Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are engaged in a legal battle stemming from their work on It Ends with Us. The situation began in earnest back in December, when actress and producer Lively filed a complaint against director and co-star Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment amid production and working with others to launch a smear campaign against her. Since then, lawsuits have been filed but, ahead of all that, a crisis manager discussed what typically goes on behind the scenes during PR-related situations like this one.
When the 37-year-old actress filed the complaint against 40-year-old Justin Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios, she included a number of text messages. Said texts published by the New York Times were communications shared amongst Baldoni, his rep, Jennifer Abel and his crisis team led by Melissa Nathan. The messages allegedly showed the group discussing ways to sway public opinion in Baldoni’s favor. In his lawsuit against the NYT, Baldoni argued that the texts were “cherry-picked and altered communications stripped of necessary context.”
Nevertheless, after seeing the messages included in the Age of Adaline alum’s complaint, an unnamed media broker weighed in. The person – who has reportedly utilized crisis firms before – spoke with Variety about the Baldoni/Lively situation weeks ago. While they noted one common element found within the way that Baldoni’s camp supposedly approached the matter, they also expressed surprise over another aspect of this:
It’s quite common for crisis people to be reactive, to monitor and respond to situations. But to stage this entire campaign? To put this in writing?
All in all, it would seem that the means of correspondence is what has this person surprised. To that point., Melissa Nathan was noted as saying that their methods of supposedly changing the narrative would be “untraceable.” While speaking to the trade, the unnamed insider shared more sentiments, as they also said the following:
Fix-it shops usually employ some cyber warriors who come in to manage chatter, but it’s an unwritten code that you will not hire companies or social media agitators to go out and script a new narrative.
Within the messages about the purported smear campaign were mentions of a few celebrities, including singer and songwriter Taylor Swift, a friend of Blake Lively. Swift was mentioned in a leaked email that put emphasis on the severity of Justin Baldoni’s situation. A crisis official even said, “we have seen the most innocuous issues turn giant due to socials or the hugest crises have no effect on social whatsoever. You just cannot tell at this stage. But, BL does have some of the same TS fanbase so we will be taking it extremely seriously.” Hailey Bieber’s name also came up, as Baldoni’s team supposedly referenced a thread involving her as a means of formulating strategies.
This legal situation has expanded past the complaint and the text messages included. Now in the mix is Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit against NYT, in which he’s seeking $250 million for alleged libel, false light invasion of privacy and more. Blake Lively, who responded to the suit, also formally filed against Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and others for alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and more. How the texts shared amongst Baldoni’s team continue to factor into the matter remains to be seen.