A former publicist for actor Justin Baldoni alleges that his present publicity group conspired to hurt her and steal her shoppers, along side their efforts to allegedly launch a “smear marketing campaign” towards his “It Ends With Us” co-star, Blake Lively.
In a lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court on Tuesday, Stephanie Jones and her company Jonesworks accuse Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel of breach of contract, claiming she violated her employment phrases by organising a competing agency and stealing paperwork and shoppers out from below Jones. It additionally accuses Abel of defamation, in response to a duplicate of the swimsuit.
Jones’ swimsuit, which was first reported by The New York Times, comes days after a separate criticism filed by Lively with the California Civil Rights Department towards a few of the similar defendants, alleging Baldoni sexually harassed her on set after which engaged in a retaliatory marketing campaign facilitated by Abel and disaster communications consultant Melissa Nathan. Nathan can also be named as a defendant in Jones’ criticism, together with Baldoni and his firm, Wayfarer Studios.
Lively’s allegations have despatched shock waves throughout the trade. Her criticism has additionally put the function that disaster PR companies play within the highlight, with many on-line reexamining a few of the detrimental headlines surrounding Lively through the promotional tour for “It Ends With Us.”
Jones represented Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios from 2017 to August of this yr. Abel labored for Jonesworks from 2020 to August. Several of Abel’s textual content messages and emails, which the swimsuit stated have been obtained through a subpoena of Jonesworks, have been cited closely in Lively’s criticism.
The movie “It Ends With Us,” an adaptation of the favored Colleen Hoover novel, was launched in theaters in August. Lively portrays heroine Lily Bloom, whereas Baldoni performs her abusive romantic companion, Ryle Kincaid. Baldoni additionally tailored and directed the undertaking.
According to Jones’ swimsuit, in August Baldoni “started to worry that the elevated consideration being paid to him and the Film would trigger studies of allegations about his on-set misbehavior to come back out.” Nathan and Abel subsequently started “to formulate a no-holds-barred technique to discredit and suppress any potential revelations about Baldoni’s on-set conduct” with out Jones’ data or approval, the swimsuit alleges.
“Behind Jones’s again, they secretly coordinated with Baldoni and Wayfarer to implement an aggressive media smear marketing campaign towards Baldoni’s movie co-star, after which used the disaster as a possibility to drive a wedge between Jones and Baldoni, and to publicly pin blame for this smear marketing campaign on Jones — when Jones had no data or involvement in it,” the lawsuit states.
Abel and Nathan “leveraged their groups to create and perpetuate detrimental content material about Lively on social media platforms comparable to Reddit and TikTok,” in response to the swimsuit.
“At the identical time as Abel and Nathan have been working to guard Baldoni from detrimental press consideration, they have been actively working their media contacts to plant detrimental tales about Jones and Jonesworks,” Jones’ swimsuit states. They used “greater than a dozen faux social media accounts and darkish net accounts that defamed Jones and Jonesworks.”
Bryan Freedman, a lawyer representing Baldoni, Wayfarer, Abel and Nathan, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark about Jones’ swimsuit on Tuesday.
In a earlier response to Lively’s criticism, Freedman wrote that Nathan’s firm, The Agency Group PR, “operated as any disaster administration agency would when employed by a consumer experiencing threats by two extraordinarily highly effective individuals with limitless assets,” referring to Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds. Freedman additionally referred to Lively’s claims as “fully false, outrageous and deliberately salacious.”
In her swimsuit, Jones cited some textual content messages she stated she obtained from Abel’s work telephone after terminating Abel in August. Some of the texts Jones included in her personal swimsuit have been beforehand unpublished, together with one allegedly despatched by Abel that referred to as Baldoni “unlikeable and unrealistic as a number one man.”
“I can’t stand him. He’s so pompous. A males’s retreat throughout launch, is he loopy?!” one of many texts from Abel’s telephone stated. “He doesn’t want a retreat. He must be humbled.”
In the wake of on-set calls for from Lively asking Baldoni and Wayfarer CEO Jamey Heath to cease sure behaviors, together with coming into her trailer whereas she was in a state of undress and including unscripted sexual scenes into the movie, Jones alleged that she had initially deliberate to counter the rising media narrative round tensions between the celebs with “a optimistic press technique.”
Instead, Jones alleges that Abel and Nathan carried out “an aggressive media smear marketing campaign” towards her and Lively on the similar time on behalf of Baldoni and Wayfarer, amid their very own plans to ascertain a competing PR enterprise.
Jones’ “lawsuit seeks to lastly put a cease to their continued misconduct and to compensate Jones and Jonesworks for the injury Defendants’ conduct and scheme has inflicted,” it states. She is requesting a jury trial.
In the times since Lively’s criticism was filed, many in Hollywood — together with the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA and Sony Pictures Entertainment, the studio behind “It Ends With Us” — have issued their help for Lively.
Baldoni was dropped by his expertise company WME. He has not publicly addressed Lively’s criticism or Jones’ lawsuit.