Amidst an ongoing complaint levied against him by Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni has been sued by his former publicist, who alleges he breached his contract earlier this year.
What is Justin Baldoni being sued for?
Steph Jones, who owns the public relations firm Jonesworks, accused Baldoni of breaching their contract earlier this year. The contract, which says Baldoni must pay her $25,000 a month, was allegedly breached after Baldoni dropped the firm in August, and joined a firm started by Jennifer Abel, who also worked at Jonesworks and left to start her own firm.
Alongside the lawsuit against Baldoni, Jones is also suing Abel and Baldoni’s publicist Melissa Nathan, joining Blake Lively in accusing the pair of coordinating a smear campaign against the actress. Jones’ lawsuit alleges that the pair are attempting to blame her for the campaign.
“To this day, Abel and Nathan continue to point the finger falsely at Jones now that their own misconduct is coming to light, and to defame and attack Jones in the industry,” the lawsuit states (via Variety).
In the case of Lively and Baldoni, this past week, Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni alleging him of sexual harassment and of coordinating an effort to destroy her reputation. In Lively’s claims, she states that things got so bad during filming that an all-hands-on-deck meeting was called due to her claims of a hostile work environment. During the meeting, Lively asked that Baldoni stop showing her nude videos or images of women, that he stop mentioning his pornography addiction to her, that Baldoni stop discussing sexual experiences in front of her, and that he also stop mentioning Lively’s weight.
The complaint also claims that an agreement was made between production company Wayfarer Studios and the cast, in which the promotion of the movie would focus “more on [Lively’s character’s] strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.” However, Lively claims that Baldoni would renege on that and instead spoke in interviews about the film’s serious story.
Lively also claimed that Baldoni and his PR manager, Melissa Nathan, discussed ways in which to start a social media campaign to harm her reputation. The filing by Lively includes 22 pages of texts between Baldoni’s publicist and Nathan, in which they discuss wanting to have Lively “buried.”
