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According to The New York Times, which cited executive Ari Emanuel, talent agency WME has terminated Justin Baldoni as a client after learning that Blake Lively had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him.
According to Deadline, the former Gossip Girl is still a client of the firm.
According to the New York Times, Lively filed the documents with the California Civil Rights Department on December 21. She claimed that her costar and director from It Ends With Us had engaged in "sexually inappropriate behavior" on the set and that, after she complained about him to their coproducers, they had hired a crisis public relations specialist to start a smear campaign against her.
Following months of rumors of a rift between Lively and Baldoni, the director's attorney, Bryan Freedman, responded to the accusations made in the complaint by calling the actress's claims "completely false, outrageous, and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media."
In her lawsuit, Lively accused Baldoni of entering her makeup trailer without permission while she was undressed, including while nursing her infant, the youngest of her and husband Ryan Reynolds' four children, and of introducing "improvised gratuitous sexual content and/or scenes involving nudity" into It Ends With Us without her consent.
After Lively shared a personal story about his relationship with his partner while talking about a scene for It Ends With Us, she accused the director of "intrusively asking" her about her sexual life with the Deadpool star. Baldoni, who has been married to his wife Emily since 2013, allegedly brought up "his experiences with pornography" in earlier discussions, according to her.
In her court lawsuit, the 37-year-old also stated that the former Jane the Virgin "claimed he could speak to the dead, and on several occasions told her that he had spoken to her dead father."
According to the complaint, Lively informed Baldoni's production firm, Wayfarer Studios, which the 40-year-old cofounded and which is listed as a defendant, about his alleged actions. She said that the group signed a contractual rider in January of last year, agreeing to put in place a number of protections, including a full-time intimacy coordinator.
According to Lively's lawsuit, the group also decided not to take any revenge on the actress. The director's public relations team, she claims, "engaged in a sophisticated, coordinated, and well-financed retaliation plan" against her months later.
"Created, planted, amplified, and boosted content designed to eviscerate" her credibility, "bolster Baldoni's," and "suppress any negative content about him," according to the complaint.
"Desperate attempt to 'fix' her negative reputation, which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the film's campaign; 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," Baldoni's attorney described Lively's accusations in a statement to The New York Times.
"I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak out about misconduct and helps protect others who may be at risk," Lively said in a statement to the newspaper.
