Justin Baldoni
Nicholas Hunt/Getty ImagesJustin BaldoniLawyer speaks again yet Blake Lively I filed a lawsuit Accused And it ends with us Director and star sexually harassed – and launched a “social manipulation” campaign against her to “destroy” her reputation.
“TAG PR acts like any other crisis management firm when it is hired by a client facing threats from two very powerful people with unlimited resources,” Brian Friedman He said in a statement to: Us Weekly. (TAG PR, also known as The Agency Group PR, was hired by Baldoni and is one of several companies named in the lawsuit.)
Friedman continued, “The standard scenario planning drafted by TAG PR proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively's actions, interviews, and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful, and responded organically to what the media itself picked up on.”
Friedman claimed in the statement that text messages exchanged between Baldoni and his public relations team in the lawsuit were taken out of context.
Blake Lively claims It Ends With Us star and director Justin Baldoni launched a “social manipulation” campaign to damage her reputation. News broke on Saturday, December 21, that Lively, 37, has filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, 40, for sexual harassment. According to the New York Times, the lawsuit – which was filed on Friday, December 20 – (…)
“It's ironic that New York Times“Their efforts to 'unmask' the malicious PR effort played directly into the hands of Lively's dubious PR tactics by publishing leaked personal text exchanges that lacked critical context — the same tactics that the company is accused of,” Friedman concluded. By implementing it.”
the Lengthy court documents It was submitted on Friday, December 20, and was first published by New York Times On Saturday, December 21st. The documents cite “thousands of pages of text messages and emails” that Lively reportedly obtained through a subpoena — though Friedman now claims they were leaked. In response to this claim and Friedman's latest statement, a member of Lively's legal team says we: “The subpoena disclosed and referred to in the Complaint has been served on Jonesworks LLC. The internal documents referenced in the Complaint have been submitted pursuant to this subpoena. We expect that more details regarding the subpoena will be revealed during discovery.
One of the alleged text messages making headlines involved a studio publicist and Baldoni writing to a crisis management expert, “He wants to feel like he can be buried.”
The papers go on to claim that “this plan went beyond standard crisis public relations,” claiming that Baldoni’s team proposed a concept called “disguised marketing,” which was defined as “the practice of publishing opinions or comments online, in the media,” etc. which “It appears to come from ordinary members of the public but in reality it comes from a particular company or political group.'”
According to the documents, Baldoni “set the narrative for the social media campaign.” In one example, Baldoni appeared to use a social media post about Hailey Bieber “Which accused another famous woman of bullying women.” “This is what we need,” Baldoni wrote in the text.
As Baldoni mentioned Taylor Swift While corresponding with the crisis management team, with a scenario planning document on Baldoni's part apparently stating: “Our team can also explore planting stories about the weaponization of the feminist movement and how people like Taylor Swift have been accused of using these ‘bullying’ tactics.” Get what they want.”
According to the documents, Lively faced a series of inappropriate actions on set, from Baldoni adding sex and nudity scenes to the script to making lewd comments about unwanted kisses in scenes between the two characters. As a result, Lively and several members of the staff chose to conduct journalism independently of Baldoni, as well as unfollowing him on social media. The fans got into it Notice the crack Around the time of the August release date, which worried Baldoni.
When “virtually all cast members chose to appear publicly separately from Mr. Baldoni due to his behavior on set,” according to the documents, Baldoni allegedly “became concerned that the public would discover that there was something much greater beneath the surface.”
(Photo by Emma McIntyre/TAS24/Getty Images TAS Rights Management) Justin Baldoni's crisis management team mentioned Taylor Swift in their alleged plan to bring down Blake Lively. Lively (37 years old) filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Baldoni (40 years old) on Friday, December 20, and her allegations against him included creating a “hostile work environment” and causing the actress (…)
He allegedly kept changing his social media strategy as well. “After the film’s premiere, Mr. Baldoni changed his Instagram profile, deleted humorous social media posts, and instructed his team to seek out survivors’ reactions and support — all in an attempt to quickly shift his public narrative to focus solely on survivors and local communities. Violence organizations.” , documents state.
After the lawsuit was filed, Friedman called Lively's accusations “completely false, outrageous and intentionally indecent” in a statement to weAlleging that Lively filed the lawsuit to “repair her negative reputation” and “reframe the narrative” around the film's production.
we I reached out to a Lively representative for comment but did not immediately receive a response. In a statement to New York Times Regarding her lawsuit, Lively said: “I hope my legal action will help pull back the curtain on these evil retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak out about misconduct and help protect others who may be targeted.”
