All the differences between what Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni say happened, explained

So, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have both filed lawsuits about what happened during the production of It Ends With Us. Blake Lively followed up on her civil rights complaint from December by filing a lawsuit against Justin Baldoni and his PR team on Tuesday. Justin Baldoni is suing The New York Times for $250 million (£199 million). He says The New York Times’ articles about Blake Lively’s complaint have ruined his reputation.

Justin Baldoni has denied sexually harassing Blake Lively or organising a smear campaign in the press. The New York Times told the BBC their article was “meticulously and responsibly reported” and “based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”

Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively are describing the same interactions on the set of It Ends With Us in very different ways. Here’s a detailed explanation of the differences between what Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni say happened between them.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni describe the meeting on 4th January very, very differently

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni at a wedding in It Ends With Us
(Image via Sony)

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Blake Lively’s legal complaint describes a meeting on 4th January 2024 about the “hostile work environment” on the It Ends With Us set. There was a long break in filming because of all the guild strikes in 2023, and Blake Lively wanted to set new boundaries for the set before they began filming again. The legal document says Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, the film’s producer Jamey Heath, a representative for Sony Pictures called Ange Gianetti, and two producers for the film. Ryan Reynolds was also there, because Blake Lively says she “had the agreed-upon right to have a representative present”.

Blake Lively’s version says, “Ms Lively was forced to address concerns about Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath’s misconduct with them directly.

“The January 4 meeting occurred only after Wayfarer had rebuffed Ms Lively’s efforts repeatedly. During the January 4 meeting, the parties discussed in detail the inappropriate conduct that Ms Lively, her employees and other cast and crew experienced at the hands of Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath. After the list below was reviewed and discussed in its entirety, all parties present agreed that the outlined conduct would cease.”

The list of 30 demands includes “All actors participating with BL in intimate scenes involving her being in any state of nudity or stimulated nudity must be classified as active, working actors, not ‘friends’ of the director or producers, and must be approved by BL.”

Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit describes the meeting on 4th January very differently. He says the meeting took place at Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s New York penthouse.

His lawsuit says, “They arrived eager to discuss plans for the next day’s filming, prepared with their production materials. Instead, they were blindsided by Lively and Reynolds, who presented a list of grievances that were both unanticipated and troubling. Reynolds launched into a tirade, berating Baldoni in what Baldoni later described as a ‘traumatic’ encounter, stating he had ‘never been spoken to like that in his life’.

“When Baldoni resisted apologising for what he had not done, Reynolds became further enraged. Everyone, including the producer Lively had asked production to engage and a representative of Sony that was in attendance, left that ‘meeting’ in shock. The producer offered that in his 40-year career he had never seen anyone speak to someone like that.”

Justin Baldoni denies claims he sexually harassed Blake Lively

Blake Lively’s legal complaint and lawsuit argues that Justin Baldoni and his PR team launched a smear campaign against her out of retaliation for Blake Lively’s claiming he sexually harassed her. Justin Baldoni denies all these allegations. He says Blake Lively’s complaint is an attempt to boost her public image after all the negative press she got this summer.

His lawsuit says, “Any negative press about Lively was unequivocally a consequence of her own action. Lively’s marketing efforts, which included encouraging audiences to ‘grab your friends, wear your florals’ while promoting her hair care and alcohol brands, were widely criticized as insensitive.

“Far from being the product of a calculated smear campaign by plaintiffs, the backlash against Lively was the inevitable fallout of her own tone-deaf messaging and self-promotional tactics, amplified by her inability to read the room in addressing such a serious subject.”

The lawsuit also says, “Lively waged war on Baldoni, weaponizing innocuous interactions from May and June 2023 – long before there was any tension between them – to vilify and discredit him. At the time, Baldoni and Lively had a solid working relationship, and Lively expressed no unease around him.”

Justin Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel also denied implementing a smear campaign. She says she did discuss strategies PR like it, but never had to implement them because public opinion turned on Blake Lively anyway.

Justin Baldoni says tensions on set were because of Blake Lively’s ‘hostile take over’

The lawsuit filed by Justin Baldoni argues that his disagreements with Blake Lively on set weren’t because of his inappropriate behaviour, but because Blake Lively wanted more control of the film.

The document says, “The true source of tension between Lively and plaintiffs was Lively’s brazen and calculated effort to expropriate the film.”

Baldoni’s lawyers claim Blake Lively “threatened” to quit the production if she didn’t have more creative control. She eventually created her own cut of the film which changed Baldoni’s original vision.

The lawsuit also claims Blake Lively “disrupted” the production of It Ends With Us. Apparently she turned down meetings with an intimacy coordinator, kept adding dialogue which wasn’t in the script, asked to wear different outfits, and took clothes from the set home.

The new lawsuit gave reasons for Jamey Heath showing Blake Lively a naked video of his wife

One of the 30 demands which Blake Lively says were agreed to on 4th January is, “No more showing nude videos or images of women, including producer’s wife, to BL and/or her employees.”

Her complaint describes an incident with one video in detail. It says, “To add insult to injury, Mr Heath approached Ms Lively and her assistant on set and started playing a video of a fully nude woman with her legs spread apart. Ms Lively thought he was showing her pornography and stopped him. Mr Heath explained that the video was his wife giving birth. Ms Lively was alarmed and asked Mr Heath if his wife knew he was sharing the video, to which he replied ‘She isn’t weird about this stuff,’ as if Ms Lively was weird for not welcoming it. M. Lively and her assistant excused themselves, stunned that Mr. Heath had shown them a nude video.”

(Image via Sony Pictures)

Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit says Jamey Heath allegedly showed it to Blake Lively in preparation for when they filmed the birth scene in It Ends With Us.

“This claim is patently absurd. The video in question was a (non-pornographic) recording of Heath’s wife and baby during a home birth—a deeply personal one with no sexual overtone. To distort this benign event into an act of sexual misconduct is outrageous.”

The lawsuit also includes screenshots from this video.

Justin Baldoni says Blake Lively invited him into her trailer while she was breastfeeding

So, Blake Lively’s complaint says, “When Ms Lively tried to have a meeting with Mr Heath and the other producers to discuss Mr Baldoni’s unprofessional behaviour described above, that meeting turned into yet another violation. Rather than an ordinary meeting time and place, Mr Heath arrived unannounced at Ms Lively’s hair and makeup trailer while she was topless and having body makeup removed by makeup artists.” She claimed Jamey Heath stared at her while she was topless.

This incident apparently happened on the second day of filming and made Blake Lively and her makeup artists feel “deeply disturbed”.

It adds, “Throughout filming, Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath invaded Ms Lively’s privacy by entering her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including when she was breastfeeding her infant child… Ms Lively did not expect or consent to anyone entering her private spaces while topless.”

Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit describes all these incidents very differently to Blake Lively’s. It says, “As revealed in a text message exchange between Baldoni and Lively less than two weeks into filming, Lively invited Baldoni to her trailer to rehearse lines while she was pumping breast milk.”

(Image via Sony)

His lawsuit also says Blake Lively invited him and Jamey Heath into the trailer while her makeup was being taken off. “Heath was invited into her trailer, along with a female producer, Baldoni, and a Sony representative for a meeting requested by Lively. Mr Heath arrived first to see if Lively was ready for the meeting, and after knocking and being invited in, saw that Lively was breastfeeding. She was not topless. She was having makeup removed from her collar bone while fully-covered.

“Roughly two weeks later Lively announced that she thought she had seen Heath make eye contact with her. Heath immediately apologised and said he hadn’t even realized he looked her way, in response to which Lively remarked, ‘I know you weren’t trying to cop a look.'”

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds allegedly pressured Justin Baldoni’s agent to drop him

Baldoni’s lawsuit says that in July 2024, “During the premiere of his movie Deadpool & Wolverine, Reynolds approached Baldoni’s agent at William Morris Endeavor and demanded that the agent ‘drop’ Baldoni.”

The talent agency WME – which did represent all three actors – allegedly dropped Justin Baldoni on 22nd December. WME has denied that they stopped working with Justin Baldoni because Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively requested it.

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Featured images of It Ends With Us via Sony.