It’s not ending.
Blake Vigorous has responded to Justin Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit in opposition to his “It Ends With Us” co-star.
Baldoni, 40, is suing Vigorous, 37, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, 48, their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s p.r. agency Imaginative and prescient PR Inc. over the ongoing “It Ends With Us” saga, which facilities on Vigorous’s allegations of sexual harassment in opposition to Baldoni.
The go well with — filed Thursday within the Southern District of New York by Baldoni’s attorneys on behalf of the “Jane the Virgin” star, “It Ends With Us” producer Jamey Heath, publicist Jennifer Abel and disaster publicist Melissa Nathan — claims Vigorous took sure measures to achieve management over the 2024 movie.
Attorneys for Vigorous have issued a response to the grievance, claiming his accusations are “retaliation in opposition to sexual harassment allegations.”
“This newest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is one other chapter within the abuser playbook,” Vigorous’s authorized workforce stated in an announcement to The Put up.
“That is an age-old story: A lady speaks up with concrete proof of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser makes an attempt to show the tables on the sufferer. That is what consultants name DARVO. Deny. Assault. Reverse Sufferer Offender.”
The assertion continued, “Wayfarer has opted to make use of the sources of its billionaire co-founder to difficulty media statements, launch meritless lawsuits, and threaten litigation to overwhelm the general public’s capacity to grasp that what they’re doing is retaliation in opposition to sexual harassment allegations.
“They’re making an attempt to shift the narrative to Ms. Vigorous by falsely claiming that she seized artistic management and alienated the forged from Mr. Baldoni. The proof will present that the forged and others had their very own adverse experiences with Mr. Baldoni and Wayfarer,” Vigorous’s attorneys added. “The proof may even present that Sony requested Ms. Vigorous to supervise Sony’s reduce of the movie, which they then chosen for distribution and was a convincing success.
“Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she needed it, it’s her fault. Their justification for why this occurred to her: look what she was carrying,” the assertion continued. “Briefly, whereas the sufferer focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the sufferer. The technique of attacking the girl is determined, it doesn’t refute the proof in Ms. Vigorous’s grievance, and it’ll fail.”
In Baldoni’s 179-page grievance obtained by The Put up, he accuses Vigorous, Reynolds and their associates of civil extortion, defamation, false mild invasion of privateness, breach of implied covenant of fine religion and honest dealing, intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with potential financial benefit, and negligent interference with potential financial benefit.
“Vigorous started inserting herself into the manufacturing course of in intrusive methods nicely past the scope of her contractual entitlement,” Baldoni’s submitting reads. “For instance, Vigorous started to insist on artistic management over her character’s wardrobe. Whereas lead actors are typically granted approval over their characters’ normal look, they often don’t obtain full management over.”
Baldoni’s legal professional, Bryan Freedman, stated in an announcement, “This lawsuit is a authorized motion based mostly on an awesome quantity of untampered proof detailing Blake Vigorous and her workforce’s duplicitous try and destroy Justin Baldoni, his workforce and their respective firms by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored data to the media.”
“It’s clear based mostly on our personal all out willingness to offer all full textual content messages, emails, video footage and different documentary proof that was shared between the events in actual time, that this can be a battle she won’t win and will definitely remorse,” he added. “Blake Vigorous was both severely misled by her workforce or deliberately and knowingly misrepresented the reality.”
Freedman concluded: “Let’s not neglect, Ms. Vigorous and her workforce tried to bulldoze reputations and livelihoods for heinously egocentric causes by means of their very own harmful manipulation of the media earlier than even taking any precise authorized motion. We all know the reality, and now the general public does too. Justin and his workforce don’t have anything to cover, paperwork don’t lie.”
Baldoni’s $400 million authorized motion follows a civil rights grievance and lawsuit Vigorous filed in opposition to the actor-director in December, alleging he sexually harassed her on the set of “It Ends With Us” with inappropriate feedback. The “Gossip Lady” alum additionally claimed Baldoni orchestrated a public smear marketing campaign to smash her fame.
Vigorous first revealed her allegations in opposition to Baldoni in an interview with the New York Occasions. The Occasions was subsequently sued by Baldoni, who accused the newspaper of promissory fraud and breach of implied-in-fact contract in his $250 million lawsuit.
A spokesperson for the Occasions informed the Put up, “The function of an unbiased information group is to comply with the information the place they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based mostly on a evaluation of 1000’s of pages of unique paperwork, together with the textual content messages and emails that we quote precisely and at size within the article. To this point, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the opposite topics of the article and their representatives haven’t pointed to a single error. We printed their full assertion in response to the allegations within the article as nicely.
“We plan to vigorously defend in opposition to the lawsuit.”