Justin Baldoni’s Ex-Publicist Trashes “Whack-A-Mole” Tactics Of Ex-Client & Inner Circle; Blake Lively Will Testify In 2026 Trial, Ryan Reynolds Still TBD

Handling non-public exposure for the likes of Tom Brady and J Balvin, Stephanie Jones is aware of a factor or two in regards to the energy of belief. When it involves the Jonesworks leader’s ongoing entanglement within the trench struggle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over what came about on It Ends With Us and the film’s fallout, the PR vet paints an excessively distinct portrait of her former consumer and his Wayfarer Studios cohorts

In a submitting past due Thursday to disregard counterclaims through Baldoni, Wayfarer pros and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, Jones and her group flip their criminal high-beams at the alleged “effort to chill disclosure, shift blame, and distance itself from its own conduct.” The memorandum of regulation positioned within the federal docket the day prior to this says Team Baldoni’s alleged “blatant harassment is repugnant and should be dismissed out of hand.”

With slightly below a 12 months till the trial get started date of March 9, 2026, lawyers for Lively and Ryan Reynolds assert the Another Simple Favor megastar can have her very public day in court docket. “This is a case about what happened to Blake Lively when she raised claims of sexual harassment on the set and the retaliation that followed,” mentioned lawyers Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson in a less-is-more observation to Deadline on May 8. “Of course she will testify.”

The standing of whether or not or no longer Deadpool major guy and defendant Reynolds will testify is TBD, I listen. In phase the solution is unresolved as a result of Reynolds is making an attempt to be pushed aside from Baldoni’s $400 million defamation and extortion motion in opposition to him, Lively, their publicist Leslie Slone and her corporate and the New York Times. In truth, Reynolds, Lively, Vision Sloane and the Gray Lady are all hoping to be reduce free from Baldoni’s criminal tractor beam. Something the Jane the Virgin alum isn’t all the time making that straightforward for them.

“Although obviously uncomfortable for the Lively parties, the truth is not a distraction,” Baldoni number one attorney Bryan Freedman says of the IEWU co-star and her A-lister staff like Taylor Swift and hubby Reynolds. “The truth has been clearly shown through unedited receipts, documents and real life footage. More to come. Blake was the one who brought her high-profile friends into this situation without concern for their own personal or public backlash. As the truth shows, she used her Dragons to manipulate Justin at every turn.” 

This all turned into public and clogging up the courts with complaints galore beginning with a sexual harassment and retaliation grievance filed through Lively on December 20 with California’s Civil Rights division That was once just about in an instant be successful through a NYT exposé the following day at the home violence themed IEWU and an alleged “we can bury anyone” on-line smear marketing campaign from Baldoni’s aspect to astroturf and neuter the actress.

Beyond what will have or have no longer went on throughout IEWU, the guts of the high-profile dispute for either side has been apparently damning textual content messages and different correspondence from Abel and Nathan. To that, it has lengthy been recognized that the texts, originated from Abel’s confiscated mobile phone when she exited Joneswork to shape her personal store in August of 2024 with very dangerous blood between one skilled besties Abel and Jones. It has additionally lengthy been asserted that Jones passed over the incriminating subject matter on account of a subpoena – a requirement that we now know can from an underneath the radar swimsuit Lively and Reynolds filed underneath a company identify in September 2024 and terminated on December 19, someday sooner than the actress’ CRD submitting.

Diving into murky accusations once more in opposition to Reynolds and Marvel house owners the Walt Disney Company relating to alleged narrative revenge on Baldoni, Freedman these days sweetened the pot and plot.

“Ryan’s involvement is very well documented and we continue to discover more intentional misconduct. Was Disney actually complicit in Ryan using shareholder revenues to further a personal grudge?” the attorney, who additionally represents the circle of relatives of the resentencing in quest of Menendez brothers. “I would be surprised to learn that this type of corporate waste would not lead to much more exposure for those that have been complicit in affecting shareholder revenue.”

Disney had no reaction to the go back of Freedman’s accusations that the icky and manipulative Nicepool persona in 2024 blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine was once a company sanctioned slagging of man-bun dressed in Baldoni and his feminist best friend assertions.  

Neither Freedman or different reps for Baldoni and the Wayfarer aspect had any reaction to Jones’ need to peer dueling fits from the IEWU director and ex-Jonesworks VP Abel tossed out. On the opposite hand, calling Abel’s person counterclaims “a rotating game of whack-a-mole, where the minute one baseless theory is debunked, another even more implausible theory pops up in its place,” Jones herself didn’t go away a lot to be contemplated about her stance on Baldoni and his shut aides.

Jammed with the incendiary textual content messages that experience framed what presiding Judge Lewis J. Liman has referred to as “a “eud between PR firms,” Jones’ 35-page submitting in opposition to the Wayfarer events, which contains Abel, takes a new-ish chew out of the opposite aspect.

The file from dear regulation company Quinn Emanuel says: “Wayfarer’s amended counterclaims are, like their predecessors, devoid of any footing in law or reality, and serve only as a transparent vehicle to vent Wayfarer’s anger over the lawful exposure of its co-founder Justin Baldoni’s sexual harassment of co-star Blake Lively, and his and Wayfarer’s retaliatory, vindictive smear campaign that followed. Irate not at Baldoni’s wrongdoing, but that it was widely covered in the press, Wayfarer now seeks to punish Jonesworks and its founder Stephanie Jones, masking lawful process with defamatory cries of ‘leaks.’ There were no leaks and Wayfarer is not a victim. Instead, it was a principal actor not only in the Lively campaign, but also in a covert, calculated scheme to sabotage Jonesworks from within and flout irrefutably plain contractual commitments. Wayfarer’s amended counterclaims fare no better than their first attempt, falling far short of stating any viable claim for relief.” 

Outside of the courts and the dockets, Lively has emerged from months of necessarily inconspicuousness in fresh weeks to wait the SNL 50th anniversary tournament, and move to the TIME 100 gala as a honoree and divulge the sexual attack her mom suffered a long time in the past. She and Reynolds discovered keen paparazzi short of to take some images of the couple as Lively and her partner took in some Broadway.

At the very same time, whilst the media savvy Lively skipped this 12 months’s Met Gala, she has additionally been selling the Prime Video taking part in A Simple Favor sequel on conventional shops in a somewhat conventional means. Career DOA Baldoni and his backers had been shuttered his Foundation, however Lively has been the use of her media hits with the likes of Seth Meyers to insist that “with out going too into it i…this 12 months has been the best possible of highs and the bottom of lows in my existence.“

“I see so many women around afraid to speak, especially right now, afraid to share their experiences, and fear is by design,” she added. “It’s what keeps us silent.”