Justin Baldoni’s lawyer to reveal New York Times’s role in ‘false and destructive’ Blake Lively ‘narrative’

In Blake Lively’s high-stakes legal and public relations war against her “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni, she gained a major advantage just before Christmas by getting her side of the story broadcast in a 4,000-word New York Times story that went viral.

The story, “We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” was pretty explosive and damaging to Baldoni, detailing Lively’s legal complaint with the California Civil Rights Department, in which she alleged that he conspired with his publicists to “bury” her reputation to cover up his sexually inappropriate behavior on the set. It certainly helped Lively’s case that the expose was co-authored by Megan Twohey, one of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who helped spur the #MeToo movement by breaking news about Harvey Weinstein’s decades-long sexual misconduct.

But now Baldoni’s legal team is ready to hit back with a promised lawsuit or two, which will include calling out a “trusted” legacy media organization like the New York Times, veteran Hollywood attorney Bryan Freedman said in a statement released to media outlets.

Freedman said Baldoni’s impending lawsuit against Lively will not only bring forth the “truth” — but also expose “those who believe themselves untouchable,” according to Page Six and People.

“This lawsuit will uncover and expose the false and destructive narrative that was intentionally engineered by a trusted media publication who relied upon nefarious sources and neglected a thorough fact-checking process to confirm the validity of these texts,” Freedman said.

It’s been reported that Baldoni’s lawsuit is expected to argue that Lively’s side was responsible for smears against him, rather than the other way around, and that her legal complaint is designed to rebuild her public image after she received bad press during the promotional campaign for “It Ends With Us,” Deadline reported.

In his statement, Freedman said that the apparently damning texts written by Baldoni’s publicists, along with other evidence published by the New York Times to prove a coordinated social media smear campaign, “were doctored and spliced without context.”

“There is an insurmountable collection of authentic evidence, including timelines and communications, which have not been doctored or spliced without context, unlike the altered (New York Times) story,” Freedman said in a written statement.

“In over three decades of legal practice, I’ve never witnessed such unethical behavior, fueled by those who abuse their power and manipulate the truth,” Freedman also said.

Whatever evidence Freedman brings forward, some media observers have noted the curious timing of the Times story being published on Dec. 21, right after Lively filed her complaint in California.

“The paper had a meticulously reported, 4,000-word piece, complete with graphics, ready to go as word spread,” Puck legal writer Eriq Gardner wrote. “Clearly, the Times had been sitting on a draft for some time.”

The bitter feud between Baldoni and Lively became known during the August release of “It Ends With Us,” a drama based on Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel. The movie tells the story of a florist, played by Lively, who marries a handsome but abusive neurosurgeon, played by Baldoni.

At the time, news leaked about “creative differences” between Baldoni and Lively and his possible weight-shaming of her on the set. But the social media frenzy that grew around the film’s release ultimately focused on Lively and on criticism of her. People online blasted Lively for the way she appeared eager to market the film as a fun “girls night out,” while even astute media observers, like Puck’s business reporter, Rachel Strugatz, wondered about her “tone-deaf” efforts to coordinate the film’s promotion with the release of her own products, including her Blake Brown haircare line.

Lively’s team alleges that the frenzy was amplified by a vicious social media strategy executed by publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis communications expert Melissa Nathan. Lively’s complaint and the Times report quoted a text from Abel, saying, “He wants to feel like she can be buried.” It also quoted Nathan as saying, “You know we can bury anyone.”

In a statement to the Times, Lively also said, “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”

But Baldoni’s team contends that the “Blake-lash” grew online of its own accord among survivors of domestic violence and other critics, who also seized on Lively’s various P.R. missteps over the years — including her 2012 wedding to Ryan Reynolds on a former slave plantation, her choice to launch a failed lifestyle brand that celebrated “the allure” of the antebellum South and her “mean girl” behavior to Norwegian reporter Kjersti Flaa during a 2016 TV interview.

Right now, though, Lively’s complaint, as delineated in the New York Times, has become the prevailing narrative in the drama, while Baldoni’s reputation is the one being buried. Lively has received widespread support from figures across the industry, while Baldoni was dropped by his agents at WME — which also represents Lively and Reynolds, Deadline reported.

But as Puck’s Gardner reported, the drama could get even more ugly for the various players involved, especially given that the source of the damning texts released in Lively’s legal complaint and in the Times expose came from Baldoni’s former publicist, Stephanie Jones.

Jones, the CEO of her powerful PR firm Joneswork, also filed her own defamation and breach of contract lawsuit against Baldoni and claimed she knew nothing about his alleged smear campaign against Lively. Jones said that Baldoni originally hired her to represent him. But just just as “It Ends With Us” was released theatrically, Jones said Baldoni dropped her firm and followed Abel to her newly launched PR firm.

While Gardner said that Lively has every right to address alleged sexual harassment on a movie set without being targeted by a coordinated smear campaign, he also offered “a more cynical theory” for why the “It Ends With Us” drama is erupting now and in this way. Gardner’s theory is that Jones “decided to dish dirt as an act of her own retaliation,” with Freedman telling him that Jones “weaponized” the texts and “conspired” with Lively’s team to help them file her complaint.

And, Freedman also seems eager to go after “the legacy media” for its role in this saga, notably the New York Times, which he said “has long weaponized their platforms to distort the truth, exploit vulnerabilities, and destroy lives without accountability.”

“These lawsuits will confront this system head-on, ensuring that no individual or entity, no matter how influential, can continue perpetuating this cycle of fear and destruction,” Freedman said.