Justin Baldoni’s downfall has officially begun. In the wake of the Blake Lively accusations, WME has dropped Baldoni. It should be noted that WME also reps Lively. The full-on media assault against Baldoni is now on overdrive, and nothing’s going to stop it.
It had only been speculated what Baldoni might have done to Lively for her to go as far as to file a “sexual harassment” lawsuit against him. We now have more details (via Variety), and you can come to your own conclusions if this merits the “sexual harassment” tag:
Lively claimed that Baldoni complained about her weight to her trainer, inappropriately discussed his sex life and pressured her to disclose her religious beliefs. She also claimed that Jamey Heath, a “It Ends with Us” producer and the CEO of Wayfarer Studios, showed her a video of his wife giving birth.
Weird behavior? Sure, I guess. However, you’re willing to destroy the man’s life for this? A producer emailed me last night saying, “Don’t fool yourself, this is Lively’s desperate last ditch attempt to steal the rights to the sequel from Baldoni.”
Baldoni owning the rights to the ‘It Ends With Us’ sequel, and at the moment, holding it hostage, away from Lively, is clearly something that has irked the actress. The first film was released in the summer, earning $300M on a skimp $25M budget. A sequel was inevitably going to happen, unless the party who owned the rights to it refused to do it.
As for Lively’s claim that Baldoni perpetrated a purposeful smear campaign against her; let’s please not rewrite history. It was Lively who started the smear campaign first, and then he came back with his own, and now this.
Anyways, the truth is, publicists can’t bury anyone. A reddit campaign can’t destroy people. Whatever Lively and Baldoni did to smear each other could have only been made possible with the assistance of complacent journalists, fed whatever they’re told, and right now they’re siding with Lively. It’s ironic how her lawsuit against Baldoni ended up becoming the actual “smear” she’s accusing him of perpetrating on her.
Still no distributor for "Bucking Fastard," "Alpha Gang," "The Last Photograph," "Closing Night," and "The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd." The issue seems to be quality more than a lack of willingness to buy.