• Blake Lively filed a legal complaint against her "It Ends with Us" costar, Justin Baldoni.
• Taylor Swift and Hailey Bieber appeared in the complaint.
• Lively's complaint said Baldoni and his team conspired to damage her reputation.

In a new legal complaint, Blake Lively said that her "It Ends with Us" costar, Justin Baldoni, who also directed and produced the film, conspired to damage her reputation and credibility.

The complaint also mentions Taylor Swift and Hailey Bieber.

Lively named Baldoni and six other defendants in her complaint, including the CEO and cofounder of his production studio, Wayfarer Studios. She also named communications crisis manager Melissa Nathan of The Agency Group PR and Baldoni's publicist, Jennifer Abel.

In the complaint, Lively said Baldoni and his team created a "multi-tiered plan" using "social manipulation" to "destroy" her reputation.

"This plan went well beyond standard crisis PR. What Ms. Nathan proposed included a practice known as 'Astroturfing,' which has been defined as 'the practice of publishing opinions or comments on the internet, in the media, etc. that appear to come from ordinary members of the public but actually come from a particular company or political group,'" according to the complaint.

The complaint says that Baldoni and his team discussed controversies around Swift and Bieber as strategic suggestions while conspiring against Lively.

Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, said Lively's complaint was a "desperate attempt to 'fix' her negative reputation."

Baldoni and his team considered leveraging backlash around Swift and the 'weaponization of feminism,' the complaint says

Nathan's communications company shared a "Scenario Planning" document with Baldoni and others that outlined potential strategies "should [Ms. Lively] and her team make her grievances public," the complaint says.

The complaint includes a copy of that document, which Lively's attorneys obtained through a civil subpoena.

The planning document discussed what Baldoni's team could do if Lively's husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, publicly defended her against critics. It included a reference to Swift, who is a friend of Lively. The pair have attended Kansas City Chiefs football games together and have been photographed by paparazzi while hanging out.

"As part of this, our team can also explore planting stories about the weaponization of feminism and how people in BL's circle, like Taylor Swift, have been accused of utilizing these tactics to 'bully' into getting what they want," the planning document says, according to the complaint.

The complaint says Baldoni used a social media post about Bieber and bullying as an example strategy

Lively's complaint also contained screenshots of text message conversations between Baldoni and his team, which were also obtained through a civil subpoena. According to the complaint, Baldoni sent a text message to his publicist, Abel, in early August.

"A few days later, on August 5, 2024, Mr. Baldoni set the narrative for the social media campaign, sending Ms. Abel a screenshot of a thread on X that had accused another female celebrity of bullying women," the complaint said. "Mr. Baldoni stated, 'this is what we would need.'"

The social media post included two pictures of Bieber and insinuated she had bullied other women. That narrative gained traction on social media in 2023 and resulted in widespread backlash against Bieber.

A representative for Lively referred Business Insider to a statement she shared with The New York Times.

"I hope that my 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," she said.

Lively also said neither she nor her representatives planted negative stories about Baldoni or Wayfarer Studios.

Baldoni's attorney said the accusations in Lively's complaint were "completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media."

Representatives for Bieber and Swift did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• "It Ends with Us" star Blake Lively filed a legal complaint against Justin Baldoni, her costar and the film's director.
• Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, retaliation, and attempting to damage her reputation.
• Baldoni's attorney said the claims made in Lively's lawsuit were "completely false" and "intentionally salacious."

"It Ends with Us" star Blake Lively has filed a legal complaint against the film's director and her costar, Justin Baldoni, for sexual harassment.

Lively and Baldoni dominated entertainment headlines this summer as they promoted "It Ends with Us," a romantic drama based on Colleen Hoover's book. However, much of the attention shifted from the film's premiere to the tension between Lively and Baldoni. Fans online said they noticed the pair's strain during the press tour. By the press tour's end, Lively was navigating a negative backlash.

Lively, who produced the film alongside Baldoni's Wayfarer Studios, played Lily Bloom. Baldoni played Ryle Kincaid and directed the film.

Lively's complaint said Baldoni engaged in sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, inflicted "emotional distress," and conspired to damage her public reputation. It named six other defendants, including Wayfarer Studios CEO Jamey Heath and cofounder Steve Sarowitz. Crisis communications professional Melissa Nathan, publicist Jennifer Abel, and a Texas-based contractor named Jed Wallace were also named.

"Ms. Lively never sought out conflict with Wayfarer, Ms. Baldoni, or Mr. Heath, but instead consistently attempted to speak up for a safe and respectful workplace privately in the hopes of protecting herself, as well as the cast and crew, without jeopardizing a film that she believed could make a difference in people's lives," the complaint says. "In response, Mr. Baldoni, Mr. Heath, and those working for them, sought to destroy Ms. Lively and anyone else who knew the truth."

Here's a breakdown of the five biggest bombshells in Lively's complaint.

At an 'all hands' meeting, Baldoni and others agreed to address the 'hostile work environment'

The complaint says she attended an "all hands" meeting with Baldoni, Heath, and others in January to discuss the "hostile work environment that had nearly derailed production of the film." Her husband, Ryan Reynolds, also attended the meeting.

"Ms. Lively was forced to address concerns about Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath's misconduct with them directly and began doing so months before filming began," the complaint says. "The concerns she raised were not only for herself but for the other female cast and crew, some of whom had also spoken up."

The meeting resulted in a list of behaviors that Baldoni and Heath agreed to stop, including "showing nude videos or images of women, including the producer's wife, to BL and/or her employees."

Other behaviors the men agreed to cease were mentioning their "previous pornography addiction or BL's lack of pornography consumption" and "descriptions of their genitalia," according to the complaint.

The agreed-upon behaviors were compiled into a document that was shared with Wayfarer Studios, which said it found "most of them not only reasonable but also essential for the benefit of all parties involved," according to the complaint.

Baldoni added 'graphic content' to the film without Lively's knowledge, the complaint says

Baldoni added improvised sexual content and nude scenes to "It Ends with Us" in "highly unsettling ways," the complaint says, including an on-camera orgasm, without Lively's knowledge or consent.

"When Ms. Lively objected to these additions, Mr. Baldoni insisted he had added them because he was making the film 'through the female gaze,'" according to the complaint. "Although he agreed to remove the scenes, he made a last-ditch attempt to keep one in which the couple orgasm together on their wedding night, which he said was important to him because he and his partner climax simultaneously during intercourse."

"Mr. Baldoni then intrusively asked Ms. Lively whether she and her husband climax simultaneously during intercourse, which Ms. Lively found invasive and refused to discuss," the complaint says.

The complaint also says Baldoni urged Lively to "simulate full nudity" while filming a scene in which her character gives birth, saying it's "not normal" for women to wear their hospital gowns while giving birth. Although Lively disagreed, the complaint says she compromised and agreed to be nude from below the chest down.

Neither Baldoni nor Heath closed the set before filming the scene, according to the complaint, allowing "non-essential crew to pass through while Ms. Lively was mostly nude with her legs spread wide in stirrups and only a small piece of fabric covering her genitalia."

Heath also showed Lively and her assistant a video of his wife giving birth that Lively initially believed was pornography, the complaint says.

"Ms. Lively was alarmed and asked Mr. Heath if his wife knew he was sharing the video, to which he replied, 'She isn't weird about this stuff,' as if Ms. Lively was weird for not welcoming it," the complaint said.

Lively said Baldoni 'abruptly' shifted away from their agreed-upon marketing strategy

In the complaint, Lively said she and other cast members promoted "It Ends with Us" according to a "Marketing Plan" created by the film's distributor, Sony Pictures Entertainment. That plan encouraged the cast to emphasize her character's "strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence" to avoid talking points that could make the film "feel sad."

Lively said that Baldoni "abruptly pivoted away" from the plan, promoting the domestic violence storyline of the film and what the complaint described as "survivor content."

Consumers criticized Lively's marketing approach during the press tour, which resulted in social media backlash toward her and her brands. Baldoni did not experience the same disapproval from audiences.

"What the public did not know was that Mr. Baldoni and his team did so in an effort to explain why many of the Film's cast and crew had unfollowed Mr. Baldoni on social media and were not appearing with him in public," the complaint said.

Baldoni and his team engaged in 'social manipulation' to 'destroy' her reputation, the complaint says

In the complaint, Lively said Baldoni's decision to switch marketing strategies was the start of a "multi-tiered plan" using "social manipulation" to ultimately "destroy" her public reputation.

Baldoni hired Melissa Nathan, a crisis communications specialist from The Agency Group PR, on July 31 at the suggestion of his publicist, Jennifer Abel.

"What Ms. Nathan proposed included a practice known as 'Astroturfing,' which has been defined as 'the practice of publishing opinions or comments on the internet, in the media, etc. that appear to come from ordinary members of the public but actually come from a particular company or political group," the complaint said.

The complaint includes screenshots of text messages that Lively's attorneys say are between Abel and Nathan. In one, Abel tells Nathan that Baldoni "wants to feel like she can be buried," in a reference to Lively.

In another one, Baldoni sent Abel a screenshot of a social media post about Hailey Bieber facing bullying allegations in 2023.

"This is what we would need," Baldoni wrote in the text message, according to the complaint.

Baldoni and his team would "feed pieces of this manufactured content to unwitting reporters, making content go viral in order to influence public opinion and thereby cause an organic pile-on," the complaint says.

In the following weeks, news outlets published numerous stories about the "backlash" Lively faced from fans online during the film's press tour.

"To safeguard against the risk of Ms. Lively ever revealing the truth about Mr. Baldoni, the Baldoni-Wayfarer team created, planted, amplified, and boosted content designed to eviscerate Ms. Lively's credibility," the complaint said.

Baldoni retaliated against Lively to protect his image as a 'feminist ally,' the complaint says

Baldoni was "desperate to suppress any suggestion that he engaged in inappropriate conduct, much less sexually harassing conduct, because it would entirely undermine his carefully curated public image as a feminist ally," the complaint says.

The document referenced a 2018 TED Talk Baldoni gave entitled "Why I'm Done Being 'Man Enough" and other similar content.

"In sum, Mr. Baldoni has crafted a public image of himself as not just an ally, but also a fierce advocate for women," the complaint says. "Contrary to this image, as set forth in detail above, Mr. Baldoni has spent the last several months and significant resources on his goal of wanting to 'bury' and 'destroy' Ms. Lively for raising concerns about his and his CEO's harassing behavior and other disturbing conduct."

Lively says she hopes her actions help expose the 'sinister' tactics used to keep people quiet

Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, said the complaint's claims were "categorically false."

"It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to 'fix' her negative reputation, which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions," the statement read.

Freedman's statement called the Lively's claims "completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media."

The statement said Wayfarer Studios chose to hire Nathan before the film's marketing campaign "due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met."

Lively shared a statement with The New York Times, saying, "I hope that my 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."

Lively told the outlet that neither she nor her representatives ever spread negative information about Baldoni or Wayfarer Studios.

• Blake Lively has sued her 'It Ends with Us' costar, Justin Baldoni, for sexual harassment.
• Lively said Baldoni, who also directed the film, tried to damage her reputation.
• Baldoni's attorney told BI that Lively sued him to "fix her negative reputation."

Blake Lively is suing her "It Ends with Us" costar, Justin Baldoni, for sexual harassment, retaliation, and coordinating attempts to damage her reputation.

The hype around "It Ends with Us" was intense ahead of the film's August release, but much of the attention focused on the working relationship between its stars, Lively and Baldoni.

Lively played Lily Bloom, and Baldoni played Ryle Kincaid. Baldoni also directed the film, and his company, Wayfarer Studios, produced it.

Lively said in the legal complaint, obtained by Business Insider, that she attended an "all hands" meeting with Baldoni and "It Ends with Us" producer Jamey Heath during filming to address the "hostile work environment that had nearly derailed production of the Film." Lively's husband, Ryan Reynolds, also attended the meeting.

"Ms. Lively was forced to address concerns about Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath's misconduct with them directly, and began doing so months before filming began," according to Lively's complanit. "The concerns she raised were not only for herself, but for the other female cast and crew, some of whom had also spoken up."

The meeting ended with all parties agreeing to a code of conduct for on-set behavior, including "no more showing nude videos or images of women, including the producer's wife," to Lively or her employees. The agreement also required "no more mention of Mr. Baldoni or Mr. Heath's previous 'pornography addiction' or BL's lack of pornography consumption to BL or to other crew members."

Lively says in the complaint that another issue arose between her and Baldoni after filming due to differing marketing strategies. Lively adhered to a "marketing plan" that focused on her character's "strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence."

Baldoni, however, "abruptly" switched marketing strategies before the film and focused on the domestic violence aspect, according to the complaint.

During the film's press tour, social media users criticized Lively's lighthearted marketing approach, which led to a wave of backlash. In contrast, fans sided with Baldoni's approach and he emerged relatively unscathed by the fallout.

Lively said in the complaint that Baldoni and his team engaged in "social manipulation" to "destroy" her reputation through a "sophisticated press and digital plan in retaliation for Ms. Lively exercising her legally protected right to speak up about their misconduct on the set, with the additional objective of intimidating her and anyone else from revealing in public what actually occurred."

The complaint included a series of text messages, including some between Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan. Abel is a publicist who worked with Baldoni. Nathan is a crisis communications specialist for The Agency Group PR LLC, which Baldoni retained in early August.

In one message shared with Business Insider by a representative for Lively, Abel wrote to Nathan that Baldoni "wants to feel like she can be buried," referring to Lively.

Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, said in a statement that claims made in Lively's complaint were "categorically false."

"It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to 'fix' her negative reputation, which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions," the statement said.

The statement added: "These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media."

Freedman's statement said Wayfarer Studios decided to hire Nathan before the film's marketing campaign "due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met."

A representative for Lively referred BI to a statement shared with The New York Times on Saturday.

"I hope that my 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," the statement said.

She also told the outlet that neither she nor her representatives ever spread negative stories about Baldoni or Wayfarer Studios.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

• Here are the six best movies on Netflix in December.
• Blake Lively stars in "It Ends with Us."
• Watch Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in one of his earliest movies, "Faster."

End the year by watching these movies on Netflix.

"Faster" (December 1)

Marking one of The Rock's earliest movie roles after ending his wrestling career, here he plays an ex-con who sets out to avenge his brother's death.

"Little" (December 1)

This comedy stars Marsai Martin, Issa Rae, and Regina Hall.

Hall plays Jordan, a bossy businesswoman who finally goes too far when she insults a child. The child wishes that Jordan would become a kid again, and Jordan then becomes her 13-year-old self.

Comedy ensues as now bossy teen Jordan goes through school. Rae plays Jordan's assistant who now pretends to be her aunt.

"Zero Dark Thirty" (December 1)

In the Oscar-nominated film, director Kathryn Bigelow chronicles the nearly decadeslong manhunt to track down and kill Osama bin Laden.

Jessica Chastain delivers one of the best performances of her career as Maya, a CIA intelligence analyst who has spent her career trying to track down bin Laden.

"Shiva Baby" (December 7)

Marking the directorial debut of Emma Seligman ("Bottoms"), this comedy follows the dysfunctional life of Danielle (Rachel Sennott) as she goes to a shiva where her ex-girlfriend (Molly Gordon) and her sugar daddy (Danny Deferrari) are both in attendance.

"It Ends With Us" (December 9)

Based on the popular Colleen Hoover novel, this romantic drama stars Blake Lively as Lily Bloom, who finds herself in a toxic relationship that reminds her of what she witnessed her parents go through when she was a child.

"Mad Max: Fury Road" (December 30)

After decades in development hell, director George Miller finally made the fourth title in his "Mad Max" franchise in 2015.

Tom Hardy took over for Mel Gibson in the role of Max, a loner in a postapocalyptic wasteland. But it's the eye-popping action sequences and introduction to a new character in the franchise, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), that turned this movie into an instant classic.