Justin Baldoni’s team plans to confront Blake Lively over ‘her pattern of bullying’

New Delhi:

Jan. 9: Actor-director Justin Baldoni’s legal team has offered to cover what they describe as a “pattern of harassment” by actress Blake Lively in their countersuit after she accused Baldoni’s team of “attacks” following the lawsuit.

The feud between Blake and Justin became the talk of the town after she filed a complaint against her It All Ends With Us co-star and the director, accusing them of sexual harassment and a smear campaign, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In the latest series of accusations, Brian Friedman, Justin Baldoni’s attorney, confirmed the comment to The Hollywood Reporter, accused the actress of sending “heavily redacted documents” to the New York Times before filing the complaint.

“It is very ironic that Blake Lively is accusing Justin Baldoni of using the media as a weapon when her own team orchestrated this vicious attack by sending heavily redacted documents to the New York Times before even filing a complaint, we are releasing all the evidence that will show, bullying and threats to take over the film. None of this will come as a surprise as it is consistent with her past behavior to Blake Lively other people to report these threats and intimidate her to get everything she wants, have all the receipts and more.”

Earlier, Blake Lively, in an interview with People magazine, accused Baldoni’s team of using “blame the victim” tactics to turn the situation in their favor.

Lively’s lawyer said: “This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation,” Lively’s lawyers said in a statement. “As Ms. Lively’s complaint alleges, and as we will prove at trial, Wayfarer (Studios) and its partners engaged in illegal astroturfing to retaliate against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on set. And their response to the lawsuit was to launch new attacks on Ms. Lively from the moment it was filed.”

The lawyer’s statement continued: “A classic tactic to deflect allegations of this type of misconduct is to ‘blame the victim’, suggesting that they suggested the conduct, caused it themselves, misunderstood the intent, or even lied.”

Meanwhile, Baldoni’s legal team argued that Lively’s allegations were false and part of an image-rehabilitation tactic, suggesting that her publicist, Leslie Sloan, orchestrated a smear campaign against Baldoni.

Justin Baldoni’s legal team has yet to file a countersuit against Blake Lively over her complaint.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni worked together in the movie It Ends With Us.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from the syndicated feed.)