Journalists know that they can find themselves under fire at the drop of the hat. It happens all the time, especially to those covering the political world. However, The New York Times is standing behind its reporting after It Ends With Us‘ Justin Baldoni filed a lawsuit against the publication.
The lawsuit is in response to an article published on December 21, 2024, about Blake Lively and a complaint she filed with the California Civil Rights Department that accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation. The article featured text messages that showed that Baldoni’s team created a smear campaign against Lively, but Baldoni claims that pieces of conversations were omitted to help his It Ends With Us co-star create a “self-serving narrative.”
“The article’s central thesis, encapsulated in a defamatory headline designed to immediately mislead the reader, is that plaintiffs orchestrated a retaliatory public relations campaign against Lively for speaking out about sexual harassment — a premise that is categorically false and easily disproven,” the lawsuit said.
Baldoni also claims that all of this is an attempt by Lively to “reshape her public persona” following public failures. “Lively’s cynical abuse of sexual harassment allegations to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production was both strategic and manipulative,” the lawsuit continued. “Simultaneously, her public image suffered as a result of a series of high-profile blunders, which she tried to deflect by blaming Plaintiffs for the public’s prying interest into the foibles of an A-list celebrity. This is nothing but an excuse. Fame is a double-edged sword, but Lively’s tactics here are unconscionable.”
Despite being sued for $250 million, The Times isn’t backing down, releasing a statement that backs the original story. “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead,” the statement said. “Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It 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. To date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the other subjects of the article and their representatives have not pointed to a single error.”
And The Times isn’t the only place Lively is getting support from. Several celebrities have taken to social media to let her know that they’re in her corner, including Amber Heard and Bart Johnson. Even Lively’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-stars released a statement, calling out the “hypocrisy” of trying to silence a woman who claims to have dealt with harassment on the set of a movie about domestic violence.
“Throughout the filming of It Ends With Us, we saw her summon the courage to ask for a safe workplace for herself and colleagues on set, and we are appalled to read the evidence of a premeditated and vindictive effort that ensued to discredit her voice. Most upsetting is the unabashed exploitation of domestic violence survivors’ stories to silence a woman who asked for safety,” the statement read.
Lively’s attorneys have already responded to Baldoni’s latest move, telling CNN that “nothing in this lawsuit changes anything” about their client’s claims.
Published: Jan 2, 2025 08:28 am