Actor Blake Lively recently caused a stir by filing a legal complaint against her It Ends With Us co-star, Justin Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment and attempting to launch a smear campaign against her on social media through leaked text messages. This has left many wondering how Blake got access to private conversations between Justin and his PR team. Also read: Justin Baldoni steps out ‘tensed’ and ‘no smiles’ with wife for first time after Blake Lively’s lawsuit
How did Blake got access to the texts
The text messages have been included in the complaint filed by Blake. The original complaint read, “Ms. Lively obtained the communications set forth in this Complaint through legal process, including a civil subpoena.” However, it did not reveal the source of these messages.
It is interesting to note that Justin was a Jonesworks client, and both founder Stephanie Jones and her in-house publicist Jen Abel worked on his PR and image control.
According to Variety, on August 21, Stephanie called Jen into her office and asked her to sign documents, asking her to submit the office phone. Apparently, Stephanie had discovered that Jen was looking to start her own firm.
Four months later, the contents of Jen’s phone were out in the open in a New York Times story and complaint filed by Blake against Justin, accusing him of starting a smear campaign against her.
The mystery angle
Legal observers are amused with the way Blake’s attorneys got Jen’s text messages, in which she and other members of Justin’s PR team talk about how to “bury” Blake.
Her lawyers said that she “obtained the communications set forth in this Complaint through legal process, including a civil subpoena”. On Monday, Blake’s lawyers said they obtained the messages via a subpoena to Jonesworks LLC.
However, Bryan Freedman, who represents Jen, Justin, crisis publicist Melissa Nathan, Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios and others involved in the case noted that none of his clients were subpoenaed over the matter.
“If all of the text messages were produced in that ‘subpoena,’ then Lively’s team knows the true facts of what actually happened and did not happen. The truth is completely different than what has been portrayed in the complaint and they know that,” Freedman said.
Meanwhile, Stephanie’s attorney countered that she is being made a “scapegoat” in the affair for having simply responded to a subpoena. “Desperate to shift attention away from their disgraceful sliming of Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni’s team is doubling down on their smears by going after someone who had nothing whatsoever to do with this ugly campaign,” said the attorney, Kristin Tahler.
About the case
In an almost 80-page complaint filed last week, actor Blake Lively, who is married to Ryan Reynolds, accused It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni of assault charges, including forcing unwanted kiss scenes on set and watching her naked. She also provided exhibits, including alleged text exchanges over email between Baldoni’s publicists, which Blake claims were part of a campaign to tarnish her reputation.
Recently, Baldoni’s lawyer reacted to the claims saying that the leaked texts used against him were taken “out of context”. In her sexual harassment complaint, Lively alleges a calculated smear campaign against her. The director’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, further criticized the Gossip Girl star for employing “dubious PR tactics.”
“TAG PR operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources,” Bryan Freedman said in a statement to Us Weekly, adding, “The standard scenario planning TAG PR drafted proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively’s own actions, interviews, and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful, and responded organically to that which the media themselves picked up on”.
