Amber Heard expresses support for Blake Lively amid sexual harassment complaint vs. Justin Baldoni
Amber Heard has expressed her support for Blake Lively, who filed a sexual harassment complaint against Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director in the 2024 drama It Ends With Us.
“Social media is the absolute personification of the classic saying ‘A lie travels halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on,'" Heard said in a statement provided to NBC News.
"I saw this firsthand and up close. It’s as horrifying as it is destructive," she added.
Heard was alluding to her legal battle against her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, who won a defamation suit against her in 2022. He was awarded $5 million (P292.2 million) in punitive damages and $10 million (P584.4 million) in compensatory damages.
Heard was also awarded $2 million (P116.8 million) in compensatory damages in her counterclaim but nothing in punitive damages.
At the time, she said the decision “sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated.”
In her sexual harassment complaint, Lively accused Baldoni and Jamey Heath, chief executive officer of Wayfarer Studios, of telling her about their past sexual relationships and "previous porn addiction."
Heath also allegedly showed Lively a video of his wife naked and giving birth.
Baldoni and Heath likewise supposedly entered Lively's makeup trailer without permission, "including when she was breastfeeding her infant child."
Lively also recalled Baldoni claiming he could communicate with the dead, including her father, Ernie Lively. She found it "off-putting and violative."
Lively also accused Baldoni of running a public smear campaign against her. One of his crisis managers, Melissa Nathan, was the one Depp hired during his high-profile trial against Heard.
Freedman called the accusations "categorically false." He also said that a crisis manager was hired ahead of the film's marketing campaign "due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production."
In another statement, Freedman said the crisis management firm was simply doing its job, and the public was in control of their perception of Lively.
Baldoni, meanwhile, claimed that Lively threatened him not to show up on set and promote the film.
His legal team also alleged that Lively's camp had "planted negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media."
As It Ends With Us premiered, rumors of a rift between Lively and Baldoni made the rounds on social media. They did not do any promotion for the movie together.
It Ends with Us, based on the 2016 bestselling novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover, follows the story of Lily (Lively), who just moved and is ready to start her life after college. She then meets Ryle (Baldoni) who she falls for. Suddenly, her first love, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), reenters her life, leaving Lily to choose between the two.
