January 07, 2025
Blake Lively's lawyers have dished out a classic tactic that Justin Baldoni’s team implemented to protect him.
On January 6, the legal team of the Hollywood actress released a statement to People, in which they explained that her “serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation are backed by concrete facts.”
“This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation,” as per the statement.
“As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer [Studios] and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set.”
On December 20, Lively filed a lawsuit against It Ends With Us co-star of sexual harassment and also running a smear campaign to tarnish her reputation.
Reflecting upon a reaction of Baldoni’s legal team against the charges, they continued, “And their response to the lawsuit has been to launch more attacks against Ms. Lively since her filing. Sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and in every industry.”
On December 31, Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against New York Times over publishing the Gossip Girl actress' complaint.
“A classic tactic to distract from allegations of this type of misconduct is to ‘blame the victim’ by suggesting that they invited the conduct, brought it on themselves, misunderstood the intentions, or even lied,” it concluded.