Justin Baldoni is countersuing his former publicist Stephanie Jones for allegedly leaking text messages to Blake Lively’s camp that served as the basis for the actress’ claims the actor-director launched a smear campaign against her.
Baldoni and publicist Jennifer Abel, Jones’ former partner at Joneswork PR, filed the counterclaim Friday in New York federal court.
In late December, Lively, 37, filed a lawsuit that accused Baldoni, 41, of sexually harassing her on the set of “It Ends With Us,” which Baldoni directed and starred in alongside the “Gossip Girl” star.
Lively then sued Baldoni, 41, on Dec. 31, the same day he filed a $250 million libel lawsuit against The New York Times for its report detailing her claims and featuring text messages, all of which Variety says appear to come from Abel’s phone.
Baldoni filed a $400 million defamation lawsuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and her publicist Leslie Sloane in January, also accusing them of civil extortion. The trio has filed motions to dismiss the suit. On Friday, Sloane’s stay for discovery was denied.
Jones was the first to level the smear campaign claims in December when she sued Baldoni, Abel and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan for alleged breach of contract.
“It is undeniable that Stephanie Jones initiated this catastrophic sequence of events by violating the most basic of privacy rights, as well as any remaining trust her clients held,” Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement to Variety, adding that Jones is “no stranger to stirring up crisis scenarios for departing clients.”
Despite having a contract that expired this year, Baldoni and Wayfarer were allegedly disturbed enough by Jones’ “erratic” behavior to terminate their contract in August — the same month Abel’s phone was seized, shortly after notifying Jones she’d be leaving the firm to start her own.
After the seizure, Jones allegedly “had unrestricted access to everything stored on Abel’s phone.”
Hours after Abel turned over her phone, the complaint says Sloane called Nathan to say she “had seen Nathan’s text messages (which could only have come from Abel’s phone) and that Nathan should expect to be sued.”
The complaint alleges that, contrary to claims by Lively’s team, Jones handed over the communications “without a subpoena” to “construct a false narrative about the source of Lively’s bad publicity.”
In a statement to Variety, an attorney for Jones maintains that Abel, Nathan and others “conspired” to wage the alleged smear campaign and says the December “lawsuit is based entirely on facts and concrete evidence.”