By Page Six | Created at 2025-01-02 14:28:37 | Updated at 2025-01-04 23:13:18
2 days ago
It doesn’t end with Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit.
After the “It Ends With Us” star claimed in a $250 million libel lawsuit Tuesday that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds threatened his former talent agent to drop him as a client, the agency clapped back.
“In Baldoni’s filing, there is a claim that Reynolds pressured Baldoni’s agent at the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ premiere,” WME told the Hollywood Reporter in a statement Wednesday.
The agency claimed the allegation was “not true,” telling the outlet that “Baldoni’s former representative was not at the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ premiere.”
Additionally, the statement claimed that there was not “any pressure from Reynolds or Lively at any time to drop Baldoni as a client.”
The actor, 40, and nine other plaintiffs filed their lawsuit against the New York Times over the publication’s December 2024 story about Lively’s sexual harassment complaint against him.
Lively’s complaint to the California Civil Rights Department made headlines on Dec. 21, with her also alleging that Baldoni and his crisis PR team attempted to “destroy” her reputation.
Baldoni was subsequently dropped from WME, with Deadline reporting that the decision was due, in part, to Lively’s allegations.
The agency, notably, still represents the “Gossip Girl” alum.
Baldoni, who has also been sued by his ex-publicist Stephanie Jones over a breach of contract, denied Lively’s claims.
The “Jane the Virgin” alum’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, called Baldoni’s co-star’s allegations “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.”
She officially sued him in New York federal court on Tuesday over lost wages and “severe emotional distress,” the same day that Baldoni took legal action against the New York Times.
Lively’s rep told Page Six in a statement that his lawsuit doesn’t “change anything.”
Rumors surfaced of a feud between Lively and Baldoni in August 2024 when “It Ends With Us” premiered and the cast members didn’t pose together on the red carpet.
Baldoni has since claimed that Lively tried to ban him from the New York City event.
He alleged that the conditions he was eventually allowed to attend were “humiliating” as he and his wife, Emily Baldoni, were “segregated from the main cast, barred from the exclusive after-party, and forced to organize their own event at additional cost.”
The pair’s co-stars Brandon Sklenar and Jenny Slate have both vocalized their support for Lively, as did Colleen Hoover, who authored the book the film is based on.
“You have been nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient since the day we met,” the writer, 45, gushed via Instagram Stories. “Thank you for being exactly the human that you are. Never change. Never wilt.”
