A few days ago, I finally watched It Ends With Us, and it is quite easily one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life. A nonsensical plot, one-dimensional characters, actors who are incapable of acting their way out of a paper bag – it was like a Lifetime movie with a bigger budget. The worst part was the ending, in which a victim of domestic violence uses logic to try to convince her abuser to leave her and their daughter alone and … it works?? Yeah, that would totally happen in real life. All I can say is that this abhorrent film does not deserve the months of drama swirling around it. Everyone involved in IEWU should be deeply ashamed and they all should have made a pact to never speak of it again. Instead, we got months of drama over the summer, and now Blake Lively is suing Justin Baldoni, who directed IEWU and starred as Ryle Kincaid. Blake is suing Baldoni for sexual harassment and waging a PR campaign against her during and after the film’s promotion.
Blake Lively is suing her It Ends with Us costar Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment. Months after rumors of behind-the-scenes discord on the set of the adaptation of the Colleen Hoover novel, the actress, 37, said in the lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, that Baldoni’s alleged behavior caused her “severe emotional distress.” (Baldoni, 40, also served as It Ends with Us’ director.)
Per the outlet, the lawsuit states there was a meeting held to address Lively’s claims and her demands for working on the film. It was attended by various figures, including Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds.
Some of the demands that were addressed, according to the lawsuit cited by TMZ, included “no more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake, no more mention of Baldoni’s alleged previous ‘pornography addiction,’ no more discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others, no further mentions of cast and crew’s genitalia, no more inquiries about Blake’s weight, and no further mention of Blake’s dead father.”
“No more adding of sex scenes, oral sex or on camera climaxing by BL outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project,” were other demands mentioned in the lawsuit, according to TMZ.
According to TMZ, the lawsuit states that Sony Pictures, who distributed the film, approved of Lively’s requests. However, Lively claims in the lawsuit that Baldoni then took part in a “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” her reputation soon after.
Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s lawyer, tells PEOPLE in a statement that Lively’s lawsuit was to “fix her negative reputation.” He also said that her allegations are “false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt.”
Freedman added that Lively caused problems on set of the film, which is currently streaming, “threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release.” Representatives for Lively, Baldoni and Sony did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Some of Lively’s accusations against Baldoni were previewed months ago, when well-informed sources insisted that everyone on set hated Baldoni (for unspecified reasons) and that Blake was hurt that Baldoni asked someone how much Blake weighed (Baldoni apparently has a bad back). We were also told that Blake thought Baldoni “lingered too long” during a kissing scene. I’ll admit, back in August and September, it felt like Blake and Ryan Reynolds were the ones targeting Baldoni. But if Baldoni was doing even some of the sh-t she’s now accusing him of, he absolutely created a toxic work environment. His on-set behavior was absolutely inappropriate, if any of this is true. It also feels like this might answer the questions I had about why Sony was going above and beyond to make Blake happy and give her everything she wanted, including allowing her to bring in her own editor to create a “Lively Cut” of the film.
As for the social manipulation part of Blake’s legal action… more information came out in the NY Times, which I will cover separately. All I’ll say in this post is that it looks like Blake has a really good case against Baldoni and his production company.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.