Justin Baldoni's Team Blasts Blake Lively amid $400 Million Lawsuit: 'We Have Received Death Threats'

Mar. 15, 2025

Blake Lively (left); Justin Baldoni (right).Photo:Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock; Christopher Peterson / SplashNews

Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock; Christopher Peterson / SplashNews

In the wake of Baldoni’s lawsuit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s PR firm Vision PR, Inc., filed on Jan. 16, in the Southern District of New York, his publicists Jennifer Abel andMelissa Nathantell PEOPLE in a statement that they’ve been " forced to answer this viciously selfish ongoing litigation littered with documented and provable lies in the midst of the tragedy impacting California where we reside." (Fires have been plaguingLos Angelesfor over a week, killing at least 24 and displacing thousands.)

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In a Dec. 20 complaint, Lively, 37, claimed herIt Ends with Uscostar and director Baldoni, 40, exhibited “disturbing" and “unprofessional” behavior on the set of the film that led to a “hostile work environment.” Lively’s complaint includes accusations that Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath entered her trailer “uninvited” while she was undressed or “vulnerable,” alleges Baldoni “suddenly” pressured her to “simulate full nudity” in a birth scene and “improvised physical intimacy that had not been rehearsed, choreographed or discussed with Ms. Lively, with no intimacy coordinator involved."

Her complaint claims that in the aftermath of the experience and the alleged smear campaign against her, Lively “has suffered from grief, fear, trauma, and extreme anxiety.”

Jamey Heath and Justin Baldoni attend theIt Ends with UsNew York premiere at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on Aug. 6, 2024 in New York City; Blake Lively attends theIt Ends with UsNew York premiere at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on Aug. 6, 2024 in New York City.Cindy Ord/Getty ; Gotham/WireImage

Cindy Ord/Getty ; Gotham/WireImage

Baldoni subsequentlysuedThe New York Timeson Dec. 31 alleging libel in response to its article. The suit alleges the newspaper used “‘cherry-picked’ and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead" in its article about Lively’s complaint. (The New York Timeshas defended its article as “meticulously and responsibly reported.")

Since then, Nathan and Abel claim in their statement that they’ve “received death threats, abhorrent abuse and vile anti-semitic slurs hurled at us due to her decision to use us as scapegoats for her own choices promoting her film in which she made millions of dollars.”

“With this filing, we lift our own curtain of what happens when the entitled weaponize power, fear and money to destroy, intimidate and bully those who get in their way,” concluded the statement.

In this latest lawsuit, attorneys for Baldoni are requesting $400 million dollars on behalf of Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath, Abel and Nathan. They’re suing on claims of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage.

source: people.com