This past summer, the press tour for the release of It Ends With Us, a movie that deals with domestic violence, saw public opinion turn against one of its stars, Blake Lively.
But behind the scenes, Lively alleges in a legal complaint published by The New York Times, she faced sexual harassment, repeated violations of her physical boundaries, and a "multi-tiered plan" designed to "destroy" her reputation.
In the undated legal filing, which the Times said was filed Friday to the California Civil Rights Department, she accuses co-star and director Justin Baldoni and his team of attacking her public image after a meeting was held to address "repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior" by Baldoni and a lead producer on the movie.
If the California Civil Rights Department accepts the case, it could investigate, potentially resulting in legal action.
An attorney for the studio, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement emailed to NPR that Lively's allegations are "categorically false" and "another desperate attempt to 'fix' her negative reputation."
At the Jan. 4 meeting, attended by Lively, Baldoni, studio CEO and producer Jamey Heath and others, the complaint alleged they discussed "inappropriate conduct" experienced by Lively and other cast and crew. All parties agreed to a list of conduct that would cease which allowed for the movie's production to resume, lawyers for Lively said in the filing.
The list of agreed-upon demands included, the complaint says: No more showing nude videos of women, including the producer's wife, to Lively and/or her employees; no more mention of Baldoni's or Heath's previous "pornography addiction" to Lively or to other crew members; no more descriptions of their own genitalia to Lively; and "no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex, or on camera climaxing by [Lively] outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project."
Baldoni's and Heath's studio, Wayfarer, also agreed to provide an intimacy coordinator on set at all times, and other safeguards on set, according to the filing. The studio also agreed not to retaliate against Lively, it said.
The complaint includes excerpts from text messages and emails between Baldoni and his representatives that Lively's lawyers said they obtained through a subpoena.
The movie, adapted from Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel, is based on the relationship of the author's parents. In it, Lively plays Lily Bloom, a florist who falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni). During their relationship Kincaid turns physically and emotionally abusive.
The complaint says Lively, a producer on the film, was under contract to follow a marketing plan that directed the cast to focus "more on Lily's strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence," and to avoid depictions of the film as "sad or heavy … it's a story of hope," the complaint says.
During the film's promotion, Lively drew backlash from fans for her attempts to speak about a story of domestic abuse with a lighthearted tone. Many social media comments, meanwhile, commended Baldoni's promotional message for viewers to always have hope.
Around that time, the complaint alleges, Baldoni and his team were staging a well-financed 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 filing says Baldoni hired a crisis communications specialist who allegedly developed a plan to change the narrative on social media in the director's favor in a way that could not be traced back to the studio's team. Text exchanges between Baldoni and the Wayfarer PR team allegedly discuss the creation and amplification of misleading stories designed to discredit Lively, according to the actress' legal team.
"He wants to feel like she can be buried," wrote Baldoni's publicist Jennifer Abel in an Aug. 2 message to the crisis management specialist, Melissa Nathan, excerpted in the complaint.
Freedman, the studio's lawyer, said in the statement to NPR that Wayfarer Studios made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the movie's marketing campaign, "due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production which included her threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met.
"What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals," Freedman added.
Chloe Veltman contributed reporting.
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