Inside the bombshell and ‘yummy’ Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni texts after heated court hearing-Brooke Ivey Johnson-Entertainment – Metro

Justin Baldoni has published his text messages with Blake Lively amid ongoing legal drama (Picture: Getty Images)

The drama between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively has reached unprecedented levels of pettiness, with Baldoni launching an entire website complete with a 168-page document of ‘evidence.’

The document is a fascinating read, complete with thousands of words of commentary and hundreds of screenshots of emails and text messages relevant to the ongoing case.

Lively and Baldoni worked together last year filming the movie adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel It Ends With Us, but have since been on opposing sides of what will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the more dramatic feuds in Hollywood history. 

A Simple Favor actress Lively, 37, first accused Baldoni, 41, of ‘repeated sexual harassment’ and a media smear campaign against her in a legal complaint in December, with Baldoni quickly denying the allegations.

Baldoni’s legal team then filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit, suing both Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, as well as publicist Leslie Sloane and her PR firm, Vision PR Inc.

Most recently, lawyers representing Baldoni and Lively appeared in court for a pretrial meeting at federal court in Manhattan, New York on Monday.

Lively and Baldoni played romantic leads in the film It Ends With Us (Picture: AP)

The hearing was reportedly quite explosive, with both sides getting heated and hurling accusations.

Lively’s attorney, Michael Gottlieb, accused Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, of making ‘inflammatory extrajudicial comments’ about Lively’s ‘character and motives’ during various media appearances.

In response, Mr Freedman’s rebuttal included accusing Lively’s team of a ‘gag order’ against them to try to stop media contact, when, according to Freedman, Baldoni was the one who suffered harm to his reputation.

The BBC reports that Freedman said: ‘My client is devastated financially and emotionally.’

Baldoni has also revealed messages with Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds (Picture: Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

Shortly before the hearing, Baldoni published a website Entitled Lawsuit Info, which features two PDFs. One is his ‘Amended Complaint,’ which Baldoni and five other plaintiffs – including his production company, Wayfarer Studios – filed in response to Lively on January 16.

The other is a 168-page ‘Timeline of Relevant Events,’ which recalls Baldoni’s version of happenings leading up to and following production on It Ends With Us, beginning with his first email exchange with Hoover in January 2019.

He says the timeline aims to ‘[provide] a summarised account of the sequence of key events’ and is ‘intended to be read in conjunction’ with his complaint.

In case you don’t have the free time required to pick through all 168 pages of the document yourself, here are some highlights.

What do the texts between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively prove?

The majority of the text messages included in the document are between Lively and Baldoni.

Mostly, the texts seem to depict a positive, even affectionate, relationship between the two actors.

There are a number of cringeworthy interactions, including when Lively says the ‘ball busting’ in the movie will be ‘flirty and yummy.’

She continues: ‘It’s my love language. Spicy and playfully bold, never with teeth.’

Some of the interactions between Lively and Baldoni seem flirty (Picture: MailOnline)

In another screenshot, Lively asks about when shots of her body will be included in the film, seeming to worry about her weight.

Baldoni notes in the PDF document that Lively claimed Baldoni repeatedly tried to ‘shame her for her body and weight,’ which he is seemingly trying to disprove with these text exchanges.

In the PDF, the notes include one that reads: ‘February 17, 2023: Lively shares her concerns with Baldoni about having her body ready for
the forthcoming sex scenes their characters would shoot, asking, “What’s the chance we can do body scenes at the end of the schedule?” Baldoni tries to reassure Lively that she doesn’t need to stress about her body and emphasizes his determination to work collaboratively with her to
ensure her comfort.’

At another point, Lively thanks Baldoni for his support and jokes about her weight loss mission when he suggests she must feel ‘1000 pounds lighter.’

Lively had also alleged that Baldoni had pressured her to lose weight (Picture: MailOnline)

Lively joked about her weight in one exchange (Picture: MailOnline)

Baldoni also messaged Lively to find a time for her to meet with an intimacy coordinator he hired.

The timeline explains these screenshots: ‘April 21, 2023: Baldoni meets with the intimacy coordinator to discuss how to shoot the sex scenes. It was important to him that the intimacy coordinator be a woman to help craft sex scenes that would speak to the book’s mostly female audience—i.e., be written from the “female gaze.” His notes from this meeting are pictured below and were later shared with Lively during one of their script-writing meetings at her New York apartment.

‘These notes would later become the basis for Lively’s Complaint, in which she states that Baldoni would talk about his own sex life and insert gratuitous scenes with Lively’s character orgasming. As seen in the notes, these mentions come directly from the intimacy coordinator’s notes— “goes down on her,” “orgasm,” “foreplay,” “The clit test.”

‘Ideally, these conversations would have taken place directly between Lively and the intimacy coordinator directly, as Baldoni had requested; however, Lively declined to meet with her, leaving Baldoni in the less than ideal position of having to relay these notes to
Lively in her penthouse.’

Baldoni has said Lively never met with the intimacy coordinator he hired (Picture: MailOnline)

Another text exchange included in the timeline that has gotten people talking is one in which Baldoni asks to speak with Lively while shooting and she tells him she’s in her trailer pumping breast milk.

The entry on this portion of the timeline reads: ‘May 16, 2023: Later that day, Lively texts Baldoni to request another meeting with him and the
other producers to discuss wardrobe. Baldoni agrees. After shooting wraps Producer, Sony Executive, Heath, and Baldoni approach Lively’s makeup trailer. Heath knocks on the door and is invited in.

Present in the room are Lively’s nanny, makeup artist, and assistant while Lively is having body makeup removed—she was not topless, as she claimed in her Complaint. She was either nursing or pumping while fully covered. Lively asks Heath to face the wall while they determine a time
to meet with the other producers, who are standing just outside the door.’

The timeline goes on to state that later Lively would accuse the producer of making ‘eye contact’ while she was pumping, saying that while he does not remember doing so he may have ‘out of habit.’

The timeline flat-out denies Lively’s accusations that Heath ‘stared at her inappropriately’ during this meeting.

It continues: ‘Furthermore, Lively’s Complaint incorrectly states that Lively intended to speak with the producers about unprofessional behavior on this day. As this timeline shows, the allegedly ‘inappropriate behavior’ Lively describes in her Complaint had not yet occurred, and the conversation concerned only wardrobe and production.’

Lively alleged Baldoni ‘walked in’ on her pumping breast milk (Picture: MailOnline)

The remainder of the messages between Baldoni and Lively seem to merely be intended to show that the pair once did have a positive relationship and that Baldoni was deferential towards the actress.

In one, she thanks him for sending her a matcha machine for her birthday, and in another, she ‘says you’re safe here’ after he says it’s ‘exciting’ to write the script with her in mind.

In another, Lively thanks Baldoni for the day of filming and says she’s proud of the work they’ve accomplished.

Many of the texts seem to merely be intended to show that the pair were friendly (Picture: MailOnline)

Lively thanked Baldoni for his ’empathy’ in one exchange (Picture: MailOnline)

The actress told Baldoni ‘you’re safe here’ after one message (Picture: MailOnline)

Lively repeatedly calls herself a ‘ballbuster’ in the messages (Picture: MailOnline)

Another text exchange is between Reynolds and Baldoni, and its perhaps the flirtiest of all.

In it, Baldoni uncomfortably asks Reynolds to be friends, saying he would have texted earlier but he was nervous to do so.

In response, Reynolds thanks him for his ‘loving and generous message’ and concludes by saying: ‘I happen to adore you, Justin.’

One of the exchanges revealed a deeply affectionate exchange between Baldoni and Ryan Reynolds (Picture: MailOnline)

While none of the messages seem to refute any of Lively’s claims directly, they certainly add an interesting – if somewhat invasive – facet to the he-said she-said drama.

None of the messages are damning to either party’s case and seem to merely prove that the actors were previously on friendly terms and attempting to work peacefully together on the film.

A brief timeline of the Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively drama

As previously mentioned, Lively first accused Baldoni of ‘repeated sexual harassment’ and a media smear campaign against her in a legal complaint in December.

Baldoni’s legal team then filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit, suing both Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, as well as publicist Leslie Sloane and her PR firm, Vision PR Inc.

The complaint accuses Lively of fabricating sexual harassment claims and using her star power to ‘seize control’ of the filmmaking process.

Lively has claimed Baldoni added unwanted intimacy scenes to the film (Picture: Jose Perez / BACKGRID)

The director’s amended extortion, invasion of privacy and defamation suit folds in Baldoni’s previous suit against The Times for $250million.

The details of Lively’s suit include that Baldoni added a number of unwanted intimate scenes to the script, was overly revealing about his sex life and asked about hers, and entered her dressing room uninvited while she was breastfeeding.

Lively’s suit is also against the crisis PR firm Baldoni hired after the movie wrapped, who Lively claims was responsible for the ‘hatred’ she received online during the film’s press tour, which she believes was intentionally orchestrated as preemptive damage control in case Lively made claims of sexual harassment.

Refuting that he caused Lively ‘severe emotional distress,’ Baldoni is seeking damages of $400million (£323m) in his countersuit following her attempt to ‘destroy’ his reputation and career.’

It has been claimed that Lively and Reynolds’ lawyers have filed a notice saying they wish to seek to dismiss Baldoni’s suit. In the latest development this weekend, Baldoni has published a website showing his updated court filings.

A portion of a statement given to People by Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman reads:

‘It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret.

‘Blake Lively was either severely misled by her team or intentionally and knowingly misrepresented the truth.

‘Let’s not forget, Ms Lively and her team attempted to bulldoze reputations and livelihoods for heinously selfish reasons through their own dangerous manipulation of the media before even taking any actual legal action.

‘We know the truth, and now the public does too. Justin and his team have nothing to hide, documents do not lie.’

The Gossip Girl star alleged Baldoni intentionally created a smear campaign against her (Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Sony Pictures)

Lively’s team offered a lengthy statement to Metro over Baldoni’s allegations, which reads: ‘This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook.

‘This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.

‘Wayfarer has opted to use the resources of its billionaire co-founder to issue media statements, launch meritless lawsuits, and threaten litigation to overwhelm the public’s ability to understand that what they are doing is retaliation against sexual harassment allegations.’

‘They are trying to shift the narrative to Ms Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr Baldoni. The evidence will show that the cast and others had their own negative experiences with Mr Baldoni and Wayfarer,’ the message continued.

The website Baldoni published includes a 168-page timeline of events (Picture: Araya Doheny/Variety via Getty Images)

‘The evidence will also show that Sony asked Ms Lively to oversee Sony’s cut of the film, which they then selected for distribution and was a resounding success.

‘Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault. Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing.

‘In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim. The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.’

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