The controversy surrounding “It Ends with Us is just getting started.
It had all the trappings of a Hollywood hit. The A-list actress Blake Lively. Her co-star and director Justin Baldoni, the outspoken actor highly regarded as one of the industry’s fiercest defenders of women. Buzzy bestselling author Colleen Hoover’s first film adaptation.
When it was released in early August, a rift between Lively and Baldoni derailed the film’s press tour. Still, the film was a success for Sony Pictures and grossed $148 million at the box office.
The film’s gripping plot centers around florist Lily Blossom Bloom (Lively), who falls head over heels in love with a seemingly perfect neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni) and reconnects with her childhood sweetheart, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar). Below the surface, the film grapples with disturbing patterns of domestic abuse.
‘It Ends with Us’: The drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni explained
A complaint that surfaced Saturday shed new light on their feud, which Lively’s lawyers claim was a choreographed attempt by Baldoni to “destroy” the ‘Gossip Girl’ alum’s career and privately conceal abuse of his own.
Behind the scenes, fans speculated about an apparent rift between Lively and Baldoni, who avoided one another other during press junkets and appeared separately on red carpets.
The bombshell claims laid out in Lively’s complaint include allegations that Baldoni previously ignored sexual consent to his PR team writing in submitted text messages that they can “bury anyone.”
USA TODAY reached out to Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman, the high-powered entertainment lawyer, for comment.
Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively avoided each other on press tour
At the New York City premiere of “It Ends with Us” on Aug. 6, fans noticed there were no photos with the full cast.
Lively was pictured with her fellow A-lister and husband Ryan Reynolds (who joined the film’s press junket, Reynolds’ co-star and family friend Hugh Jackman, plus co-stars Jenny Slate and Sklenar.
Baldoni, though, raised eyebrows when he walked the red carpet without his co-stars, side-by-side with his wife, Emily Baldoni, and other friends and family.
According to People magazine, Baldoni also didn’t introduce the film ahead of the screening with Lively and Hoover, despite being the director and a star of the film. Three days later, the film was released in theaters on Aug. 9.
Blake Lively’s complaint claims Justin Baldoni schemed with PR team
Ahead of the film’s release, Baldoni hired a PR team, along with producer Jamey Heath, to counter Lively’s private allegations of harassment by engaging in a public spear campaign.
Lively claims that Baldoni engaged in predatory behavior, which was sexual in nature, writing in the complaint that she and other “It Ends with Us” cast and crew members “experienced invasive unwelcome, unprofessional and sexually inappropriate behavior.”
Baldoni hired crisis PR executive Melissa Nathan and her company The Agency Group to protect himself from Lively’s possible claims becoming public, and worked with experienced publicist Jennifer Abel, who is named in the complaint. The Agency Group is owned by Hybe America, which is part-owned by Scooter Braun, who has a long-running feud with Lively’s best friend Taylor Swift.
During the film’s release, criticism and backlash towards Lively online ramped up as content creators and other social media users criticized her behavior during the film’s promotion, arguing that she was focused on her personal brand in place of advocacy for domestic violence prevention. But Lively says this was hatched by a PR team hired by Baldoni.
“What the public did not know was that Mr. Baldoni and his team did so in an effort to explain why many of the film’s cast and crew had unfollowed Mr. Baldoni on social media and were not appearing with him in public,” the filing states.
In the complaint, filed with the California Civil Rights Department as a precursor to a lawsuit, her lawyers say that Lively and Reynolds “unfollowed Baldoni’s social media accounts” nearly a year before.
What is astroturfing? Complaint alleges that PR team engaged in ‘astrotufing’
The complaint alleges Nathan planned to plant stories to sway the public against Lively during the film’s promotion.
The filing alleges that Nathan proposed the process of “astroturfing” which was described in the filing 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.”
The complaint includes several alleged instances where Baldoni’s teams attempted to plant stories to “shift” the narrative in support of the actor. According to the filing, Abel and Nathan had a text exchange when Daily Mail published a story with the headline Is Blake Lively set to be CANCELLED? String of ‘hard to watch’ videos that have surfaced following ‘tone deaf’ Q&A to promote :It Ends With Us.“
“You really outdid yourself with this piece,” Abel said. Nathan responded, “That’s why you hired me right? I’m the best.”
The complaint also alleges Abel colluded with Sara Nathan, an editor-at-large at the New York Post to plant negative stories including one in Post-owned tabloid Page Six with the headline, “Blake Lively approved final cut of ‘It Ends with Us’ amid feud with co-star director Justin Baldoni.”
The filing claims Abel wrote “He wants to feel like she can be buried,” to which Melissa Nathan replied with a text message of her own: “You know we can bury anyone.”
In another instance in the filing, Baldoni texts Abel a social media post and thread that accused Hailey Bieber of bullying behavior and wrote: “This is what we would need.”
Justin Baldoni has long been considered a public advocate for women, marginalized communities
Baldoni has been considered one of Hollywood’s most public leading men to advocate for violence against women and the pervasive forms of masculinity that plagued the entertainment industry at the height of the #MeToo movement nearly a decade ago.
He co-hosts a Webby Award-nominated podcast “Man Enough” with writer Liz Plank which describes itself as “a safe environment for a range of perspectives” to candidly discuss masculinity.
His Instagram bio includes a note about domestic violence prevention, which reads: “If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Visit @nomoreorg for more information.”
The No More Foundation, a domestic and sexual violence prevention organization, was promoted by Baldoni during the film’s press tour.
Earlier this month, he accepted a 2024 Voices of Solidarity Award from Vital Voices, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending sexual and domestic violence based in Washington, D.C.
In an Instagram post about the event, Baldoni wrote that “my hope is that we can teach our boys, while they are still young, that vulnerability is strength, sensitivity is a super power, and empathy makes them powerful.”
“Being a boy and a man is amazing and nothing to apologize for. And to value all the beautiful and complicated parts of them that make them human,” Baldoni continued in his caption.
“I believe with all my heart that once our boys learn to be safe spaces for themselves, our world will finally be a safe space for everyone.”
Contributing: Edward Segarra
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Blake Lively accused Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment
