Blake Lively in huge financial hit as hair-range sales plunge by nearly 80 percent in new claims

Hollywood star Blake Lively claims sales of her hair range Blake Brown has slumped in the wake of an alleged smear campaign against her - which is all denied by Justin Baldoni's team

Hollywood actress Blake Lively claims the alleged smear campaign against her has seen sales of her hair range plunge.

The star says that retail sales of Blake Brown plummeted by up to 78 per cent as she was hit by a huge backlash.

Details of the financial hit comes as Lively sues It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni and several others tied to the romantic drama, alleging harassment and a co-ordinated campaign to attack her reputation for coming forward about her treatment on the set.

Lively’s lawsuit claims that Baldoni, the film’s production company Wayfarer Studios and others engaged in “a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others, from speaking out”.

The star said that the “financial harms….continue to the present”, according to her lawsuit.

It says of her hair range: “Based on internal sales projections, the sudden and unexpected negative media campaign launched against Ms. Lively depressed retail sales of Blake Brown products by 56-78 per cent.”

She also claims her drinks range was affected.

“Around the same time, the social media accounts for Ms. Lively’s brands- including Betty Buzz and Betty Booze were flooded by hateful comments, which began to echo through other social and traditional media outlets,” the lawsuit states.

It says comments included her being a “bully” or “mean girl”.

The court documents claim that the “emotional impact on Ms. Lively has been extreme” with her husband Ryan Reynolds and four children all affected.

“There are days when she has struggled to get out of bed, and she frequently chooses not to venture outside in public,” it claims. “While she has fought to maintain her personal life and business interests, behind closed doors she has suffered from grief, fear, trauma, and extreme anxiety.”

Baldoni’s lawyer vehemently deny her claims, saying all the social media hate is organic, and not instigated by them. He called the allegations “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.”

Baldoni in turn is suing The New York Times for libel for its story on her allegations, saying the newspaper and the star were the ones conducting a co-ordinated smear campaign. He is seeking at least £199 million.

The libel lawsuit says the newspaper “relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self-serving narrative, lifting it nearly verbatim while disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives. But the Times did not care.”

It adds that “If the Times truly reviewed the thousands of private communications it claimed to have obtained, its reporters would have seen incontrovertible evidence that it was Lively, not Plaintiffs, who engaged in a calculated smear campaign.”

The romantic drama It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel, was released in August, exceeding box office expectations with a 50 million dollar (£39 million) debut.

But the movie’s release was shrouded by speculation over discord between Lively and Baldoni. Baldoni took a backseat in promoting the film while Lively took centerstage along with Reynolds, who was on the press circuit for “Deadpool & Wolverine” at the same time.

Lively came to fame through the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and bolstered her stardom on the TV series Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2012.