[Image: Daily Tribune/Facebook]
The Lively vs Baldoni drama is getting a bit confusing now.
Mere hours after Justin Baldoni filed a $400 million defamation and extortion lawsuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, the It Ends With Us star and her legal team clapped back, calling the lawsuit just “another chapter in the abuser playbook.”
Lively’s legal army, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips attorneys and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP told Deadline on Thursday, “This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim,” they said. “This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.”
For those who have not been following the latest Hollywood scandal, Lively filed a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint against her co-star with California’s Civil Rights Department in December. Lively accused Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, of sexually harassing her and subsequently enacting “a coordinated effort to destroy her reputation.”
The NY Times ran a detailed ‘We Can Bury Anyone: Inside A Hollywood Smear Machine’ story shortly after the first shots were fired on December 21, and in response, Baldoni sued Mrs Deadpool for defamation and $250 million. Lively then sued her co-star back on the same day. The latest $400 million suit seems to be the response to the suit after the suit in response to the original suit.
It’s a messy affair for sure, and in between all the accusations and countersuits, Baldoni also claimed Ryan Reynolds mocked and bullied him with the Nicepool character featured in Deadpool & Wolverine.
Baldoni’s synopsis of this confusing affair seems to be:
“This is a case about two of the most powerful stars in the world deploying their enormous power to steal an entire film right out of the hands of its director and production studio. Then, when Lively and Reynolds’ efforts failed to win them the acclaim they believed they so richly deserved, they turned their fury on their chosen scapegoat. Tolerating a year and a half of their behaviour while remaining polite and professional at every turn offered us no protection.”
Lively and her legal team’s counter summarisation seems to be:
“They are trying to shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni. Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault. Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing. In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim. The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”
Both Baldoni and Lively want a jury trial, and considering the plethora of lawsuits, claims and counterclaims, the pair will likely get their stand-off in court.
Lively has been called out for her rude and unacceptable behaviour in interviews and red carpet moments, while Baldoni was a champion of the #MeToo movement and has been insisting that Lively’s evidence of harassment is ‘cherry-picked’, and that she and Ryan Reynolds are suffering from hubris.
It’s become difficult for the audience in this drama to figure out who the villain is. On the one hand, we know that sexual harassment is rife in Hollywood.
A lot of money and power is being thrown about, so let’s see how it plays out.
[Source: Deadline]
