Justin Baldoni's attorney blasts New York Times story about Blake Lively 'smear campaign' story

An attorney for actor Justin Baldoni denied that there was a coordinated “smear campaign” against his client’s “It Ends With Us” co-star Blake Lively, telling NBC that The New York Times’ article about the actress’ allegations “destroyed people’s careers.”

“They didn’t do their homework,” attorney Bryan Freedman said in an exclusive interview, a portion of which aired on Nightly News on Thursday and aired with additional clips on The TODAY Show on Friday. “They didn’t do anything to verify the whether or not there was the truth and veracity of the story and the correctness of the story, and had they done simple, basic investigation, that they would have learned what the truth of the story was.”

In a statement on Dec. 31, the Times said it plans “to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”

“The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead,” a spokesperson for the publication said in a statement. “Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”

In a statement to NBC News, the Times said Baldoni's lawsuit has numerous inaccuracies from the word count to the way in which the newspaper sought comment.

The interview came just days after Baldoni, his publicists and several others sued the Times for libel for its Dec. 21 article, titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.” 

“It Ends With Us,” which was released in theaters in August, is an adaptation of the popular Colleen Hoover novel that gained a massive fanbase on TikTok. Lively portrays the lead, Lily Bloom, while Baldoni plays her abusive romantic partner, Ryle Kincaid. Baldoni also adapted and directed the project. 

Lively had filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department on Dec. 20, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment during filming “It Ends With Us,” as well as retaliation against Lively, after she raised issues about his on-set behavior. She alleged that Baldoni hired a crisis publicity firm to engage in a “social manipulation campaign” to smear her while they were promoting the film this summer.  Such a filing with the state is often a precursor to a lawsuit.

The Times, which was first to report on the complaint, has stood by its reporting.

Lively is not named as a defendant in Baldoni’s suit, which was filed with 9 other plaintiffs, including Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios, producer Jamey Heath, who was also accused by Lively of sexual harassment, and Baldoni’s publicists, Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan. They are seeking $250 million in damages. 

On the same day Baldoni filed his suit against the Times, Lively also filed a federal lawsuit against Baldoni in the Southern District of New York. She alleges that Baldoni, the film’s production company Wayfarer Studios and others engaged in “a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others, from speaking out.” 

Freedman argued that Baldoni and his publicity team were negatively impacted by the Times article. The talent agency William Morris Endeavor dropped Baldoni as a client after Lively’s filing, Ari Emanuel, chief executive of the agency’s parent company, Endeavor, told the Times.

William Morris Endeavor denied that it was pressured to drop Baldoni as a client. In a statement to People Magazine, a spokesperson for WME said: "In Baldoni’s filing there is a claim that Reynolds pressured Baldoni’s agent at the 'Deadpool & Wolverine' premiere. This is not true,” the statement, issued on Jan 1, reads.

In the weeks since Lively’s complaint was filed, many in Hollywood — including the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA and Sony Pictures Entertainment, the studio behind “It Ends With Us” — have signaled their support for Lively. 

Freedman said he believes the support for Lively is because she and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, “have a tremendous amount of power, and Justin is a no one to them.”

When asked about how the alleged feud between Baldoni and Lively began, Freedman said the two “got along famously” until there was “some discord” when Lively, a producer on the film, asked to “review the daily shoots.”

“And Justin allows her to do that for a while, and then she says, ‘Who else has access to it?’ And then you start to see the two other producers have access to it, and that’s when the communications between the two of them, you know, completely stop,” he said. “And that’s when you start to see these things become allegations. And all of a sudden, you start to see this, you know, this … return to work agreement.”

Pressed further about the alleged sexual comments and bad behavior on set, Freedman said “I’m sure there were things that made her [Lively] feel uncomfortable.” 

“I think in every kind of a situation where you’re shooting on a set, there are things that make people feel uncomfortable,” he said. “The question really, in this case is, does it rise to the level of sexual harassment, right?”

Freedman claimed that the evidence in his clients’ suit against the Times refutes Lively’s lawsuit allegations.

“You know, Justin Baldoni from the moment, from the get go, said, I don’t want to do anything negative toward her [Lively],” said Freedman. “I don’t want to hurt her. This isn’t about shaming her. This isn’t about hurting her. This is about protecting the film. This is about protecting what we’ve done, what we put five years of hard work in. That’s what this is about.”

Throughout the interview with NBC, Freedman said he will rely on “documents” to defend his clients.

“Documents don’t lie,” he said. “Documents tell the truth. Documents aren’t interested in whether or not they’re going to get their next movie, whether they’re going to be hired again in Hollywood, whether they have to kowtow to power couples. Documents don’t worry about any of those things. What documents are their truth tellers, and that’s what we’re going to allege. We’re going to allege things through documents.” 

When asked why people should believe Baldoni, who has built a brand focused on supporting women, in the allegations against Lively, Freedman told NBC News, “I’m not asking anyone to not believe anyone. I am more than willing to take every single text message that exists out there, lay them out, put them on a website for the world to see, have them see the truth and determine the truth for themselves.” 

In their 87-page lawsuit, lawyers for Baldoni and the other plaintiffs argue that the Times relied on “‘cherry-picked’ and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead.”

For example, The Times story reported on a text exchange in which Nathan and Abel discuss a Daily Mail story titled “Is Blake Lively set to be CANCELLED?” The texts between the publicists appear to show Nathan complimenting Abel, writing “you really outdid yourself with this piece.” Nathan replied: “That’s why you hired me right? I’m the best.” 

But according to Baldoni’s suit, additional texts between the two show Nathan saying she was not involved with the story’s publication. “Damn this is unfair because it’s also not me,” she wrote. “Everything now looks like it’s me.” The Times also omitted an emoji of an upside-down smiling face, which the suit says is “commonly used to convey irony, sarcasm, joking, or a sense of goofiness or silliness.” 

However, in legal documents, emoji don't always appear in legal text, according to a Times spokesperson. Other inaccuracies include things like the story's word count, which is approximately 3,000 words not 4,000 words as the lawsuit claims.

"To address some inaccuracies in the lawsuit, when seeking comments from Mr. Baldoni and others who would be mentioned in the article, The Times shared the information that we intended to publish, including references to specific text messages and documents, asked them to identify any inaccuracies, provide additional context and speak with our team," the spokesperson wrote in the statement.

Baldoni, Wayfarer and the other subjects “chose not to have any conversations with The Times or address any of the specific text messages or documents and instead emailed a joint response, which was published in full. Baldoni and his team also did not ask for an extension to address the details of the story, according to a Times spokesperson. (Also, they sent their response to The Times at 11:16pm ET Dec 20th, not at 2:16am ET Dec 21st as the complaint says,” the Times said in its statement).

Attorneys for Lively said this week that the star’s “decision to speak out has resulted in further retaliation and attacks.”

“As alleged in Ms. Lively’s federal Complaint, Wayfarer and its associates have violated federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns,” the attorneys said. “Now, the defendants will answer for their conduct in federal court.”

In response to Baldoni’s suit, Lively’s attorneys said, “This lawsuit is based on the obviously false premise that Ms. Lively’s administrative complaint against Wayfarer and others was a ruse based on a choice ‘not to file a lawsuit against Baldoni, Wayfarer,’ and that ‘litigation was never her ultimate goal.’”

“While we will not litigate this matter in the press, we do encourage people to read Ms. Lively’s complaint in its entirety. We look forward to addressing each and every one of Wayfarer’s allegations in court," Lively’s lawyers said.

Freedman claims that the suit against the Times is the first of many his client plans to file. Freedman indicated there are more bad actors and others they plan to take legal action against, although they did not specify everyone they plan to bring legal action against. Additionally, when asked if Baldoni plans to sue Lively, Freedman said “Absolutely… we’re working on it now.”