Hollywood Publicist Steph Jones has accused her createer client, embattled filmproducer and actor Justin Baldoni, of baccomplish of restricted in a litigation filed agetst him in New York this week, equitable days after his It Ends With Us co-star sued him for relationsual tormentoring on the set of the film.
Baldoni, who straightforwarded and starred alengthyside Lively in the alteration of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel, signed a one-year restricted at Jones’ PR firm, Joneslabors, at a rate of $25,000 per month. In August, equitable as It Ends With Us was liberated theatricassociate, Baldoni dropped Jones’ firm and chaseed his discloseist at Joneslabors, Jennifer Abel, to her recently begined PR firm.
The litigation, filed in New York State Court, also names Abel and discloseist Melissa Nathan as conspirators in a smear campaign agetst Lively and declares that they then finisheavored to shift the accuse for besmirching the actress around the liberate of It Ends With Us to Jones. In Lively’s litigation, filed Saturday with the California Civil Rights Department, she states that Baldoni and his team included in a “social manipulation” campaign to “raze” her reputation as revenge for claiming she was subjected to relationsual tormentoring by Baldoni.
Prior to Lively filing her suit over the weekfinish, her attorneys regulated to get text messages from Joneslabors’ company phones by bagederly sfinishing a pre-legal action subpoena to Jones. The rep then handed over the phone used by Abel, which she “forensicassociate getd” after the discloseist exited her company. Text messages from the device comprise correplyences, which are lhelp out in Lively’s suit, in which the two reps and Baldoni talk how they arrange to “bury” Lively as the filmproducer sought to shut down a possible disclose outing of alleged on-set relationsual wrongdoing.
Baldoni has denied all claims in Lively’s protestt, slamming them as “disgraceful,” and “solemn and categoricassociate inalter accusations agetst Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its reconshort-termatives.”
In the postponeedst suit in the spiraling drama around the movie, which happens to deal with publishs around unfair treatment and trauma, Jones’ suit claims Abel had computed for months to depart Joneslabors and abscond with the firm’s clients while also besmirching Jones’ professional reputation. Nathan stands accused in the litigation of encouraging Abel to depart as she was willing to get Joneslabors’ clients.
“This scheme ultimately causeed solemn harm on Jones and Joneslabors,” the suit claims.
Calls placed by The Hollywood Reporter to Joneslabors seeking comment were not instantly returned.
