accuses journalists of working with the actress to “damage” his reputation, and not giving his team appropriate time to respond to a “bombshell story”.
Baloni’s lawsuit alleges that the Times relied on “‘cherry picked’ and altered communications “stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead”.
In a statement released to US media, the Times said its report was “based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article”.
It added that Baldoni had “not pointed to a single error”.
Baldoni was dropped by his talent agency after the claims were published in the newspaper. His lawsuit asks for a jury trial and damages of $250m (£199m).
The actor’s lawyer Bryan Freedman told CBS News that the newspaper “aided and abetted” a “smear campaign designed to revitalise Lively’s… floundering public image”.
Baldoni’s lawsuit includes many of the same text messages and communications listed by Lively, which she used to accuse his team of orchestrating a social media campaign to alter public opinion against her.
In her own lawsuit, Lively accuses Baldoni and his team of attacking her public image following a meeting to address “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour”.
In the meeting, she is said to have laid out 30 demands relating to alleged misconduct to ensure they could continue to produce the film, which included not describing genitalia on set and not adding any intimate scenes beyond the ones Lively had previously approved.
Lively’s legal team further accused Baldoni and his film studio Wayfarer of leading a “multi-tiered plan” to wreck her reputation, which included social media manipulation and using friendly journalists to further certain narratives.
Baldoni’s lawyers have previously told the BBC that the allegations made by Lively are “categorically false” and said they hired a crisis manager because Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.
BBC News has contacted representatives for Lively, Baldoni and The New York Times for further comment.
It Ends With Us was released last summer, and sees Lively play a woman in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Baldoni.
The film is based on a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover. The 45-year-old author has said her inspiration was the domestic abuse endured by her mother.
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