Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds has taken to social media during the ongoing legal battle between his famous wife Blake Lively and her It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni
09:50, 23 Dec 2024Updated 09:55, 23 Dec 2024
Ryan Reynolds has taken to social media after his wife Blake Lively accused her co-star of sexual harassment.
Gossip Girl star Blake, 37, has filed a lawsuit against her It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni, 40, accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of the film. The actress alleges Baldoni and the studio behind the movie launched a smear campaign to damage her reputation - which Baldoni denies.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freeman, has called the allegations "false, outrageous and intentionally salacious." Baldoni's team have labelled Blake as "shameful" and accused her of a "false attempt" to restore her own image.
Ryan took to Instagram to promote a charity campaign taking place on December 24 in aid of the SickKids Foundation. The Hospital for Sick Children is a major pediatric teaching hospital in Toronto, Canada, which aims to improve the health and lives of children in the country.
The Deadpool star revealed that he and Lively are raising money for the charity and would match all donations up to $500k. On his Instagram Stories, he wrote: "Donate before midnight December 24th and Ryan and Blake will match all donations up to $500,000."
Ryan penned the caption: "This is our 8th YEAR doing the Ugly Sweater Campaign and this might be the best one yet. Only a couple of days left... Let's go."
According to the New York Times, Lively's complaint filed with the California Civil Rights Department named Baldoni, the studio and Baldoni's publicists as defendants. In the papers, Lively claims there was an attempt to damage her reputation after she and Ryan addressed "repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour" by Baldoni and a producer on the film.
The complaint reportedly alleged the plan included a proposal to plant theories on online message boards and place news stories critical of Lively. It claims Baldoni "abruptly pivoted away from" the film's marketing plan and "used domestic violence 'survivor content' to protect his public image".
According to TMZ, the lawsuit mentions a meeting held to address Lively's claims and her demands for working on the movie, attended by various figures including Reynolds. The outlet claims certain requests were met, such as no more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake.
It also claimed another condition was no more mention of Baldoni's alleged previous 'pornography addiction,' no more discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others, no further mentions of cast and crew's genitalia, no more inquiries about Blake's weight, and no further mention of Blake's dead father.
The legal documents also reportedly cited demands like 'no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex or on camera climaxing by BL outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project, allegedly agreed upon by the studio.
Bryan Freedman, a lawyer who represents Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios said in a statement: "It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions.
"These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media. Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film, to work alongside their own representative with Jonesworks employed by Stephanie Jones, due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met.
"It was also discovered that Ms. Lively enlisted her own representative, Leslie Sloan with Vision PR, who also represents Mr. Reynolds, to plant negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media, even prior to any marketing had commenced for the film, which was another reason why Wayfarer Studios made the decision to hire a crisis professional to commence internal scenario planning in the case they needed to address.
"The representatives of Wayfarer Studios still did nothing proactive nor retaliated, and only responded to incoming media inquiries to ensure balanced and factual reporting and monitored social activity. What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals."
Want all the biggest Showbiz and TV news straight to your inbox? Sign up for our free Daily Star Showbiz newsletter.
English (US) ·