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U.S.|‘It Ends With Us’ Actor and Director and His Publicists Sue The Times for Libel
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/us/justin-baldoni-blake-lively-it-ends-with-us-new-york-times-lawsuit.html
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Justin Baldoni claims that The Times defamed him and his team in an article about the actress Blake Lively’s allegations that she had been the victim of a smear campaign.
Jan. 1, 2025, 12:30 a.m. ET
Justin Baldoni, the director and co-star of the film “It Ends With Us,” and his publicists sued The New York Times on Tuesday, claiming the news organization defamed them in an article about allegations by Blake Lively, his co-star, that she had been the victim of a smear campaign.
The lawsuit, which seeks $250 million in damages, accuses The Times of uncritically accepting a “self-serving narrative” by the actress that Mr. Baldoni, his production company and their public relations team worked to harm her reputation after she complained about misconduct during the film’s shooting. It asserts that the Dec. 21 article deliberately omitted portions of text exchanges and other information that contradicted the actress’s version of events.
“The article’s central thesis, encapsulated in a defamatory headline designed to immediately mislead the reader, is that plaintiffs orchestrated a retaliatory public relations campaign against Lively for speaking out about sexual harassment — a premise that is categorically false and easily disproven,” the lawsuit said.
The suit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Bryan Freedman, an attorney representing Mr. Baldoni and five others, including Melissa Nathan, a crisis management expert whom Ms. Lively accused of helping orchestrate a campaign to manipulate news coverage and social media against her.
In addition to alleging libel by The Times, Mr. Freedman asserted a counternarrative that Ms. Lively wrested control of the film from Mr. Baldoni and that her publicist later tried to plant stories to damage his reputation.
In a statement, The Times said: “We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
“The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead,” the statement said. “Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”
