After the New York Times released a story about the alleged PR campaign to tarnish Blake Lively following her allegations of sexual harassment on the set of It Ends with Us, director Justin Baldoni has filed a libel lawsuit against the paper. What else is going on here? Kim Masters and Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw dig in.
Friends in high places? William Morris Endeavor owner Ari Emanuel dropped Baldoni as a client 24 hours after the director filed a libel lawsuit against the New York Times. "I don't remember Ari Emanuel [ever] going on the record, or anybody going on the record, usually it's a spokesperson," Masters says. "That did raise my eyebrows because Blake Lively is married to Ryan Reynolds, and there is an allegation that Ryan Reynolds pressured someone at WME, at the Deadpool premier, to drop Baldoni. Now, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are saying they never did that."
He said, she said? Lively's long list of allegations against Baldoni include sexual harassment and retaliation. "Even if you believe that she is sort of an unpleasant person, which I think is sort of the reputation, fairly or unfairly about her, she lays out too many allegations against the director, the producer, that are sort of, if true, uncalled for," Shaw says.
Lesson learned? According to the New York Times, the alleged PR campaign to tarnish Lively's reputation included a long paper trail of communication between publicists. "I think if we're going to take something away from this that might be useful in the future is this question of tactics on the part of the publicists," Masters explains. "There's quotes from a bunch of texts saying, 'We can bury anyone,' things like that, and that kind of crisis PR person appears to fight very dirty. If those people can get a little bit of a pushback, I think that might be useful."