WME has fired Justin Baldoni after Blake Lively accused him of sexual harassment in a complaint filed on Friday. hollywood reporter Already learned.
The news comes hours after news broke that Lively was taking legal action against her. It all ends with us Co-starring and directing.
In the filing documents, simple favor The actress not only accused Baldoni and her colleagues at Wayfarer Studios of sexual harassment, but also accused them of a concerted effort to destroy her reputation. this jane the virgin The star’s attorney, Brian Friedman, hit back at the accusations, calling them “shameful,” “serious and completely false.”
Lively claims in the filing that things got so bad on set that meetings were held with Lively, Sony Pictures, Wayfarer Studios’ Baldoni and Jamie Heath, the film’s producers, the film’s publicist and more , to address some “inappropriate behavior” that happened on the set.
The actress and her team made a request to Baldoni and his team to restart filming after the actors went on strike. Some of the 30 demands include: “No more nude videos of women, including producers’ wives, shown to BL and/or its staff”; “No more mention of Mr. Baldoni or Mr. Heath to BL or other crew members.” Previous ‘porn addiction’ or BL lack of porn consumption”; “No longer describing one’s genitals to BL”; and “No more impromptu kissing.”
The complaint also stated that It all ends with us The cast and crew were contractually obligated to promote the film according to a predetermined marketing plan, which stipulated that they would “[f]Pay more attention to Lily [Lively’s character] strength and resilience, rather than describing the film as a story about domestic violence. The plan also states that they will “[a]Avoid talking about the movie making it sad or heavy [sic]——This is a story full of hope.
However, days before filming began, Baldoni’s attention turned to the film’s more serious domestic violence content. According to the documents, the actor-director and his team did this to explain why many of the film’s cast and crew unfollowed him on social media and did not appear in public with him. The document claimed that he and his team used domestic violence “survivor content” to protect his image.
“What the public also did not know was that this was the beginning of a multi-layered scheme that Mr. Baldoni and his team described as ‘social manipulation’ designed to ‘destroy’ Ms. Lively’s reputation,” the complaint reads. road. “The program is supported by virtually unlimited resources.”
in a statement new york times“I hope my legal action helps lift the lid on these sinister retaliatory tactics designed to harm those who publicly report misconduct and help protect others who may be targeted,” Lively said.
Baldoni’s attorney, Brian Friedman, issued a lengthy statement denying the allegations in the documents. “It is disgraceful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and absolutely false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and their representatives in yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her Public, live, and unedited interviews and journalism enable the Internet to generate its own views and opinions,” he began.
The statement continued: “These claims are completely false, outrageous, and intentionally obscene in order to publicly hurt and reshape the media narrative. As a result of the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during the production , including her, Wayfarer Studios decided to proactively hire a crisis manager ahead of the film’s marketing campaign to work with Jonesworks representatives hired by Stephanie Jones, who would not show up on set if her demands were not met. It was also discovered that Ms. Lively recruited her own representative, Leslie Sloan of Vision PR (who also represented Mr. Reynolds), to promote the film, which ultimately died during its release. Spread negative, completely fabricated, false stories to the media before the movie even begins marketing.
“Representatives from Wayfarer Studios have still not taken any proactive or retaliatory action, other than responding to media inquiries to ensure balanced and factual coverage and to monitor social activity,” the statement concluded. “What is conspicuously missing from these cherry-picked letters is evidence that , no proactive steps were taken with the media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize, which is standard operating procedure for public relations professionals.
Pamela McClintock contributed to this story.
