Blake Lively Sued for Defamation by Crisis PR Firm Used by Justin Baldoni

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Blake Lively Sued for Defamation by Crisis PR Firm Used by Justin Baldoni

Blake Lively has been sued for defamation by a crisis management firm that was mentioned in the ongoing legal battle between Lively and Justin Baldoni.

What is Blake Lively being accused of?

Jed Wallace of Street Relations filed a lawsuit in Texas federal court on Tuesday in which he accused Lively of defaming him. Wallace’s company was mentioned in Lively’s original complaint against Baldoni, where she alleged that he created various artificial content on social media that attacked Lively and defended Baldoni.

Wallace is seeking at least $7 million in damages, and also asking for a court order confirming that he did not harass or try to engage in any retaliation against Lively. The move comes just a month after Lively filed a petition to have Wallace deposed in the ongoing case between her and Baldoni.

In Lively’s petition, she alleged that Wallace promoted content and built up an online base in conjunction with Baldoni’s public relations team to try and badmouth the actress while she and Baldoni were having a feud in the months after their movie, It Ends With Us, released.

Lively’s complaint alleges that Baldoni created a hostile work environment

All of this stems from a formal complaint that Lively made against Baldoni in December. In it, she states that things got so bad during the filming of It Ends With Us that an all-hands-on-deck meeting was called in response to her claims of a hostile work environment. During the meeting, Lively asked that Baldoni stop showing her nude videos or images of women, that he stop mentioning his pornography addiction to her, that Baldoni stops discussing sexual experiences in front of her, and that he also stop mentioning Lively’s weight.

The complaint also claims that an agreement was made between production company Wayfarer Studios and the cast, in which the promotion of the movie would focus “more on [Lively’s character’s] strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.” However, Lively claims that Baldoni would renege on that and instead spoke in interviews about the film’s serious story.

Lively also claimed that Baldoni and his PR manager, Melissa Nathan, discussed ways to start a social media campaign to harm her reputation. The filing by Lively includes 22 pages of texts between Baldoni’s publicist and Nathan, in which they discuss wanting to have Lively “buried.”