(AP) – A Texas crisis communications specialist has sued Blake Lively for defamation after the actor pulled him into her legal fight with co-star and director Justin Baldoni over their film, “It Ends With Us.”
Jed Wallace and his company, Street Relations, filed the USD7 million lawsuit in federal court in Texas on Tuesday. It says he had nothing to do with any campaign to harm Lively’s reputation as she alleged in a court filing.
Wallace is not among the defendants in Lively’s federal lawsuit against Baldoni, his production company and publicists, in which she alleges sexual and other harassment during the production and a campaign to smear her after it. The crisis specialist is named in the court papers and the New York Times story published on the day the series of legal battles began in December when Lively filed a complaint.
Lively’s lawyers said in a statement that Wallace’s lawsuit “is not just a publicity stunt.””It is transparent retaliation in response to allegations contained within a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint that Ms. Lively filed with the California Civil Rights Department,” the statement said. “While this lawsuit will be dismissed, we are pleased that Mr. Wallace has finally emerged from the shadows, and that he too will be held accountable in federal court.”
In a filing last week in Hays County, Texas, that seeks a deposition from Wallace, Lively alleges he was used by publicists working with Baldoni to weaponise “a digital army around the country, including in New York and Los Angeles, to create, seed, manipulate, and advance disparaging content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums.”
Wallace’s lawsuit says neither he nor his company “had anything to do with the alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, failure to investigate or aiding and abetting the alleged harassment or alleged retaliation.”
It says the actor’s Texas filing “conceded that Lively has no facts supporting the allegations she made against Wallace and Street,” which is why she now seeks to investigate the extent of his conduct.
After Lively sued Baldoni, he filed his own federal lawsuit against her and her husband, “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of defamation and extortion and seeking at least USD400 million in damages.
Baldoni had already sued The New York Times for libel, and his former publicist filed a lawsuit taking Lively’s side.
“It Ends With Us,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel that begins as a romance but takes a dark turn into domestic violence, was released in August, exceeding box office expectations with a domestic total of nearly USD150 million. The success was followed by near constant turmoil over its production and promotion.
