Justin Baldoni's ex-agent compares Blake Lively's behavior during 'IEWU' filming to 'extortion'
Justin Baldoni's former agent, Danny Greenberg, described Blake Lively's behavior during the filming of It Ends With Us as "extortion."
According to court documents of a depostiion obtained by multiple outlets, Greenberg helped the actor-director write to Sony, the film's distributor, about Lively's "extortion" and "effort to gain control of the film."
He later clarified that he did not mean Lively committed literal criminal extortion.
"My use of the word extortion there was referencing just cumulative behavior that both the studio and [production company Wayfarer Studios] and Justin was having to manage," Greenerg said.
Baldoni's former agent also said in his testimony that he believed Lively made threats regarding the It Ends With Us premiere.
Lively's spokesperson, in a statement to PEOPLE, said that the court had already dismissed the "so-called 'taking over a movie' claim."
"This cherry-picked deposition quote from Baldoni's agent before he was dropped from WME adds nothing new," the actress's camp said.
“The court’s dismissal even assumed their allegations were true for the sake of argument—and still held that they don’t amount to a valid claim under the law,” the statement added. “This is a legal process, not a click-bait one. This is just a recycled distraction that has nothing to do with the actual sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit Baldoni and the Wayfarer Defendants are facing.”
In his deposition, Lively's talent manager Warren Zavala said that he was not "aware of any incidents that made Ms. Lively" uncomfortable" during the filming of It Ends With Us.
However, he noted that there were "definitely issues" regarding the post-production process.
Ongoing legal battle
Lively filed a sexual harassment complaint against Baldoni and Jamey Heath of Wayfarer Studios, the producer of It Ends with Us, in December 2024 accusing them of running a smear campaign against her.
In her complaint, Lively accused Baldoni and Heath 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."
The New York Times later published a report on Dec. 21, 2024 titled 'We Can Bury Anyone': Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine, which used excerpts from alleged text messages and emails that Lively obtained through a subpoena and detailed the work of crisis management firm TAG PR for Baldoni, including allegedly planting negative stories in the media.
In response, Baldoni's camp has called the accusations in the report "categorically false." They later released a series of video takes during the production of It Ends with Us in an attempt to debunk Lively's sexual harassment allegations, which prompted Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, to request a gag order.
On Feb. 3, Baldoni launched a website containing two documents: his $400 million 224-page amended complaint against Lively and Reynolds and a 168-page "timeline of relevant events," which included a compilation of screenshots as an additional exhibit to his amended complaint. It came two days before their first court hearing.
In June, Judge J. Lewis Liman dismissed some cases filed by Baldoni, which involved a $400 million (P22 billion) countersuit accusing Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist of extortion and defamation, and a $250 million (P13.9 billion) libel lawsuit against The New York Times over its Dec. 21, 2024, article.
According to the judge, Lively's statements to a California state agency regarding Baldoni's alleged harassment during filming were protected and could not be used as the basis for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios' defamation claim.
The trial for the Lively v. Wayfarer Studios et al. case is slated for March 2026.
