Embattled Blake Lively faces a fresh defamation fight after a crisis PR boss has now filed a suit against her for wrongly naming him as an alleged harasser, DailyMail.com can reveal.
via: Forbes
Blake Lively was hit with another defamation lawsuit in federal court Tuesday as her legal feud with Justin Baldoni rages, this time by crisis public relations firm Street Relations and its owner Jed Wallace, who allege Lively defamed them in a complaint she filed in December by accusing them of participating in an alleged smear campaign against her.
In the lawsuit, filed in Texas federal court, Wallace denied having any part in an alleged smear campaign Lively claims Baldoni’s PR team orchestrated against her, and claimed he suffered “millions of dollars in reputational harm” as a result of Lively naming him as a defendant in a civil rights complaint she filed in California.
Wallace was not named as a defendant in a lawsuit Lively filed against Baldoni and his PR team shortly after her civil rights complaint, but Wallace claims in his lawsuit he was falsely and “widely reported” to be a defendant, accusing Lively of sowing confusion.
The newly filed lawsuit is the latest in Lively’s sprawling legal feud with her co-star and director on “It Ends With Us,” Justin Baldoni, and it comes weeks after Baldoni sued Lively for defamation and extortion and Lively sued Baldoni and his PR team for allegedly retaliating against her reporting sexual harassment.
Forbes has reached out to lawyers representing Wallace and Lively for comment.
“Another day, another state, another nine-figure lawsuit seeking to sue Ms. Lively ‘into oblivion’ for speaking out against sexual harassment and retaliation. This is not just a publicity stunt—it is transparent retaliation in response to allegations contained within a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint that Ms. Lively filed with the California Civil Rights Department,” Lively’s lawyers said in a statement to Forbes, claiming the lawsuit “will be dismissed.”
In Lively’s civil rights complaint, in which Wallace is named as a defendant, she alleges Baldoni’s public relations team hired Wallace and Street Relations to participate in an alleged retaliatory smear campaign against her, alleging Wallace “weaponized a digital army around the country from New York to Los Angeles” to plant false information about her on social media in hopes it would go viral and turn public opinion against her. Lively’s complaint included a text from Melissa Nathan, a crisis PR manager Baldoni hired, which said: “We are crushing it on Reddit,” and “Jed.” Lively’s complaint considered this text a “reference to efforts by Mr. Wallace to seed and influence online forums on Reddit attacking Ms. Lively and defending Mr. Baldoni.” Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni contains the same text and allegation against Wallace, though he is not listed as a defendant. Baldoni’s lawsuit against Lively, in which he rebuts many of her claims, makes no mention of Wallace or Street Relations.
Lively and Baldoni have been locked in an ongoing legal feud since December, which followed months of speculation that the two feuded while filming and promoting “It Ends With Us.” Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliating against her by orchestrating a smear campaign, while Baldoni also accused Lively of conducting a smear campaign and defaming him. Last week, a judge set a trial date of March 9, 2026, though days later he threatened to move the date up if the case continues to be “litigated in the press,” as lawyers representing both stars have made frequent comments to the media.
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