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Blake vs. Baldoni vs. Steph: The Next Steps

Lively may have fired the first shot in this Hollywood P.R. legal war, and Bryan Freedman has already threatened to sue Baldoni and Abel and Nathan's foes into oblivion. But an August 14 memo from Steph Jones to Wayfarer may help illustrate where this is headed.

Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively on set in ends with us
Why did the story of Lively’s complaint get out? Here’s a more cynical theory: Cognizant that Baldoni was on his way out as a client, Jones decided to dish dirt as an act of her own retaliation. Photo: Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Eriq Gardner
December 27, 2024

Last weekend, The New York Times published “Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” the now-viral exposé detailing how Justin Baldoni’s publicists smeared co-star Blake Lively during the release of It Ends With Us. Notably, the Times didn’t break the news of Lively’s complaint to the California Civil Rights Department—TMZ did—but the paper had a meticulously reported, 4,000-word piece, complete with graphics, ready to go as word spread. Clearly, the Times had been sitting on a draft for some time. But did anyone bother to confirm with the relatively obscure California agency whether Lively’s complaint had actually been filed? And why there?