Originally appeared on E! Online
Following Blake Lively’s allegations against Justin Baldoni, his former publicist is also taking legal action.
The “It Ends With Us” actor and director, his company Wayfarer Studios, as well as publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, are named in a lawsuit filed by Stephanie Jones in New York’s Supreme Court Dec. 24.
According to the documents viewed by E! News, Jones is accusing Abel — an employee at her firm Jonesworks until this past summer, per LinkedIn — and Nathan of “secretly conspired for months to publicly and privately attack Jones and Jonesworks, to breach multiple contracts and induce contractual breaches, and to steal clients and business prospects.”
“Behind Jones’ back, they secretly coordinated with Baldoni and Wayfarer to implement an aggressive media smear campaign against Baldoni’s film co-star,” Jones, referencing the alleged campaign against Lively that the actress mentioned in her recent legal complaint, claims, “and then used the crisis as an opportunity to drive a wedge between Jones and Baldoni, and to publicly pin blame for this smear campaign on Jones—when Jones had no knowledge or involvement in it.”
E! News has reached out to defendants named in the lawsuit and has not heard back.
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Jones alleges that Abel and Nathan continue to point the finger at her to this day.
Meanwhile, “Baldoni and Wayfarer, who have since parted ways with Jonesworks, have repudiated their contractual obligations with Jonesworks and rebuffed Jones’s efforts to settle this dispute privately in arbitration,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants will not stop attacking Jones, and have refused any efforts to resolve these issues out of court.”
“This lawsuit seeks to finally put a stop to their continued misconduct,” the filing explains, “and to compensate Jones and Jonesworks for the damage Defendants’ conduct and scheme has inflicted.”
In a Dec. 24 statement to E! News, Jones’ lawyer Kristin Tahler echoed the lawsuit sentiments.
“For months, this group has gaslit and disparaged Stephanie Jones and her company for financial gain, to settle personal scores and most recently to distract from their disgraceful smearing of Blake Lively,” Tahler said. “This lawsuit is a necessary step to stop defendants’ continuing misconduct and for Steph to recover the reputation she has worked decades to establish and which the defendants disparaged for their own nefarious purposes.”
Lively’s legal complaint, filed with the California Civil Rights Department as a precursor to a lawsuit, according to The New York Times — accused Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us and for later taking part in a smear campaign against her, though his legal team has denied these claims.
“These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media,” lawyer Bryan Freedman said in a Dec. 21 statement to the NYT, adding that Lively’s legal action is “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation.”
Lively’s complaint, obtained by E! News, also included text messages between Baldoni, Abel and Nathan about the alleged campaign against her.
As for how Lively obtained the texts? According to Variety, lawyers for the Gossip Girl alum confirmed Dec. 23 that they “obtained the messages via a subpoena to Jonesworks LLC.”
Freedman, whose clients also include Wayfarer, Abel and Nathan, told the outlet that “none of his clients were subpoenaed over the matter” and that he “planned to sue Jones.”
In a Dec. 21 statement to the NYT, Lively said that she hopes her legal action “helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”
