4 months after the discharge of It Ends With Us, Blake Vigorous is about to sue Justin Baldoni, her costar and director, for sexual harassment, asserting that he additionally lead a coordinated effort to destroy her skilled repute throughout the movie’s rollout. In a authorized criticism filed on Friday, Vigorous notes that Baldoni enlisted the companies of Melissa Nathan—a disaster PR specialist whose earlier purchasers embrace one Johnny Depp—to assist him do it.
It’s been a matter of public report for some time now that Depp manipulated the reality and weaponized the general public’s distaste for classy, unbiased girls with a view to win his 2022 defamation trial in opposition to ex-wife Amber Heard, portray her as abusive and unstable. The media conflict that Baldoni waged in opposition to Vigorous was comparable, making the actor appear tough and out-of-touch partly by underscoring that she and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, had commissioned their very own edit of It Ends With Us. (It was this, reasonably than Baldoni’s minimize, that was finally launched.) In textual content messages subpoenaed by Vigorous’s attorneys, Baldoni additionally discusses the varied publicity and social media methods that could possibly be used warp the narrative across the movie in his favor.
But Vigorous’s criticism particulars the poisonous work setting that Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath created whereas they had been capturing. In early 2024, upon returning to the set of It Ends With Us following the guild strikes of the 12 months earlier than, Vigorous referred to as a gathering with Baldoni and a number of other of the movie’s producers, asking, in keeping with paperwork, that Baldoni and Heath cease “exhibiting nude movies or pictures of ladies, together with producer’s spouse, to BL and/or her workers,” amongst different inappropriate behaviors, akin to improvising kissing scenes. (She additionally requested the presence of an intimacy coordinator on set.) Elsewhere, the paperwork allege that “All through filming, Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath invaded Ms. Vigorous’s privateness by coming into her make-up trailer uninvited whereas she was undressed, together with when she was breastfeeding her toddler youngster.” Baldoni apparently engaged Nathan’s assist after he realized that Reynolds had blocked him on Instagram, hoping to get forward of Vigorous’s complaints on set changing into public.
Baldoni’s authorized workforce has referred to as the swimsuit “shameful” and stuffed with “categorically false accusations,” however at this level, I feel all of us owe Blake Vigorous an apology. As Nathan put it in a single textual content message, “It’s really unhappy as a result of it simply exhibits you [how] folks actually need to hate on girls.” Nobody deserves to place up with that—an A-list Hollywood actor or in any other case.
