Justin Baldoni’s publicist has resigned from the PR firm amidst the escalating Blake Lively lawsuit, which accuses Baldoni and his team of bullying and orchestrating a smear campaign.
Abel and publicist Melissa Nathan are also named in the lawsuit, which was filed in a New York State court, as conspirators in a smear campaign against Lively. The lawsuit claims that they then tried to place the blame for disparaging the actress around the release of It Ends With Us on Jones. According to Lively’s complaint, which was submitted to the California Civil Rights Department on Saturday, Baldoni and his group launched a “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” her reputation in retaliation for her allegation that Baldoni had sexually harassed her.
Described as “shameful” and “serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its representatives,” Baldoni has refuted every allegation in Lively’s complaint.
By sending Jones a pre-litigation subpoena, Lively’s lawyers were able to obtain text messages from Jonesworks’ company phones before Lively filed over the weekend. Then, after the publicist left her company, the representative gave Abel the phone that she had “forensically preserved.” The device’s text messages include exchanges between the two representatives and Baldoni that are detailed in Blake Lively’s complaint. In these exchanges, the filmmaker attempted to prevent a potential public display of alleged on-set sexual misconduct by discussing how they intended to “bury” Lively.
Also Read: Blake Lively sues Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment; his team denies claims.
“Jonesworks LLC was served with the subpoena that was disclosed and mentioned in the complaint,” Lively’s attorneys stated in a statement. The subpoena resulted in the production of the internal documents mentioned in the complaint.
As Puck reported this week, Abel stated in a Facebook post that the reps and Baldoni were only communicating about preparation after the texts between them were leaked. According to the outlet, Abel wrote, “No’smear’ was used.”
The powerhouse publicist alleges in Jones’ lawsuit, the most recent legal action in the spiralling drama surrounding the summer film that deals with issues of abuse and trauma, that Abel had been plotting for months to leave Jonesworks and flee with the firm’s clients while also damaging Jones’ reputation in the industry. In the lawsuit, Nathan is accused of pushing Abel to quit because she was keen to acquire clients for Jonesworks.
The lawsuit alleges that Jones and Jonesworks suffered significant harm as a result of this scheme.
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