Blake Lively Team Shrugs Off Defamation Suit Over Alleged Smear Campaign Planner

Hours after Jed Wallace launched a $7 million defamation lawsuit against Blake Lively today, the lawyer for the self-described “human crisis” navigator have admitted their action is in no small part a response to his likely addition to the It Ends With Us actress’ ongoing bitter battles with Justin Baldoni, his company, his backers and his publicists.

Which is not the first time a tit for tat strategy has been employed in this increasingly messy affair over the past almost two months.

The move Tuesday by Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ attorneys in the Hays County courts to drop their demand for Texas-based and Street Relations founder Wallace to give a deposition under oath about what he did and didn’t do in an alleged online smear campaign last year against the Gossip Girl vet was first reported by Deadline. It was fairly clear, from statements made by Lively lawyer Michael Gottlieb made in a New York February 3 hearing on his client’s NYE suit against Baldoni and Baldoni’s January 16 and since amended $400 million suit against his IEWU co-star, her Deadpool hubby and their publicist that Wallace was a very probable candidate to be formally included in the consolidated case.

Now, the Bryan Freedman and Melissa Nathan repped Wallace’s other attorney Chip Babcock has laid it all out on the table, for better and worse.

“Blake Lively made false statements to the press through a private administrative filing, claiming Mr. Wallace and Street Relations had sexually harassed her, retaliated against her, aided and abetted others who did the same, breached a contract with her and engaged in other improper conduct,” the Texas-based Jackson Walker, LLP partner said for his client in a statement Wednesday. “Mr. Wallace, who is a very private person, has never met or spoken to Ms. Lively. Ever. He has not engaged in a smear campaign against her at any point in time. The decision to file this lawsuit to rightfully protect himself and his family was made after Ms. Lively not only filed against him first in Texas but, indicated she intended to name him in yet another lawsuit.”

Named in Lively’s December 20 sexual harassment and retaliation complaint to California’s Civil Rights Department that put this high-profile and multi-pronged matter in the public sphere, Wallace was not a part of Lively’s initial December 31 lawsuit against Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, Crisis PR boss Nathan and publicist Jennifer Abel. Though that prelude to a lawsuit does name Wallace, his presence is obviously only in relation to the retaliation Lively says she  experienced. In no way is Wallace linked to the harassment Lively says she was subjected to during the IEWU production, nor to any breach of contract – so he doeth protest a bit much here.

With all that, the whole conflict is set to start trial on March 9, 2026.

No amended complaint from Lively/Reynolds has been put in the court docket yet, but I hear it is only a question of when in terms of days, not if.

Wallace is clearly close to Nathan and Freedman on some level, even if he wasn’t actually hired by the former in orchestrating the alleged astroturfing attack that Lively has claimed he was active in and that she was subjected to in the lead up to box office hit IEWU’s August 2024 premiere. It does seem the self-described “hired gun” online subcontractor seems to be the “Jed” mentioned or implied in several text messages about online attacks on Lively between Nathan, Abel and their crew last year — but maybe he’s incredibly not.

Regardless, in his complaint filed today, Wallace says Lively’s spotlight has cost him serious cash because his name coming up in a number of posts, broadcasts and publications (like Elle) in connection — falsely he says – with Lively and Baldoni’s mutual scorched Earth war in the courts and the court of public opinion. The media storm has caused “millions of dollars in reputational harm with a projected loss to his company that exceeds another million,” Wallace’s filing says.

For Lively’s side, as one would expect in a tit for tat scenario, this is all more of the same in a situation that has seen Baldoni and his entourage insist they are the ones who have suffered a smear campaign and career crash and burn at the hand of the powerful Ladypool couple.

“Another day, another state, another nine-figure lawsuit seeking to sue Ms. Lively ‘into oblivion’ for speaking out against sexual harassment and retaliation,”attorneys at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and  Willkie Farr & Gallagher firms said in a statement of their own. “This is not just a publicity stunt—it is transparent retaliation in response to allegations contained within a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint that Ms. Lively filed with the California Civil Rights Department. While this lawsuit will be dismissed, we are pleased that Mr. Wallace has finally emerged from the shadows, and that he too will be held accountable in federal court.”

There is almost nothing the parties in this agree on. For example: documents filed on Tuesday by both sides estimated next year’s trial could take anywhere from two weeks, according to Liveley’s team, to a month and a half, according to Baldoni’s side