Amid a legal battle with Lively over the making of ‘It Ends with Us,’ Baldoni’s attorneys say the director-star “has nothing to hide”
Justin Baldoni‘s team say they have plans to launch a website to bolster his accusations against Blake Lively concerning behind-the-scenes conflict on It Ends With Us.
After Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman released a video depicting footage of the two actors on the set of the hit 2024 movie — in an effort to refute some of Lively’s claims made in her Dec. 20 sexual harassment complaint against her director-costar — his legal team said in a statement shared with PEOPLE, “Justin Baldoni and team has nothing to hide and this once more proves this.”
Baldoni and the other It Ends With Us associates who Lively is suing “have the right to defend themselves with the truth,” continues the statement. “This is what we will be continuing to show with the upcoming website containing all correspondence as well as relevant videos that quash her claims.”
On Jan. 16, Baldoni countered with a $400 million lawsuit against the actress-producer, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist, claiming defamation, extortion and more. Following Lively’s initial complaint, the Jane the Virgin alum also sued The New York Times on Dec. 31 for libel, false light invasion of privacy and more over an article covering her complaints against him and an alleged retaliatory smear campaign against her.
The video of It Ends With Us set footage, obtained by TMZ and provided by Baldoni’s team, shows footage of Lively, 37, filming a scene with Baldoni, 40, in which their characters, Lily and Ryle, slow dance for a slow-motion montage intended to have no dialogue. The costars speak to each other out of character while filming, joking about Baldoni’s nose and Lively’s spray tan.
In Lively’s complaint was the accusation that during a “slow dance scene,” Baldoni “leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, ‘it smells so good.’” In the video, Lively quips that she’s “probably getting spray tan on” her costar, who laughs and says, “It smells good.”
Baldoni’s lawsuit against Lively and her collaborators alleges that the Gossip Girl alum implied that Baldoni should get plastic surgery to fix his nose. In the video, both can be seen making jokes about his nose, including a joke Lively makes referencing plastic surgery.
The website intended to “quash her claims” will purportedly have more such footage from the set of the Colleen Hoover adaptation.
On Jan. 6, Lively’s legal team told PEOPLE in a statement that her “serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation” are “backed by concrete facts. This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation… sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and in every industry.”
The following day, Freedman said in a statement on behalf of Baldoni, “We are releasing all of the evidence which will show a pattern of bullying and threats to take over” It Ends with Us. “None of this will come as a surprise because consistent with her past behavior Blake Lively used other people to communicate those threats and bully her way to get whatever she wanted. We have all the receipts and more.”