A he said, she said whirlwind

The movie It Ends With Us has been making headlines for months since its release back in August. In September, I wrote an article summarizing the drama at the time, but there have been a lot of developments. The movie It Ends With Us was originally making headlines for its two co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni having completely different approaches to the tough subject of domestic abuse. Many fans saw the film as a chance to see their story of domestic violence on the big screen. Lively was being ridiculed for using the sensitive topic of the movie to promote her brands. To add fuel to the fire, old interviews of Lively being rude to a journalist were being released. She was dragged into a very unpleasant spotlight as people found her attitude insufferable. Baldoni was receiving high praise during this time as he was taking the subject line of the movie seriously. He used his platform as a way to bring awareness to domestic violence and the audience loved how sensitive he was.  

Now, the table has turned. On December 20, Lively filed a complaint to California’s Civil Rights Department against Baldoni. The Guardian writes that Lively claims Baldoni had “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior.” This “disturbing behavior” included commenting on women’s bodies during the filming and discussing personal sexual experiences with Lively. She claims that he walked into her trailer uninvited and even came in while she was breastfeeding. Although not an official lawsuit yet, this complaint has had repercussions for Baldoni. He was dropped by his talent agency, had an award for empowering women stripped away from him, and had an ex-agent sue him for defamation. 

Anna Kaplan from Today wrote that on December 31, Lively officially filed a lawsuit against Baldoni for “retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment concerns.” She alleged that Baldoni hired a PR firm to create a smear campaign against her for the accusations. She claims that after she made the official complaint, the attacks against her only escalated. According to the Guardian, one of the communications experts at Wayfarer, Baldoni’s company, texted Lively that “We can bury anyone.” Lively felt threatened by this message and used it as evidence in her suit. 

Baldoni immediately refuted the claims. On December, 31, he too filed a lawsuit. He sued the New York Times for reporting on Lively’s complaint and painting him as the villain. He claimed that they worked with Lively to try to destroy his reputation. He said that the article “pre-determined the outcome of their story” (The Guardian). The New York Times responded that they followed the logical conclusion that the facts were leading to. They claimed they reviewed thousands of pages to make a story that was “meticulously and responsibly reported,” (Today). Baldoni feels that if the NYT truly looked over the files they would understand that Lively forced them to participate in a smear campaign. 

On January 16, Baldoni filed another defamation lawsuit, but this time it was against Lively directly. His main points are that Lively hijacked the movie making process and stole the movie premiere. He claims that she refused to promote the movie unless she could do her own edits and tried to take creative control over her character. He feels that Lively used her star power to get her way throughout filming. Baldoni is also suing her for his speculation that Lively worked with the New York Times to write the article. Wayfarer says that Lively gave doctored and edited information to the media in an attempt to put Baldoni in a worse situation. 

On January 21, Baldoni’s legal team published a ten minute behind-the-scenes video trying to prove that Lively’s claims are false. The video is three different takes of a scene where Lively and Baldoni are dancing in a bar. Lively’s legal team says that this entire scene was improvised by Baldoni and Lively gave no consent to the kissing and touching. They claim that by Baldoni publishing this to the media instead of the court he was trying to sway the public opinion. The opinions over this video are split. I watched it and did not see the points where Lively was noticeably uncomfortable, but I encourage you to go out and decide for yourself. 

As of right now there have been no developments in either legal battle. There is a lot of hesitancy to support Baldoni as many women have fallen victim to the same tactic that he could be attempting. This discredits women by simply dismissing all of their claims. If people dismiss Lively before the case is concluded, it will make it that much harder for victims to be heard. On the other hand, Lively is not producing much evidence to support her claims. Baldoni, is willing to have all of his texts submitted to the court and provide video evidence. Ultimately, we do not have any conclusive evidence for either side. It is just a waiting game to see what else is going to unfold.