Justin Baldoni’s lawyer is speaking out again after Blake Lively filed a lawsuit accusing the It Ends With Us director and star of sexual harassment — and of launching a “social manipulation” campaign against her to “destroy” her reputation.
“TAG PR operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources,” Bryan Freedman said in a statement to Us Weekly. (TAG PR, also known as The Agency Group PR, was hired by Baldoni and is one of several firms named in the lawsuit.)
Freedman continued, “The standard scenario planning TAG PR drafted proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively’s own actions, interviews and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful, and responded organically to that which the media themselves picked up on.”
In the statement, Freedman claimed that the text exchanges between Baldoni and his PR team in the lawsuit were taken out of context.
“It’s ironic that the New York Times, through their effort to ‘uncover’ an insidious PR effort, played directly into the hands of Lively’s own dubious PR tactics by publishing leaked personal text exchanges that lack critical context — the very same tactics she’s accusing the firm of implementing,” Freedman concluded.
The lengthy court documents filed on Friday, December 20, were first published by The New York Times on Saturday, December 21. The docs reference “thousands of pages of text messages and emails” that Lively reportedly obtained through a subpoena — though Freedman now claims they were leaked. In response to that claim and Freedman’s newest statement, a member of Lively’s legal team tells Us: “The subpoena disclosed and referenced in the Complaint was served on Jonesworks LLC. The internal documents referred to in the Complaint were produced subject to that subpoena. We expect that further details regarding the subpoena process will be disclosed during discovery.”
One of the alleged text messages making headlines include a publicist working with the studio and Baldoni writing to a crisis management expert, “He wants to feel like she can be buried.”
The paperwork goes on to allege that “this plan went well beyond standard crisis PR,” claiming Baldoni’s team proposed a concept called “‘astroturfing,’ which has been defined as ‘the practice of publishing opinions or comments on the internet, in the media, etc. that appear to come from ordinary members of the public but actually come from a particular company or political group.’”
According to the docs, Baldoni “set the narrative for the social media campaign.” In one example, Baldoni appeared to use a social media post about Hailey Bieber “that had accused another female celebrity of bullying women.” Baldoni wrote in the text, “This is what we would need.”
Baldoni also mentioned Taylor Swift while messaging with his crisis management team, with a scenario planning document from Baldoni’s side seemingly stating, “Our team can also explore planting stories about the weaponization of feminism and how people like Taylor Swift, have been accused of utilizing these tactics to ‘bully’ into getting what they want.”
According to the docs, Lively experienced a series of inappropriate actions on set, from Baldoni allegedly adding sex scenes and nudity to the script to making crude comments to unwanted kisses in scenes between their two characters. As a result, Lively and several cast members opted to do press independently from Baldoni, in addition to unfollowing him on social media. Fans started to notice the rift around the August release date, which worried Baldoni.
When “nearly all cast members chose to appear in public separately from Mr. Baldoni given his on-set behavior,” per the docs, Baldoni allegedly “became concerned that the public would discover that “something is much bigger under the surface.”
He went on to allegedly alter his own social media strategy, too. “After the Film’s premiere, Mr. Baldoni changed his Instagram profile, cancelled lighthearted social media posts, and instructed his team to look for survivors reactions and support — all in an effort to quickly shift his own public narrative to focus solely on survivors and domestic violence organizations,” the docs state.
Following the lawsuit being filed, Freedman called Lively’s accusations “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious” in a statement to Us, claiming that Lively filed the lawsuit to “fix her negative reputation” and “rehash a narrative” about the film’s production.
Us reached out to Lively’s rep for comment but did not immediately hear back. In a statement to The New York Times regarding her lawsuit, Lively said, “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”
