Justin Baldoni has been dropped by WME following Blake Lively’s accusing him of sexual harassment in a complaint filed on Friday, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The update comes hours after news broke that Lively was taking legal action against her It Ends With Us co-star and director.
In the filing, the Simple Favor actress — who is also repped by WME, along with her husband, Ryan Reynolds — not only accused Baldoni and his coworkers at Wayfarer Studios of sexual harassment but also of an alleged coordinated effort to destroy her reputation. The Jane the Virgin star’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, fired back at the allegations, calling them “shameful,” “serious and categorically false.”
Lively claims in the filing that things got so bad on set that there was a meeting with Lively, Sony Pictures, Baldoni and Jamey Heath from Wayfarer Studios, producers on the film, publicists for the film and more to address some of the “inappropriate conduct” that took place on the set.
The actress and her team brought forth demands for Baldoni and his team in order to begin production again after the actors strike. Some of the 30 demands included: “No more showing nude videos of women, including producer’s wife, to BL and/or her employees”; “No more mention of Mr. Baldoni’s or Mr. Heath’s previous ‘pornography addiction’ or BL’s lack of pornography consumption to BL or to other crew members”; “No more descriptions of their own genitalia to BL”; and “No more improvising of kissing.”
The complaint also notes that the It Ends With Us cast and crew were contractually obligated to promote the film per the predetermined marketing plan, which stated they would “[f]ocus more on Lily’s [Lively’s character] strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.” The plan also established they would “[a]void talking about this film that makes it feel sad or heavy [sic]—it’s a story of hope.”
However, Baldoni veered from that in the days leading up to the film and focused on the film’s more serious, domestic violence content. Per the filing, the actor-director and his team did so in an effort to explain why many of the film’s cast and crew had unfollowed him on social media and did not appear with him in public. The filing claims that he and his team used domestic violence “survivor content” to protect his image.
“What the public also did not know was that this was the beginning of a multi-tiered plan that Mr. Baldoni and his team described as ‘social manipulation’ designed to ‘destroy’ Ms. Lively’s reputation,” the complaint reads. “That plan was b