Justin Baldoni is clapping back at Blake Lively‘s motion to dismiss!
After Justin sued Blake and Ryan Reynolds for $400 million amid their It Ends With Us battle, she argued he had no legal right because she was protected by a #MeToo law — but Justin doesn’t think this applies to her at all!
The Gossip Girl star’s legal team claimed the Protecting Survivors from Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act, which was put in place in 2023, applies to Blake in this case. The Act was established to prevent victims from facing retaliatory defamation lawsuits after speaking up. It not only gives them immunity from such cases, but if they win, they can claim attorneys’ fees and damages. Not hard to see why Blake was trying to invoke this!
Related: Oh No! Blake’s Publicity Stunt May Have REALLY Hurt Donut Shop!
In a response Thursday, the Jane the Virgin star’s lawyers argued that the Cali law meant to protect harassment victims doesn’t apply to Blake’s “fabricated” allegations — because it applies only to claims with a “reasonable basis” that are made “without malice.” They argued:
“Lively fabricated her allegations of sexual harassment, either wholesale or by exaggerating benign (and not harassing) interactions in a concerted, malicious effort to seize control of the Film and later to restore her reputation after a well-publicized series of marketing missteps that sullied her reputation.”
In an accompanying statement, Bryan Freedman also slammed the actress for attempting to set a “dangerous precedent” by trying to shut down the director’s right to sue under the First Amendment:
“Ms. Lively and her circle of Hollywood elites cannot prevent my clients from exercising their constitutional right to petition the court to clear their names from her false and harmful claims. This right protects not only Mr. Baldoni and the Wayfarer parties in this particular case, but all Americans in the future who have false accusations levied against them and seek relief from our justice system. This must stop here, and we will continue to fight against this blatant attempt to block access to the court system and to weaken our nation’s Constitution to serve those who are in the position of power.”
They also don’t think the law applies because the A Simple Favor star first made the allegations long before filing a civil rights complaint and later her lawsuit.
Justin’s team went on to BLAST Blake for allegedly planning to take over the Colleen Hoover film no matter what, citing an interview she did at the 2022 Forbes Power Women’s Summit, in which she opened up about realizing as a young actor she wanted to have more creative control on projects. She said in part:
“I knew that they just wanted me to show up and look cute and stand on a little pink sticker where I’m supposed to go and say what I’m supposed to say.”
But she admitted:
“But I also knew that like that wasn’t fulfilling for me — that I wanted to be part of the storytelling. … And sometimes I would have people who really resented that because they were like, ‘we just hired you to be an actor.’ I wouldn’t reveal that I actually need to have authorship in order to feel fulfilled. So, I think that for them, sometimes that might have felt like a rug pull because you’re like, you’re trying to assert yourself into something that we didn’t hire you to.”
The Man Enough podcaster’s attorneys commented:
“That is exactly what happened on the set of ‘It Ends With Us.’”
Oof!
We’re not shocked Justin’s fighting this motion to dismiss! We’ll see what a judge has to say… Any predictions, Perezcious readers? Share them in the comments!
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