‘Justin Baldoni’ is once again trying to clear his tainted name.
Last week, the actor was sued for sexual harassment by It End’s With Us co-star Blake Lively, who alleged that Baldoni caused Lively “severe emotional distress” as a result of his toxic behavior on the set of the film. Was done.
Such alleged behavior included “showing Blake nude videos or pictures of women” as well as discussion of Baldoni’s past “addiction to pornography” or “sexual conquests”.
Lively also believes that Baldoni is engaged in a smear campaign to “destroy” her reputation.
Regarding this “social manipulation” campaign, as alleged in Lively’s lawsuit, a lawyer for Baldoni has now released a new statement.
“TAG PR operates like any other crisis management firm,” Brian Friedman told Us Weekly, citing the company that hired Baldoni and which is one of several firms named. What happens when a client faces threats from two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources.” Lively’s legal papers.
“The standard scenario plan prepared by TAG PR proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively’s own actions, interviews and marketing distasteful during the promotional tour, and the media themselves reacted in kind.”
As part of her lawsuit, Lively shared text messages sent by members of Baldoni’s public relations team – all of which hinted at the aforementioned attempt to defame the actress.
In his statement, Friedman claimed that these text exchanges between Baldoni and his PR team were taken out of context in the lawsuit:
“It is ironic that The New York Times, through its attempt to ‘expose’ an insidious PR effort, played directly into the hands of Lively’s own questionable PR strategy by publishing leaked personal text exchanges that lack critical context. — the same strategy she is accusing the firm of implementing.”
Lively’s lengthy court documents were filed on Friday, December 20.
They were initially published by The New York Times last weekend and they refer to “thousands of pages of text messages and emails” that Lively allegedly obtained via a subpoena … although Friedman is now denying the claims. Let’s say they were leaked.
In response to that claim and Friedman’s latest message, a member of Lively’s legal team tells Us Weekly:
“The subpoena disclosed and referenced in the complaint was served on Jonesworks LLC. The internal documents cited in the complaint were subpoenaed under that subpoena.
“We expect that more information about the subpoena process will be disclosed during discovery.”
One of the alleged texts making headlines on the Internet includes Baldoni’s letter to a publicist working with the studio and a crisis management expert:
“He wants to feel like he can be buried.”
Claiming in the paperwork that “this plan went far beyond standard crisis PR,” Baldoni’s team proposed a concept called “astroturfing.”
It is defined as ‘the practice of publishing opinions or comments on the Internet, media, etc. that appear to come from general members of the public but actually come from a particular company or political group.’