Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Kjersti Flaa, a Norwegian journalist who helped fuel a backlash against Blake Lively in the summer, denies being part of an alleged smear campaign against the actor.
In August, Lively was promoting her latest movie "It Ends With Us," which was overshadowed by rumors that she and her co-star and the film's director Justin Baldoni had fallen out. It culminated in a widespread backlash against Lively.
Lively alleged in a legal complaint filed Friday that Baldoni, his publicists, and the production company orchestrated a smear campaign against her. She accused his team of enacting a "multi-tiered" plan to "destroy" her reputation to stop complaints she made about Baldoni's behavior on the film's set from being made public.
Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and his company Wayfarer Studios, said in a statement that the claims made in Lively's complaint were "categorically false."
The lawsuit also briefly mentions a video Flaa shared on YouTube at the height of the backlash, titled "The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job." The video, which went viral in August, shows Lively giving a hostile response after Flaa congratulates her on her "little bump" in a 2016 interview.
On Saturday, Flaa denied claims she worked with the team Lively alleged carried out the smear campaign after the lawsuit and a New York Times article connected her to it.
"This is what I do for a living. I would never accept money to jeopardize my integrity as a journalist," Flaa said in a YouTube video.
Flaa said she wasn't aware of the backlash against Lively and posted the video because she didn't like "It Ends With Us," had a bad experience with Lively, and "had enough of Hollywood."
"I know nothing about Justin Baldoni. I know nothing about his PR team, and I definitely would never work with a PR team under any circumstances to put hate out there on the internet against someone or to smear someone. I would never ever do that," Flaa said, adding that she thought the messages sent by members of Baldoni's team used in the lawsuit were "disgusting."
Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images
Flaa said Lively should take accountability for her "tone-deaf" promotion of "It Ends With Us," such as not talking about the domestic violence element of the story, which fueled the backlash over the summer. The film is about a florist who ends up in an abusive relationship.
Business Insider reached out to reps for Lively and Baldoni but didn't hear back.
In Lively's lawsuit, she said that the cast was contractually obligated to follow a marketing plan created by Sony Pictures Entertainment, the distributor of the film, to avoid talking in a way that made the movie appear "sad."
Flaa ended the video by inviting Lively to her show.
However, by Monday, she had changed her tune when she posted another video in which she accused Lively's team of trying to undermine her credibility to rebuild the actor's reputation.
Flaa said she has received hate mail and accusations that she was being paid to "smear other women."
"I just don't want to be a part of this whole mess. U never asked to be a part of it," she said. "So please stop spreading lies about me."
