Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have filed a gag order against Justin Baldoni’s legal team after raw, unedited footage from the set of It Ends With Us was leaked.
The clips, which surfaced online, featured multiple takes of Lively and Baldoni performing a dance scene for the romantic drama, where they played Lily Bloom and Ryle Kincaid, respectively.
The legal letter, addressed to Judge Lewis J. Liman, accuses Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman of “improper conduct” in releasing the footage. Lively’s legal team has responded fiercely, calling the leak further proof of their allegations against Baldoni.
“Justin Baldoni and his lawyer may hope that this latest stunt will get ahead of the damaging evidence against him, but the video itself is damning,” they told Page Six.
“The video shows Mr Baldoni repeatedly leaning in toward Ms Lively, attempting to kiss her, kissing her forehead, rubbing his face and mouth against her neck, flicking her lip with his thumb, caressing her, telling her how good she smells, and talking with her out of character.”
The Standard has contacted Justin Baldoni’s legal reps for comment.
This controversy follows a New York Times exposé titled We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine, which alleges Baldoni and his team orchestrated a campaign to discredit Lively.
According to the piece, this fallout has already cost Baldoni three roles and hundreds of millions in potential earnings.
Sources close to Baldoni, however, insist the gag order following the NYT piece is “grossly unfair.” One insider claimed the Hollywood star wants “to do is release videos and text messages to prove the allegations are false.”
They also labelled Lively’s actions as “unbelievable,” accusing her of leading a takedown campaign while simultaneously seeking to silence Baldoni’s defence.
The couple’s lawyers, however, have hit back hard, accusing Baldoni’s legal team of conducting a “harassing and retaliatory media campaign” since Lively’s initial legal complaint in late December as per TMZ.
After Baldoni released the behind-the-scenes footage, Lively’s representatives highlighted that the scenes in question were entirely improvised and filmed without an intimacy coordinator—a key detail that underscores their case.
Her legal team claimed none of the intimacy shown in the video was choreographed and that it constituted “unwanted touching” without Lively’s “consent.”
“Justin Baldoni and his lawyer may hope that this latest stunt will get ahead of the damaging evidence against him, but the video itself is damning,” her lawyers said in statement to DailyMail.com.
They claimed that “every frame” of the footage corroborates what Lively described in her sexual harassment lawsuit filed last month.
“Every moment of this was improvised by Mr Baldoni with no discussion or consent in advance, and no intimacy coordinator present.
Lively’s legal team claims her “leaning away” from Baldoni during the takes was not acting.
“Any woman who has been inappropriately touched in the workplace will recognize Ms. Lively’s discomfort,” they said.
“They will recognize her attempts at levity to try to deflect the unwanted touching. No woman should have to take defensive measures to avoid being touched by their employer without their consent.”
Her team added that Baldoni releasing the video to the media is an “unethical attempt to manipulate the public” and a “continuation of their harassment and retaliatory campaign.”
In Lively’s lawsuit filed last month, Lively claimed Baldoni sexually harassed her during a dance scene by dragging his lips down her neck and telling her “it smells so good.”
The video Baldoni shared shows him nuzzling her neck. At a later point, he asks, “if I’m getting beard on you.”
Lively laughs and says, “I’m probably getting spray tan on you,” to which he replies “it smells good.”
Lively then says: “Well it’s not that, it’s my body makeup.”
Baldoni shared the footage with DailyMail.com from his production company Wayfarer and his lawyer Bryan Freedman, who has previously said the actor has “nothing to hide.”
After Lively sued Baldoni for sexual harassment, the New York Times published an article based on her filing that accused him of orchestrating a “smear campaign” against her in the media.
Baldoni then sued The Times for defamation and last week filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of trying to harm his career.
