The actor and director Justin Baldoni plans to sue his co-star Blake Full of life after she accused him of sexual harassment and launching a smear marketing campaign towards her, Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s legal professional, instructed NBC.
Whereas Freedman didn’t share any particulars about what the lawsuit will embrace, he mentioned he was ready to launch a trove of textual content messages that he mentioned would add the context wanted to show his shopper’s innocence.
“I’m greater than prepared to take each single textual content message that exists on the market, lay them out, put them on an internet site for the world to see, have them see the reality and decide the reality for themselves,” Freedman mentioned in an interview that aired Friday.
Baldoni and Full of life starred within the movie It Ends with Us. On 20 December, Full of life accused Baldoni, who additionally directed the movie, his manufacturing firm and his public relations crew of making a hostile work surroundings and main a smear marketing campaign towards her. Within the grievance, filed with California’s civil rights division, Full of life accuses Baldoni of improper actions akin to strolling into her dressing room whereas she breastfed and commenting on her weight.
On 22 December, the Monday after Full of life’s grievance was filed, the New York Instances detailed the harassment Full of life says she confronted and the alleged effort by Baldoni and his crew to discredit her. Baldoni rapidly rejected the claims and on 31 December filed a $250m lawsuit towards the New York Instances for libel, accusing the paper of bending the knee to Full of life and her A-list husband, Ryan Reynolds.
The identical day, Full of life filed a federal lawsuit towards Baldoni, his manufacturing firm and others, alleging harassment and “a rigorously crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others, from talking out”.
Regardless of the persevering with messiness, Freedman mentioned Baldoni by no means needed to “do something damaging towards [Lively].
“Justin Baldoni, from the get-go, mentioned: ‘I don’t wanna do something damaging towards her, I don’t wanna harm her.’”
Freedman mentioned: “I believe there’s at all times some conduct that may make individuals uncomfortable. I don’t suppose anybody has the intention to try this. The query on this case is: does it rise to the extent of sexual harassment?”
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