Blake Lively is not backing down — even as Justin Baldoni allegedly continues to “attack” her.
As Perezcious readers know, Blake filed a complaint in late December accusing her It Ends With Us co-star/director of sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign against her. She later filed a federal complaint against Justin, his Wayfarer Studios, and others.
Justin fought back by suing The New York Times, which published her complaint, arguing that they helped mislead the public and manipulate the narrative by presenting Blake’s complaints as fact and not doing any investigation to present his side of the case, among other things. He’s also promised to go after Blake directly and release all their text messages, arguing that his leading lady is the one in the wrong, not him.
Related: How Justin’s Version Of It Ends With Us Differed From Blake’s Final Cut!
Well, the Gossip Girl star’s team is standing strong against what they are now calling “more attacks” from the filmmaker. In a statement to People released on Monday, they condemned the Jane the Virgin alum’s actions, insisting that Blake’s “serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation” are “backed by concrete facts.” They continued:
“This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation. As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer [Studios] and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set. And their response to the lawsuit has been to launch more attacks against Ms. Lively since her filing.”
Just to make things very clear, they doubled down:
“Sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and in every industry.”
Hitting back at Justin and his team’s PR moves of late, they declared:
“A classic tactic to distract from allegations of this type of misconduct is to ‘blame the victim’ by suggesting that they invited the conduct, brought it on themselves, misunderstood the intentions, or even lied. Another classic tactic is to reverse the victim and offender, and suggest that the offender is actually the victim. These concepts normalize and trivialize allegations of serious misconduct.”
They’re not wrong to call this out. Justin has been saying Blake lied about pretty much all her claims, making himself out to be the victim. But… he’s not exactly hiding that. He’s stating in court docs that he’s the victim. Maybe the full text exchanges he plans to release will prove his version of the story? Or maybe this is yet another way to damage her reputation? We’ll have to wait and see what comes out. It’s a tricky one so far.
The attorneys promised to continue to focus their attention on the case in the courtroom, concluding:
“Most importantly, media statements are not a defense to Ms. Lively’s legal claims. We will continue to prosecute her claims in federal court, where the rule of law determines who prevails, not hyperbole and threats.”
Yeah, so, this controversy isn’t dying down anytime soon.
Thoughts? Let us know (below).
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