What's New
The public relations crisis management team hired by Justin Baldoni has entered his feud with Blake Lively.
The actors starred in the summer box office hit It Ends With Us, which Baldoni also directed and Lively co-produced, but rumors of tensions between the two surfaced during the film's press tour in August.
Why It Matters
On Friday, Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni and Jamey Heath, the CEO of Wayfarer Studios who co-produced It Ends With Us.
Lively accused the pair of misconduct on set, including sexual harassment that was addressed in an all-hands meeting during production and resulted in a list of agreements between the parties.
"No more personal, physical touching of, or sexual comments by, Mr. Baldoni or Mr. Heath to be tolerated by [Lively] and/or any of her employees, as well as any female cast or crew without their express consent," read one agreement from the list.
Lively claimed in her lawsuit that following that meeting Baldoni then hired a PR team to launch a "smear campaign" against her.
What To Know
One of the companies Baldoni hired was TAG PR, also known as The Agency Group PR, and was named in Lively's lawsuit. Now Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, has spoken out on behalf of the PR firm.
What People Are Saying
"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.
Freedman added: "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."
Freedman also lashed out at alleged text messages between Baldoni and the PR gurus that were included in a New York Times article about the lawsuit. The article claimed Lively's legal team procured the messages through a subpoena, but Freedman claimed they were leaked.
One of the alleged text messages reportedly shows a publicist speaking about Baldoni and writing: "He wants to feel like she [Lively] can be buried."
"It's ironic that the New York Times, through their effort to 'uncover' an insidious PR effort, played directly into the hands of Lively's own dubious PR tactics by publishing leaked personal text exchanges that lack critical context—the very same tactics she's accusing the firm of implementing," Freedman said.
What Happens Next
Newsweek contacted Lively's representatives by email on Tuesday morning for comment.
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