Blake Lively has filed a legal complaint against It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni, alleging sexual harassment and a campaign to “destroy” her reputation.
According to the legal filing, she accuses Mr Baldoni and his team of attacking her public image following a meeting in which she brought along her actor husband, Ryan Reynolds, to address “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Mr Baldoni and a producer on the movie.
Mr Baldoni’s legal team told the BBC the allegations are “categorically false” and said they hired a crisis manager because Ms Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.
In the romantic drama, Ms Lively plays a woman who finds herself in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Mr Baldoni.
The meeting between Ms Lively and Mr Baldoni, together with others involved in the movie’s production, took place on 4 January this year, and it aimed to address “the hostile work environment” on set, says the legal filing.
Ms Lively’s husband, Deadpool star Mr Reynolds, who did not appear in It Ends With Us, joined her at the showdown, according to the legal complaint, which is one step before a lawsuit.
Mr Baldoni, 40, attended the meeting in his capacity as co-chairman and co-founder of the company that produced the film, Wayfarer Studios. He was also the film’s director.
In the legal complaint, Ms Lively’s lawyers allege that both Mr Baldoni and the Wayfarer chief executive officer, Jamey Heath, engaged in “inappropriate and unwelcome behavior towards Ms Lively and others on the set of It Ends With Us”.
In the filing to the California Civil Rights Department, a list of 30 demands relating to the pair’s alleged misconduct was made at the meeting to ensure they could continue to produce the film.
Among them, Ms Lively, 37, requested that there be no more mention of Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath’s previous “pornography addiction” to Ms Lively or to other crew members, no more descriptions of their own genitalia to Ms Lively, and “no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex, or on camera climaxing by BL [Blake Lively] outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project”, says the complaint.
Ms Lively also demanded that Mr Baldoni stop saying he could speak to her dead father.
(BBC News)
