Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in It Ends with Us. Photo / Sony Pictures
With Game of Thrones references and Gossip Girl flare, Justin Baldoni’s explosive lawsuit against Blake Lively is attempting to fetch US$400 million ($700m).
It is no exaggeration to suggest that the making of It Ends With Us, a film starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, was more interesting than the movie itself. The fraught production, based on the romantic novel (with a thread of domestic violence running throughout) by Colleen Hoover, has spawned a wave of vicious lawsuits and countersuits dragging in the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Lively’s husband, Taylor Swift, Disney and the New York Times. Hundreds of millions of dollars, and reputations of some of entertainment’s most powerful players, are at stake.
Just before Christmas, Lively, 37, struck first with a civil lawsuit, accusing Baldoni, 40, of sexual harassment during filming and of instigating a smear campaign against her in the run-up to its August release. Baldoni responded two weeks ago, when he sued The New York Times, which first reported Lively’s complaint, for US$250 million ($448m) – Lively sued again (this time in a federal court) that same day. Baldoni followed up with a US$400 million ($716m) lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds. For context, It Ends With Us only made about US$350 million ($627m) at the box office.
Whatever flaws there may be in the American justice system, disputes like these require a huge amount of documentary evidence and claims to be made, allowing us to rubberneck at what celebrities are really like behind-closed-doors. Here are the most bonkers revelations in the spat gripping the entertainment industry.
Lively and Baldoni seemed to get off on the right foot. In fact, their messages to one another were cloyingly earnest in the way that the Hollywood elite can be at the beginning. He said that she was “a talent across the board. Really excited nd [sic] grateful to do this together”.
Meanwhile, on the eve of filming beginning, Lively wrote to Baldoni: “I’m excited to start tomorrow. But it’s only one piece of the journey. We started months ago. And I’m grateful for all we’ve built so far. Thank you for caring so much and for putting every bit of you into showing it. You have given so much of your time to fight for great [sic]. And that hasn’t gone unappreciated or unseen for a moment. Let’s do this s**.”
This sense of bonhomie did not last long. Baldoni claims that Lively tried to seize control of the film - including rewriting scenes and editing it herself - and was supported in that aim by Reynolds, one of the world’s biggest film stars, and another “mega celebrity friend”. The identity of the latter is, mostly, concealed, except for one instance where she is named as Taylor Swift.
Baldoni includes texts he was sent by Lively in response to how he felt “pressured” by Reynolds and Swift to acquiesce to her script edits, in which she compares herself to Daenerys Targaryen, the genocidal queen in Game of Thrones played by Emilia Clarke. “They [Reynolds and the mega celebrity friend] also know I’m not always good at making sure I’m seen and utilised for fear of threatening egos, or fear of affecting the ease of the process. They don’t give a s*** about that. And because of that, everyone listens to them with immense respect and enthusiasm. So I guess I have to stop worrying about people liking me (‘I don’t know’ emoji).”
The following text reads: “If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually for better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine [smiley emoji] You will too, I can promise you.”
Lively attempts to explain away this apparent behaviour on the part of Reynolds and Swift to the fact that her previous efforts at being a writer were overlooked or minimised. “They’ve watched me be hired as a writer and paid a significant fee for it but on the condition that I never ask for credit, which I could [not] give a s*** about, it’s more the principle of the dynamics at play. They’ve watched the other side of it too where I’m told at signing on that I’m wanted as a true collaborator, but once we get to work, I’m really just wanted as a ‘yes man’ audience and actor.” Say what you like about Lively, but she was not Baldoni’s yes man.
Lively had given birth about four months before filming started. She claims that, unbeknownst to her, Baldoni got in touch with her personal trainer, tried to find out what she weighed and urged her to lose more of her post-baby paunch.
She also paints Baldoni as an emotionally incontinent man who “made the rest of the cast and crew wait for hours while he cried in Ms Lively’s dressing room, claiming social media commentators were saying that Ms Lively looked old and unattractive based on paparazzi photos from the set”.
That is the opposite of what happened, according to Baldoni’s countersuit. “In fact, Lively had earlier expressed insecurity about her postpartum figure, and Baldoni made every attempt to genuinely reassure her. In this exchange, he stated, as her director, that, ‘anything you feel insecure about we will talk through and get creative together and make you comfortable. I just don’t want you to stress about your body, it’s the last thing you need.’ When he said he later tried to do just that, Lively responded with allegations of sexual harassment followed by a lawsuit””
In advance of production starting, Lively appeared to be aware of the need to channel her inner Christian Bale and get in peak shape before the cameras roll. Even if that meant going against the body-positivity credo to which they, and the rest of the woke Hollywood elite, subscribe.
“As woke as we both are and work to be, this movie requires a certain aesthetic,” she wrote. “It’s a part of the job that we both excitedly signed up for. I don’t shy away from that because it’s not problematic. It’s the assignment. Like when someone is about to start an athletic event. It’s their job to be in top shape. My husband and I both look at certain roles as athletic events. And this is one of them. It’s not always a part of the job. But on this one it is. And that’s great.”
Far from Baldoni bodyshaming Lively, it was actually the other way around (in his telling, at least). During the filming of one scene, she is alleged to have suggested that he get a nose job. This was doubly damaging to the actor because, according to his lawyers, it is “something Baldoni has publicly expressed insecurities about and has discussed on an episode of his podcast, Man Enough, exploring the topic of body dysmorphia”.
His attorneys also did their best at appending a legal zinger to this claim. “Baldoni, rather than write down a list of grievances against Lively, brushed it off and moved on with the scene.”
While Baldoni alleges that Lively tried to steal his film from him, the actress claims that she - and other members of the cast and crew - experienced “invasive, unwelcome, unprofessional and sexually inappropriate behavio[u]r” from Baldoni, who as well as starring was the film’s director, and his producing partner Jamey Heath. By her telling, Baldoni abruptly added new intimate scenes to the film, discussed his “previous pornography addiction” and reminisced on times when he did not get consent in his own sex life.
In one of the most lurid claims, Lively’s lawyers wrote that Heath showed a video to Lively and her assistant of his naked wife giving birth. Lively’s lawyers said that she 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. Ms Lively and her assistant excused themselves, stunned that Mr Heath had shown them a nude video”.
According to Baldoni’s new lawsuit, “this allegation knowingly and maliciously misrepresents an instance when in connection with the birthing scene, Heath, at the director’s request, attempted to show Lively a video that demonstrated the director’s vision for the scene. This video, which ultimately was not shown to Lively (even though she stated she’d like to see it later, as she was eating) is by all accounts beautiful.
“Since Lively wanted to see it later, what she saw was the first image at the start of the video, which shows Heath’s wife, himself, and their baby after his wife gave birth at home (a ‘natural birth’ or ‘home birth’). To characterise this image that captures such a beautiful moment with their newborn baby, shared with the consent of his wife for purposes of the film, as a naked photo, or worse, ‘porn,’ is deplorable. Nonetheless, Lively did not object and asked to see the video after she ate, having managed to ‘convince’ the director to write and shoot the scene according to her specifications.”
Baldoni and Heath are also accused by Lively of repeatedly entering her trailer on set without permission, including when she was breastfeeding her fourth child, Olin, or in a state of undress. “Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath both showed a shocking lack of boundaries by invading her personal space when she was undressed and vulnerable,” her suit claims.
Baldoni’s lawyers dispute these allegations entirely. “Lively’s suggestion that not one, but two professional and conscientious men barged into her trailer several times, or attempted to enter or pressured her to allow them to enter, offends not only their long-established integrity, but the sanctity of their vows to their wives and their dedication to their children and families.”
In his own lawsuit, Baldoni includes a text from Lively on June 6 inviting him to a meeting while she is pumping breast milk. “I’m just pumping in my trailer if you wanna work out our lines,” she wrote.
At the heart of Lively’s complaint is that Baldoni did not provide a safe working environment for her. She claims that he failed to provide “nudity riders” for her to sign, or employ an intimacy co-ordinator on set, both of which would have set her at ease during amorous scenes. For instance Lively claims that, during one scene, Baldoni “discreetly bit and sucked on” her lower lip, and “improvised numerous kisses on each take”.
Not so, says Team Baldoni. Lively, they say, was not only provided with a nudity rider but failed to sign it and her contract of employment — her “main concern” was “ensuring her fee was deposited into escrow” — and only made the nudity rider demand after the end of the Hollywood strikes that delayed production.
Lively made a nudity rider one of her demands for returning to work in January last year ”and presented as if it were Wayfarer, and not Lively, who was the cause of its absence".
She also demanded that “any footage previously shot without the nudity rider in place” could be used without her consent, “despite the fact that no simulated sex had been filmed yet”, according to Baldoni’s lawyers. “In fact, only one scene involving simulated nudity had even been filmed, and it was a scene that Lively knew of well in advance, given that she wrote it herself, knew when it would be filmed, and directed the action herself, never requesting a nudity rider or an intimacy co-ordinator.” So that’s clear.
Perhaps inevitably, the author of the source text is also dragged into these suits. Baldoni has sought to position himself as an award-winning male “ally” of women, and even hosts a podcast called Man Enough about toxic masculinity. It is these characteristics that he used to ingratiate himself with the novelist.
His lawyers describe Baldoni as a man “whose film career was dedicated to producing and directing meaningful films to have a positive impact on the world” and so “deeply moved” when he read It Ends With Us that he “genuinely believed he could make a film that could save lives”.
Baldoni reproduces his first email to Hoover, in which he is pitching to secure the film rights to the smash-hit bestseller. “My purpose and intention in this insane business are simple -create impact by making content that helps us remember our shared humanity,” he wrote in February 2019. “Content that asks us to be better, to make the hard choice in the moment that one day on our death beds we will be grateful for.” (This from the man who, before getting into legal spats with one of the world’s most famous actresses, was best known for playing a hotel owner in Jane the Virgin.)
Hoover seemed immediately besotted. “You ‘get’ the book, and that’s the most important thing to me,” she wrote to him. “My big fear is that I’ll option it to someone who thinks it’s a hot romance and they’ll take it in the absolute wrong direction … It’s actually funny you emailed when you did. When the email came through on my phone, I was on your website, browsing [W]ayfarer. (Loved the #metoo chat!)”
Hoover has since come out as being very much on Team Lively. “You have been nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient since the day we met,” she wrote to Lively on social media in December. “Thank you for being exactly the human that you are. Never change. Never wilt.”
Unusually for a $400 million lawsuit, Baldoni’s lawyers try to strike a tone of “more in sorrow than anger” at Lively.
“The following is not a story Plaintiffs ever wished to tell,” it starts. Lively, however, “has unequivocally left them with no choice, not only to set the record straight in response to Lively’s accusations, but also to put the spotlight on the parts of Hollywood that they have dedicated their careers to being the antithesis of. That task was always going to be an uphill battle. They never imagined they would encounter it to this degree”.
It goes on: “Plaintiffs now have no choice but to fight back armed only with the truth - and the mountain of concrete evidence disproving Lively’s allegations. Heartbreakingly, a film that Baldoni envisioned years ago would hono[u]r the survivors of domestic violence by telling their story, with the lofty goal of making a positive impact in the world, has now been overshadowed beyond recognition solely as a result of Lively’s actions and cruelty.”
Baldoni’s lawyers also take issue with the fact that Lively had legal papers served after the outbreak of the devastating wildfires that have destroyed large swathes of suburban Los Angeles in the past two weeks. “On a day when defendants were gathering their kids and pets, preparing ‘go bags’ and monitoring evacuation orders while fearing for their homes, Lively - from the safety of her penthouse in New York - deployed process servers in the midst of these troubling times.” The US$5.5m ($9.85m) home of Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s lawyer, burnt down in Pacific Palisades.
One of Baldoni’s biggest bugbears about Lively - albeit one that is unlikely to impact the result of the cases - is her understanding (or not) of Hoover’s novel. On three separate occasions in his lawsuit against the actress are claims that she did not read It Ends With Us.
“Her wrongheaded creative decisions reflected her fundamental lack of understanding of the book the film was based on. This came as no surprise to her worried colleagues, given that, even well into production, Lively had not even read the book” (emphasis original). “She even tried to ‘Google’ the colo[u]r of her character’s hair rather than pick up the book.” File that under “needlessly bitchy”.
It also appears that Reynolds is going to get dragged further into this spat than he would like. In Deadpool & Wolverine, his smash-hit blockbuster superhero film released last July, a sequence shows the star playing Nicepool, an oafish version of the title character.
Nicepool has lines such as “Where in God’s name is the intimacy co-ordinator?!” and complimenting Ladypool, played by Lively, for “snapping back” into shape after giving birth. In the aftermath of Lively’s original claims, there has been much supposition that Nicepool was based on Baldoni.
His lawyers have written to Disney, the studio behind Deadpool, to preserve any and all documents that reflect “a deliberate attempt to mock, harass, ridicule, intimidate, or bully Baldoni” through the character as part of his legal claims.
One way or another, the It Ends With Us lawsuits will end for all of them. So much bad blood has already been spilt, however, that it seems unlikely anybody will come out of it with their reputations enhanced.
Even less likely is that the warring parties will reunite for It Starts With Us, the prequel novel to which Baldoni already has the film rights.
Dolly Parton will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her charity work.