Justin Baldoni joined forces with his publicists, Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, in his new $400 million countersuit against Blake Lively.
Shortly after the lawsuit was filed on January 16 in response to Lively’s own lawsuit against Baldoni, Abel and Nathan — who were mentioned extensively in Lively’s lawsuit — broke their silence in a statement to People magazine, detailing the severe fallout they’ve faced.
“Five months ago, Ms. Lively chose to promote a film about domestic violence in a way that caused instant negative backlash due to her own highly publicised actions,” their statement reads. “Instead of accepting responsibility, she decided to cruelly blame us.”
“This malicious attack on private individuals by Ms. Lively and her team… set off a chain of events that has been harmful beyond measure,” Abel and Nathan stated, accusing Lively of promoting her film It Ends with Us in a way that spurred “negative and organic backlash.”
The publicists claim they’ve endured “death threats, abhorrent abuse and vile anti-Semitic slurs” since Lively filed her complaint against Baldoni and his associates.
Abel and Nathan described themselves as “private individuals” caught in the crossfire of what they call a “viciously selfish ongoing litigation littered with documented and provable lies.”
They further alleged, “With this filing, we lift our own curtain of what happens when the entitled weaponise power, fear, and money to destroy, intimidate, and bully those who get in their way.”
The publicists’ statement comes in the wake of Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit against Lively and her team. While Lively has alleged unprofessional behaviour on the It Ends with Us set, Baldoni and his associates contend that the narrative has been manipulated to harm their reputations.
For now, Abel and Nathan remain resolute in their defense, stating that they’ve been unfairly “scapegoated” for Lively’s actions.
“To be clear,” they declared, “Ms. Lively and her team initiated this smear campaign in the media for the sole intention of gaining undeserved public sympathy.”
