Blake Lively faces a second defamation lawsuit after alleging she was sexually harassed while filming “It Ends With Us” and later targeted by a smear campaign led by co-star Justin Baldoni and his team.
Jed Wallace, the founder of crisis public relations firm Street Relations, lodged a complaint on Tuesday in a Texas federal district court against Lively.
Wallace allegedly suffered “millions of dollars in reputational harm” due to Lively’s well-publicized court dispute with Baldoni, who directed and starred in the film. Wallace is requesting damages of at least $7 million.
This new lawsuit is the latest in a series of lawsuits associated with the film. Lively and Baldoni both filed lawsuits against each other, which were consolidated into one case by U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman on Jan. 27.
In her initial complaint filed with the California Civil Rights Department against Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios, Lively referenced both Wallace and Street Relations as associates. Ultimately, she sued Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, in New York federal court at the end of last year.
The complaint alleged that Wallace and his firm participated in the orchestration of a smear campaign as part of a retaliation strategy aimed at discouraging Lively from voicing her concerns about on-set misconduct.
“Mr. Baldoni and his Wayfarer associates embarked on a sophisticated press and digital plan in retaliation for Ms. Lively exercising her legally protected right to speak up about their misconduct on the set, with the additional objective of intimidating her and anyone else from revealing in public what actually occurred.”
However, neither Wallace nor his firm are official defendants in her lawsuit against Baldoni. Wallace and his firm have since formally denied accusations in court documents, suggesting Lively’s team also intentionally suggested they were defendants.
“Wallace and Street were widely reported to be defendants in the Formal Lawsuit although they were not, the confusion having been sown by the Precursor.”
Lively’s lawsuit in New York alleges that Baldoni’s PR team recruited Wallace and Street Relations to design a digital campaign to manipulate public opinion against her and “eviscerate Ms. Lively’s credibility.”
“He weaponized a digital army around the country, including in New York and Los Angeles, to create, seed, manipulate, and advance disparaging content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums.”
Lively also filed a petition for deposition in Hays County, Texas, on Jan. 21, alleging that Wallace was a subcontractor for a PR firm Baldoni is accused of hiring to slander her. Lively eventually filed to dismiss the petition, which Wallace claims is because “she knew of no facts to support the allegations against Wallace or Street.”
Lively’s lawyers told ABC News that their client’s “federal litigation before the Southern District of New York involves serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation, backed by concrete facts.”
“This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation. As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set,” the statement continued, “While we go through the legal process, we urge everyone to remember that sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and in every industry.”
“A classic tactic to distract from allegations of this type of misconduct is to ‘blame the victim’ by suggesting that they invited the conduct, brought it on themselves, misunderstood the intentions, or even lied. Another classic tactic is to reverse the victim and offender, and suggest that the offender is actually the victim.”
Lively first came forward with sexual harassment allegations against Baldoni in an interview with The New York Times last December. Baldoni eventually sued Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, seeking $400 million for civil extortion, defamation, and invasion of privacy.
Baldoni also sued The New York Times for the article’s publication. Referring to the lawsuit against Lively, Baldoni’s Lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement shared with NPR, “This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media.”
“It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real-time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret.”
A representative from The New York Times called Baldoni’s complaints “meritless” and “recycled from equally baseless claims” found in the initial complaint against the publication.
The New York Times also told NPR in a statement that they stood by their story and plan to “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
“The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. 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.”
Lively’s legal team previously described Baldoni’s counter-lawsuit as “yet another chapter in the abuser playbook.”
“This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation, and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender,” the team said in a statement. “In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim. The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”
“They are trying to shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni. The evidence will show that the cast and others had their own negative experiences with Mr. Baldoni and Wayfarer. The evidence will also show that Sony asked Ms. Lively to oversee Sony’s cut of the film, which they then selected for distribution and was a resounding success.”
Lively and Baldoni’s trial date is set to be in March 2026.
Moumita Basuroychowdhury is a Contributing Reporter at The National Digest. After earning an economics degree at Cornell University, she moved to NYC to pursue her MFA in creative writing. She enjoys reporting on science, business and culture news. You can reach her at moumita.b@thenationaldigest.com.
