BLAKE Lively and Justin Baldoni’s legal war will likely drag on for years and the director will “never get anything close to $400 million” from the actress, an expert has claimed.
Lively, 37, first filed a lawsuit against her It Ends With Us co-star before Christmas after a bitter feud began on set.
She accused Baldoni of fat-shaming her, showing her nude videos and pictures, and claimed he and his team orchestrated a smear campaign to ruin her reputation.
In response, the director, 40, has come out guns blazing with a federal suit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and two publicists.
Documents seen by The U.S. Sun claim Lively set out to make Baldoni the “real-life villain in her story,” and schemed against him to deflect from the actress being seen as “tone-deaf” during the press tour.
He is asking for $400 million in damages after being dropped by his agency, WME, which also reps Lively and her husband.
Baldoni also had an award for “advocating on behalf of women and girls” taken away after Lively filed her complaint.
But attorney Camron Dowlatshahi, who deals in employment and entertainment cases, feels the millions he’s suing for in damages was simply to show he’s serious about taking Blake on.
Giving his opinion on the case, he told The U.S. Sun, “Justin Baldoni was not very well known before It Ends With Us, and before this lawsuit.
“So, as a man accused of sexual harassment in Hollywood, his career is absolutely in jeopardy. WME dropped him. That is a big sign that you are teetering.
“He needs this lawsuit and the reason why he slaps that extraordinary $400 million number on it is to show how serious it is and how career-threatening it is.
“He’s fighting for his career. It’s a shock value number. I would be absolutely stunned if he ever got a number close to that but that’s done for PR purposes a lot of times.”
Blake Lively may walk out with ‘$10m’ & ‘saved’ reputation after lawsuit while Justin Baldoni’s career is ‘dead’
Dowlatshahi said he feels Lively’s complaint left out a lot of what happened behind the scenes, including text messages and clarification of situations.
“There are three sides to every story, right? There’s Blake’s story. There’s Justin’s story, and then there’s the truth somewhere, kind of a mix of the middle. So you can already see by reading both complaints where that middle is.”
Dowlatshahi feels there’s a lot more to come in both lawsuits, as the stars go through discovery and may have to sit for recorded depositions to answer questions under oath.
He said, “You saw this with Johnny Depp and Amber heard. These are professional actors. So you know you give them a script, you give them a role, you give them a tone, you give them some guidance and direction, and this is what they do.”
Dowlatshahi feels Lively could do well if she has to sit for a deposition, adding, “She had to have known filing this complaint that this is gonna come down the road.
Statement from Justin Baldoni’s lawyer
Bryan Freedman, who represents Justin Baldoni, shared the following statement about the new lawsuit with The U.S. Sun.
“This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media,” Freedman claimed.
“It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret.
“Blake Lively was either severely misled by her team or intentionally and knowingly misrepresented the truth.
“Ms. Lively will never again be allowed to continue to exploit actual victims of real harassment solely for her personal reputation gain at the expense of those without power.
“Let’s not forget, Ms. Lively and her team attempted to bulldoze reputations and livelihoods for heinously selfish reasons through their own dangerous manipulation of the media before even taking any actual legal action.
“We know the truth, and now the public does too. Justin and his team have nothing to hide, documents do not lie.”
“You don’t just file a complaint and think, ‘Oh, this is going to settle immediately and go away’, especially with high emotions. You go into it knowing this is going to be a battle.”
The lawyer also believes they could both fight to take it to trial, which is likely to take years and cost each party a huge chunk of change.
Lively and her husband are believed to have a combined net worth of around $380 million.
Although Baldoni is nowhere near as successful, he also has other plaintiffs in his lawsuit likely funding it, including his production company, Wayfarer Studios.
‘HIGH EMOTIONS’
Dowlatshahi believes it could cost seven figures for Baldoni to take his case to trial, but insisted, “It’s not just him and his individual bank account that’s paying for this litigation.
“The production company notably has a billionaire investor. So I think you have very rich, very emotional people on both sides.”
Wayfarer is backed by billionaire Steve Sarowitz, the founder of Paylocity, a provider of cloud-based HR and payroll software solutions.
Statement from Blake Lively’s legal team
Blake Lively’s legal team shared the following statement with The U.S. Sun in response to Justin Baldoni’s newest lawsuit.
“This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook,” Lively’s legal team said.
“This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.
“Wayfarer has opted to use the resources of its billionaire co-founder to issue media statements, launch meritless lawsuits, and threaten litigation to overwhelm the public’s ability to understand that what they are doing is retaliation against sexual harassment allegations.
“They are trying to shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni.
“The evidence will show that the cast and others had their own negative experiences with Mr. Baldoni and Wayfarer. The evidence will also show that Sony asked Ms. Lively to oversee Sony’s cut of the film, which they then selected for distribution and was a resounding success.
“Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault. Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing.
“In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim.
“The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”
Dowlatshahi added that while it will be “exciting” for fans to get to hear what really happened, but stressful and costly for the parties involved.
Lively’s legal team has already spoken out after Baldoni filed the 179-page complaint against her and her husband, who he accuses of getting involved in the drama.
They told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement, “This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.”
Lively’s complaint was first filed in late December with the California Civil Rights Department before a formal lawsuit was lodged in New York federal court this month.
Dowlatshahi believes that was a smart move on the actress’s part, saying, “I think it initially has done her very well because you had that kind of lag time where there was no response. You had Christmas. You had the holidays. So people really got to sit with Blake’s version of events.”
Baldoni is also suing The New York Times in a separate suit, in which he claimed they conspired with Lively’s PR team to push an “unverified and self-serving narrative” while ignoring evidence from him.
A Times spokeswoman, Danielle Rhoades said in a statement, “The allegations against The New York Times in this new lawsuit are meritless and recycled from the equally baseless claims in the suit that was filed against The Times in California.”
