Justin Baldoni’s allegations against Blake Lively just keep coming…
The actor filed a grueling $400 million, 179-page lawsuit against his It Ends with Us co-star and her husband Ryan Reynolds on Thursday. The gist of what he’s suing the couple over is their alleged hostile takeover of the film HE directed. He claims the pair used their power to push him out, and the whole sexual harassment thing is BS. He contends she only claimed he was the one to drag her name because she was annoyed her reputation was taking a hit due to her own behavior — and he’s just a scapegoat. So Blake’s legal filing is just part of the smear campaign she waged against him, not the other way around!
But that’s not the only allegation of Blake’s he’s flipping the script on…
Back in August when hints of their feud first began bubbling up, one of the rumors that came out was that Blake felt uncomfortable on set during her and Justin’s romantic scenes because he lingered too long with a kiss. Fast-forward four months to when Blake filed her sexual harassment complaint against the 40-year-old, she pretty much confirmed it.
She outlined a list of demands she brought forward for Justin and his producing partner Jamey Heath during production — things that supposedly needed to change before she would agree to resume filming after the Hollywood strikes. One of the demands indicated Justin would go off script to improvise additional kissing and intimate touching scenes with her in the heat of a take. Her demand reads as follows:
13. No more improvising of kissing. All intimate touch must be choreographed in advance with Blake Lively and an intimacy coordinator. No biting or sucking of lip without Blake Lively’s consent. All intimate on camera touch and conversation must be ‘in character’, not spoken from Justin Baldoni to Blake Lively personally.
Icky, right? But in Justin’s lawsuit, he claims it was actually The Shallows star who would go off script to kiss HIM — not the other way around as she claims. The suit reads:
“Moreover, it was Lively who engaged in unchoreographed kissing scenes. One scene, again captured on camera, exhibits Lively pulling Baldoni in to kiss her. It is clear Lively was initiating unchoreographed kissing: In one take, she pulled Baldoni in and kissed him once; in another twice, and the number of kisses, entirely initiated by Lively, changed at her whim.”
He isn’t trying to sue her for harassment, of course. He’s trying to show that she was doing the thing she’s complaining about! The legal claim continues:
“Baldoni, as a professional actor who, among other roles, played the lead’s love interest in television’s Jane the Virgin for 5 years (100 episodes), is, like most actors, accustomed to rehearsing or filming scenes multiple times — often with variations — without needing ‘permission’ while in character. While Lively now takes issue with any innocuous improvisation Baldoni, as Ryle, may have allegedly initiated while in character, Baldoni treated their relationship on camera as professional; each playing their part, each doing their job. If no one was supposed to improvise, Baldoni would have no way of knowing based on Lively’s own actions. Lively demonstrated, again and again, that this was a normal and acceptable part of filming romantic scenes.”
Who do YOU believe, Perezcious readers? Is Blake making bad faith claims to make herself look like a victim here? Or is Baldoni totally pulling the abuser move of victim-blaming??