Hollywood can’t get enough of the ever escalating war of accusations, media bites and court filings in Blake Lively‘s sexual harassment and retaliation claims over what went down with Justin Baldoni on the set of It Ends With Us and leading up to the Sony-distributed film’s premiere last summer.
Now, with just a couple of days until the first actual hearing in the multi-pronged matter before an actual judge, Baldoni, crisis PR boss Melissa Nathan and attorney Bryan Freedman have made good on their long-boasted threat to put everything up online.
Kinda.
Despite promises of full transparency, the much-vaulted site merely contains the first amended complaint Baldoni’s team filed Friday in the January 16 $400 million defamation and extortion suit against Lively and Ryan Reynolds, and a text message-rich timeline of events in the IEWU saga.
To say it is underwhelming and blatantly one-sided is an understatement of the obvious.
Running from January 1, 2019 with Baldoni’s initial emails to IEWU author Colleen Hoover to a January 29, 2025 “deeper analysis” of metadata on when exactly the New York Times started working on their December 21 ‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine’ article on Baldoni, Nathan and publicist Jennifer Abel’s alleged efforts to taint Lively. At the top of the timeline document it says: The following timeline is intended to be read in conjunction with Consolidated Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint and is expressly incorporated therein by reference; this document provides a summarized account of the sequence of key events.
OK, but besides the metadata claims and a couple of gushing texts before IEWU started filming that appear to be between Reynolds and Baldoni, (“I’m excited for you to work together. I’m excited for Blake to crack open her creative piggy bank with someone as dynamic as you … I happen to adore you, Justin”) this is a classic case of don’t believe the hype — as there’s not a lot there here at the oddly titled thelawsuitinfo.com locale.
Having said that, on a site that reeks of 1995 in its online sophistication, both documents are downloadable.
In terms of sentiment, the new site, the timeline, and the amended complaint stick with the counter I-didn’t-smear-you-you-are-smearing-me messaging Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, Nathan, and Abel have been providing since Lively filed her sexual harassment and “astroturfing” retaliation complaint with California’s Civil Rights Department on December 20 and the detailed NYT story of a day later. Otherwise, what the site contains is precisely what Freedman submitted to the federal court on January 31.
Representatives for Lively and Reynolds, who sued Baldoni and gang on New Year’s Eve, and the New York Times, who Baldoni sued for $250 million at the end of 2024, did not respond to request for comment on this long-anticipated move by Freedman and the other Wayfarer party lawyers. If either spokespeople for the Gossip Girl alum and Deadpool star and the Gray Lady get back to us, this post will be updated.
Making the media rounds on Megyn Kelly and Chris Cuomo and with TMZ the past few weeks, plus an IMPACT x Nightline: Blake vs Justin docu that debuted on January 30 (full disclosure: I’m in the ABC News docu too), the media forward Freedman did have something to say this weekend as he prepares for court on February 3. “The decision to amend our lawsuit was a logical next step due to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light,” the rough and tumble lawyer said of the latest moves in the now consolidated cases of Baldoni suing Lively, Reynolds and their publicist Leslie Sloane and Lively suing Baldoni, his PR team, Wayfarer CEO and financier Steve Sarowitz.
“This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along, that due to purely egotistical reasons Ms. Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through a complex web of lies, false accusations and the manipulation of illicitly received communications,” Freedman adds. “The ongoing public interest in this case online has ironically shed light on the undeniable facts pertaining to The New York Times and how heavily Ms. Lively and her representatives were not only deeply involved in the attempted take down and smear campaign of Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and their teams but that they themselves initiated it”
Of course, among the topics that are on the agenda for Monday’s hearing in front of Judge Lewis J. Liman (yes Doug Liman’s older brother) are attempts by Lively and Reynold’s deep pocketed legal team to both discipline Freeman from more “extrajudicial statements” on the other side in the media and to stop him from taking the actress’ deposition in the case. Almost, needless to say, the Ladypool side also want Baldoni’s $400 million suit tossed out.
While the latter is unlikely next week, the dual issues of Freedman, who will be in the courtroom on February 3, may be the first items Judge Liman deals with.
Welcome to the show that seems to never end.
