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The already very public confrontation between It Ends With Us stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni is now taking things behind the scenes as the latter attempts to counter the former’s claims of sexual harassment during the making of the big screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 domestic violence novel.
As lawyers spar in. and out of court, the IEWU director’s team Tuesday dropped footage of a particular scene from the flick in the hopes of shutting some of Lively’s claims and her credibility down.
Baldoni has sued Lively, Ryan Reynolds and others in a $400 million defamation and extortion action and goes after the New York Times for $250 million in recent weeks as his career burns following the actress’ allegation of inappropriate behavior during production and a subsequent Crisis PR fueled “astroturfing” smear campaign. Even with rumors that all was not well on IEWU, this all went public officially when Lively filed an complaint with the California Civil Rights Department, and followed it up on New Year’s Eve with an official federal suit against Baldoni, his company, his backers and his publicists.
Referenced in the Gossip Girl alum’s own filings as one of many uncomfortable situations during filming, the slow dance scene between Lively’s Lily Bloom character and Baldoni’s Ryle Kincaid released this afternoon shows “both actors are clearly behaving well within the scope of the scene and with mutual respect and professionalism,” according to a title card from Baldoni’s side that comes up at the start.
As you can see below, it certainly seems like Lively and Baldoni are in good spirits and collaborating as the various takes are being shot. Figuring out a kissing sequence and joking abut Baldoni’s beard irratating her, Lively at one point says to her co-star/director: “I’m probably getting spray tan on you.”
Then again, the video does reveal an awkwardness between the duo that lingers — take a look:
In what has been a matter as much in the court of public opinion as in the actual courts themselves, representatives for A-lister backed Lively did not respond to request from Deadline over the IEWU footage. If they do, this post will be updated.
This latest volley of slings and arrows is soon to be followed with much more, as Baldoni’s lead lawyer Bryan Freedman has indicated that he will be dumping a treasure trove of text messages, emails, footage and much more on his client’s behalf in the near future in what has become a fight with the gloves distinctly off — especially as the WME-dumped Baldoni has almost nothing now to lose.
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