Blake Lively’s legal team has issued a letter motion for conference in Baldoni’s lawsuit [filed in the Southern District of New York]. This follows Justin Baldoni’s team releasing footage from behind the scenes of It Ends with Us. In the letter to the court, Lively’s team alleges that his attorney’s public statements “continue the campaign of retaliation.”
In that letter motion to Judge Lewis J. Liman filed Tuesday, Jan. 21, in the Southern District of New York and obtained by PEOPLE, Lively’s team claim that “virtually every day since” she first filed a sexual-harassment complaint against Baldoni on Dec. 20, 2024, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, “has given television interviews, appeared on podcasts, issued inflammatory written statements, and leaked information (including, remarkably, documents as banal as document preservation demands to third parties) to the Hollywood press and tabloid media.”
The new filing further alleges that Freedman’s statements “not only continue the campaign of retaliation that was the subject of Ms. Lively’s First Cease and Desist, but they contain numerous new false statements about Ms. Lively and others.”
The filing goes on to name the video release and Baldoni’s planned website that will allegedly showcase all of his correspondence with Lively as examples, adding, “As Ms. Lively’s counsel have attempted, repeatedly, to caution Mr. Freedman, federal litigation must be conducted in court and according to the relevant rules of professional conduct.”
“His conduct threatens to, and will, materially prejudice both the Lively Case and the Wayfarer Case by tainting the jury pool, because his statements are deliberately aimed at undermining the ‘character, credibility, [and] reputation’ of numerous relevant parties,” it alleges.
Lively sued Baldoni and his associates in December, making claims of sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign orchestrated by them. In that complaint, she claimed Baldoni exhibited “disturbing” and “unprofessional” behavior on the set of It Ends With Us that led to a “hostile work environment,” which he denies.
Her complaint claimed that behind closed doors she has “suffered from grief, fear, trauma, and extreme anxiety.”
Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times for alleged libel on Dec. 31, 2024, over its coverage of Lively’s complaint, claiming the publication used “‘cherry-picked’ and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead.”
He then sued Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist Leslie Sloane for $400 million, claiming extortion and defamation.
On Tuesday, Jan. 21, Freedman released a video, obtained by TMZ, in an effort to refute some of Lively’s claims made in her sexual-harassment complaint against her director-costar. The footage depicts Baldoni, 40, and Lively, 37, filming a dialogue-free scene in the hit 2024 movie, speaking out of character to joke about his nose and her spray tan.
The actress-producer’s lawyers said in a statement shared with PEOPLE that “every frame of the released footage corroborates, to the letter,” what Lively included in her lawsuit about that scene.
“Justin Baldoni and his lawyer may hope that this latest stunt will get ahead of the damaging evidence against him, but the video itself is damning,” reads the statement from Lively’s legal team. “The video shows Mr. Baldoni repeatedly leaning in toward Ms. Lively, attempting to kiss her, kissing her forehead, rubbing his face and mouth against her neck, flicking her lip with his thumb, caressing her, telling her how good she smells, and talking with her out of character. Every moment of this was improvised by Mr. Baldoni with no discussion or consent in advance, and no intimacy coordinator present.”
It continued, “Mr. Baldoni was not only Ms. Lively’s co-star, but the director, the head of studio and Ms. Lively’s boss. The video shows Ms. Lively leaning away and repeatedly asking for the characters to just talk. Any woman who has been inappropriately touched in the workplace will recognize Ms. Lively’s discomfort. They will recognize her attempts at levity to try to deflect the unwanted touching. No woman should have to take defensive measures to avoid being touched by their employer without their consent.”
Lively’s legal team’s statement went on to say that releasing the footage to the media “is another example of an unethical attempt to manipulate the public.”
“It is also a continuation of their harassment and retaliatory campaign. While they are focused on misleading media narratives, we are focused on the legal process. We are continuing our efforts to require Mr. Baldoni and his associates to answer in court, under oath, rather than through manufactured media stunts,” it concluded.
Baldoni’s team said in a statement, “The video from Bryan Freedman who has gone on record numerous times and told the public that Justin Baldoni and team has nothing to hide and this, once more proves this.”
“Justin and team have the right to defend themselves with the truth and this is what we will be continuing to show with the upcoming website containing all correspondence as well as relevant videos that quash her claims,” the statement added.
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