Blake Lively's publicist believes she shouldn't be involved in any Justin Baldoni drama. Leslie Sloane of Vision PR has filed a motion in New York this week that states that the claims filed in Baldoni's lawsuit are opinions and thus can't be the subject of a defamation case.
Sloane's legal team filed the documentation on Thursday, reports The Hollywood Reporter. The documentation alleges that Baldoni's claims are false and that she was “dragged” into the lawsuits as a “as a smoke and mirrors exercise to distract" the public and the legal system from Baldoni's "sexual harassment and systemic retaliation."
Baldoni originally charged a counter-lawsuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, debating accusations of sexual assault. He accused Sloane of mounting a smear campaign against him, alleging that she and her team planted stories in major outlets.
Sloane comes out in support of Lively
It seems like Baldoni took issue with several of Sloane's statements, including that the “whole cast doesn’t like Justin,” “the whole cast hates him” and “Blake was sexually assaulted.” Sloane's team labels the first two statements as “hyperbolic personal sentiments.”
The latter “amounts to inactionable opinion given the context in which it was made,” said Sloane's lawyer Sigrid McCawley. Sloane's team summed up their support for Lively by quoting the existing lawsuits and counter-lawsuits that have been filed over the past couple of months.
"When Ms. Lively bravely spoke up about Baldoni's predatory behavior, he and his team used every weapon in their arsenal to blame, embarrass, and silence her, going so far as to hire a crisis PR manager who promised to 'bury' Ms. Lively and 'destroy' her life,'" read the documentation.
What's the latest on this case?
The Blake Lively vs Justin Baldoni case first started in December, when Lively and Reynolds filed a lawsuit against Baldoni for sexual harassment on the set of "It Ends With Us" and for mounting a smear campaign against her.
The case has grown complicated over the past months. This week, Lively alleged that two women on the set of the film confided in her, sharing their "discomfort" with Baldoni and his set. She revealed that the women would be willing to testify on trial.