Actor Justin Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times on Tuesday, claiming the Gray Lady defamed him and his team when she reported on his “Breaking Up” co-star Blake Lively’s claim that he had launched a “smear campaign” against her.
Lively previously filed a lawsuit against Baldoni for sexual harassment, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and more. Lively also claims that Baldoni carried out and participated in a campaign of “social manipulation” to destroy her career and reputation.
On Dec. 21, the Times published a story titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside Hollywood’s Smear Machine,” which reported on private emails and text messages that showed “a manual for running a largely invisible smear campaign in the digital age.” about Lively. , a 37-year-old actress married to an actor Ryan Reynolds.
Actor Justin Baldoni is suing The New York Times for defamation. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
However, Baldoni and other plaintiffs, including Hollywood PR gurus, claim that the Times article “deliberately omitted parts of the messaging and other information that contradicted the actress’ version of events.” They claim the Times defamed them in the process, omitting critical context from communications that dispute many of Lively’s claims.
“The article’s central thesis, contained in a libelous headline designed to immediately mislead the reader, is that the prosecutors orchestrated a vindictive public relations campaign against Lively for speaking out about sexual harassment—a premise that is categorically false and easily disproved,” 87 – the lawsuit page, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by attorney Bryan Freedman, claims.
“The Times story relied almost entirely on Livelyn’s unverified and self-serving narrative, elevating her almost verbatim, ignoring abundant evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives,” the lawsuit continues.
A freelancer he told Variety that the Times “bowed to the wishes and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting a respected publication by using faked and manipulated stories and deliberately omitting stories that challenge their chosen PR narrative.”
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. (Getty Images)
The Times stands by its reporting.
“The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article,” said Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha Fox News Digital.
“We published theirs full statement also in response to the allegations in the article,” she continued. “We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
The suit also alleges that the Times published its report before the deadline it gave Baldoni’s representatives to respond in order to “pay lip service to journalistic ethics and fundamental honesty” but “never intended — or wanted — the plaintiffs to respond.”
Talent agency William Morris Endeavor dropped Baldoni as a client after the publication in the Times, the paper said.
Freedman did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment about Baldoni’s claims about the Times. He previously told The Times that Lively’s initial claims were “completely false, outrageous and deliberately maligned with the intention of publicly hurting and questioning the story in the media”.
LONDON, ENGLAND – AUGUST 8: Blake Lively attends the UK Gala Screening of ‘It Ends With Us’ at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on August 8, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Lia Toby/Getty Images) (Lia Toby/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital’s Lauryn Overhultz and Christina Dugan Ramirez contributed to this report.
