Blake Lively files subpoena for Justin Baldoni's phone records
Blake Lively has filed a subpoena for her It Ends with Us co-star Justin Baldoni's phone records amid their legal drama.
The actress' lawyers told E! News that she's seeking to "expose the people, tactics, and methods that have worked to ‘destroy’ and ‘bury’ her reputation and family over the past year."
Subpoenas were sent to AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile for Baldoni, as well as to crisis public relations expert Melissa Nathan and publicist Jessica Abel to “expose the full web of lies" in the alleged smear campaign against her.
Lively's lawyers said the information they're requesting could “provide critical and irrefutable evidence not only about who, but also about when, where, and how their retaliation plan came together and operated.”
Baldoni's lawyer Bryan Freedman, meanwhile, told E! News that Lively is making an "extraordinary" request despite the parties reaching an "ordinary" part of the litigation process.
“They are asking for every single call, text, data log, and even real-time location information for the past 2.5 years, regardless of the sender, recipient, or subject matter,” Freedman is quoted as saying. “This massive fishing expedition demonstrates that they are desperately seeking any factual basis for their provably false claims. They will find none.”
Ongoing legal battle
The legal saga of Lively and Baldoni, who were co-stars in the movie adaptation of the novel It Ends With Us—which he also directed—stemmed from her filing a sexual harassment complaint against him and Jamey Heath, chief executive officer of Wayfarer Studios. She also accused 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 then published a report titled 'We Can Bury Anyone': Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine. It used excerpts from alleged text messages and emails 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.
Baldoni's camp has called the accusations "categorically false."
Freedman said 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."
On Jan. 1, Baldoni filed a $250 million (P14.5 billion) lawsuit against the Times—plus 10 other plaintiffs, including publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel—for libel, false light invasion of privacy, promissory fraud, and breach of implied-in-fact contract for its report.
The Times defended its article as "meticulously and responsibly reported."
Later, Baldoni's camp released a series of video takes during the production of It Ends with Us in an attempt to debunk Lively's sexual harassment allegations against him. It also announced plans to launch a website containing "all correspondence" with her and "relevant videos."
Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, in turn, requested a gag order.
On Feb. 3, Baldoni launched a website containing two documents: his $400 million (P23.4 billion) 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.
