As ’s legal battle with continues, his attorney claims the actor didn’t approach the situation with any ill intent toward his costar.
In an interview with NBC News’ on the Friday, January 3, episode of Today, Freedman denied Lively’s claims that Baldoni coordinated a smear against her after the two butted heads on the set of It Ends With Us. “One hundred percent no,” he stated. “Justin Baldoni, from the get-go, said, ‘I don’t want to do anything negative toward her. I don’t want to hurt her.’”
Noting that he and Baldoni, 40, “absolutely” plan to countersue Lively, 37, Freedman also said they “plan to release every single text” between the former costars, claiming that text screenshots shared in Lively’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Baldoni lacked context.
“I’m not asking anyone to not believe anyone,” Freedman said. “I am more than willing to take every single text message that exists out there, lay them out, put them on a website for the world to see, have them see the truth and determine the truth for themselves.”
When asked whether he acknowledges that uncomfortable behavior went down on the It Ends With Us set, Freedman replied: “I think there’s some behavior always that can make people uncomfortable, and I don’t think anybody has the intention to do that. The question, really, in this case is does it rise to the level of sexual harassment?”
Following online speculation that Lively and Baldoni struggled to work together while filming It Ends With Us, Lively accused her former costar of sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed late last month (and first published by The New York Times). Among her claims, Lively accused Baldoni of body-shaming her, attempting to add additional sex scenes into the movie, showing her pornographic images and videos, breaking character and continuing to kiss her while filming and launching a “social manipulation” campaign against her to “destroy” her reputation.
Freedman called the allegations against Baldoni “completely false” in a statement to Us Weekly at the time, claiming that Lively instead threatened to not show up on set and not promote the film if her “multiple demands” were not met.
Baldoni and nine other plaintiffs later filed a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times on Tuesday, December 31, accusing the outlet of libel and cherry-picking in their reporting of Lively’s lawsuit. In the legal docs, obtained by Us, Baldoni continued to deny Lively’s claims of inappropriate workplace behavior, retorting several of her stories, including the aforementioned claims about pornography on set, working with an intimacy coordinator and more. He also alleged that she “kicked” him out of the editing process for It Ends With Us, despite his role as the movie’s director.
A New York Times spokesperson stood by the organization’s reporting in a statement to Us, sharing, “Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article. Those texts and emails were also the crux of a discrimination claim filed in California by Blake Lively against Justin Baldoni and his associates.”
Lively’s attorney also told Us Baldoni’s NYT lawsuit changed “nothing” about her accusations in her December 20 lawsuit or her federal complaint against Baldoni, publicists and , and Wayfarer Studios filed on Tuesday.
“I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted,” Lively shared in a December 21 statement to Us.
