Justin Baldoni has been dropped by his talent agency following a lawsuit from his former costar Blake Lively.
The 40-year-old actor/director worked with the 37-year-old actress on It Ends With Us, which premiered over the summer. Following reports of the pair feuding on set during the press tour, Blake accused him of sexual assault and attempts to damage her career on Saturday (December 21).
In the aftermath, a report revealed that Justin is no longer working with WME, his talent agency, which also has Blake as a client.
Keep reading to find out more…
According to reporting by Deadline, Justin was dropped by the group on Saturday morning. The decision was made “in part to the sexual harassment and retaliation complaint.”
WME did not return a request for comment at the time of publication Justin has also not responded to the report.
However, he denied the allegations in the lawsuit in a lengthy statement released via his lawyer Bryan Freedman.
“It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions. These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media. Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film, to work alongside their own representative with Jonesworks employed by Stephanie Jones, due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met. It was also discovered that Ms. Lively enlisted her own representative, Leslie Sloan with Vision PR, who also represents Mr. Reynolds, to plant negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media, even prior to any marketing had commenced for the film, which was another reason why Wayfarer Studios made the decision to hire a crisis professional to commence internal scenario planning in the case they needed to address. The representatives of Wayfarer Studios still did nothing proactive nor retaliated, and only responded to incoming media inquiries to ensure balanced and factual reporting and monitored social activity. What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals.”
Blake also shared a statement on the matter.
We pulled together the 10 biggest allegations from the lawsuit.
