Blake Lively's Legal Team Called Justin Baldoni's Countersuit "Desperate"

The ongoing legal drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni continues. Yesterday, it was reported that Baldoni had filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane's PR firm, Vision PR, Inc. The suit was filed on behalf of Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath, publicist Jennifer Abel, and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan in the Southern District of New York. According to Lively's team, his lawsuit is a "desperate" attempt to retaliate by "[turning] the tables on the victim."

In a statement to InStyle, Lively's legal team said, “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."

The team cited DARVO, an acronym used to describe diversionary tactics often used by abusers: 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," the statement went on. "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."

Lively's lawyers then claimed that Baldoni was trying to "turn the tables" on Lively. "Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault," the statement read. "Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing ... The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate; it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”

Baldoni's complaint includes allegations that “Lively, her team, and the Times worked in concert to cherry-pick, deliberately misconstrue, splice, and alter private communications to manufacture a self-serving and factually baseless narrative.”

After filing the complaint, Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, issued the following statement to InStyle. "This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media," Freedman said. "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 ... We know the truth, and now the public does too. Justin and his team have nothing to hide, documents do not lie."

In last year's It Ends with Us, Lively starred as Lily Bloom opposite Baldoni's Ryle. While Lively was also a producer on the project, Baldoni served as the film's director.

What began as rumors of a feud between Lively and Baldoni during the It Ends With Us press tour has evolved into a back-and-forth legal dispute. It began in December when Lively sued Baldoni for sexual harassment, claiming the director had caused "severe emotional harm" during the filming of It Ends With Us. A few weeks later, Baldoni filed his own lawsuit, suing The New York Times for their coverage of Lively's suit. Lively filed a federal lawsuit against Baldoni on the same day. On Jan. 16, Baldoni filed his second lawsuit, this time suing Lively, her Reynolds, and their team of publicists.

“Lively, her team, and the Times worked in concert to cherry-pick, deliberately misconstrue, splice, and alter private communications to manufacture a self-serving and factually baseless narrative," claimed the suit.

Read the original article on InStyle