{"id":373891,"date":"2026-04-04T01:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/373891\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T01:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:14:08","slug":"wme-comes-out-in-support-of-blake-lively-over-takedown-campaigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/373891\/","title":{"rendered":"WME Comes Out in Support of Blake Lively Over “Takedown Campaigns”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWME<\/a>, Blake Lively<\/a>\u2018s agency that dropped<\/a> Justin Baldoni<\/a> hours after she accused him of sexual harassment, is going public on the It Ends With Us legal battle, throwing its weight behind the actress ahead of a trial set to start next month.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn an industry that too often asks women to absorb the damage and stay quiet, Blake Lively chose to stand up for herself, her castmates, and those without the ability to fight back,\u201d the agency said in a statement on Friday. \u201cShe has met this moment with courage, moral clarity, and extraordinary determination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe announcement of support marks a notable turn in a high-profile clash that\u2019s forced some in Hollywood to take sides. The trial will pit conflicting narratives advanced by Lively and Baldoni against each other, with little wiggle room in between. One tells a story of an A-list actress, aided by some of the biggest celebrities in the world who include husband Ryan Reynolds and friend Taylor Swift, plotting to seize control of a director\u2019s passion project. The other is a tale of sexual harassment and retaliation by a filmmaker backed by a billionaire funding an unscrupulous network of public relations professionals who schemed to destroy her career.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn inflection point came on Thursday when the court dismissed claims<\/a> for sexual harassment, defamation and conspiracy, among others, significantly narrowing the scope of Lively\u2019s case. Still, the court signaled that public relations maneuvering by Baldoni\u2019s camp in the wake of the allegations could be problematic.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCertain conduct at least arguably crossed the line,\u201d wrote U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman. He added, \u201cThere are limits to the response that the accused can make in response to claims of harassment. There comes a point where the accused stops simply defending him or herself and starts taking action that a reasonable jury could view as retaliation for the fact that the accuser had the temerity to make the accusations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn its statement, WME stressed that Lively \u201chelped expose the devastating harm caused by covert digital takedown campaigns designed to intimidate, discredit, and drown out the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of the central claims in Lively\u2019s lawsuit revolve around Baldoni allegedly orchestrating a retaliatory campaign in the press and on social media after she publicized allegations of sexual harassment on the set of the movie.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to court documents, Melissa Nathan of The Agency Group, Baldoni\u2019s crisis communications specialist, said that she can\u2019t send certain documents \u201cthat could get us in a lot of trouble\u201d due to concerns over them ending \u201cup in the wrong hands.\u201d She added, \u201cYou know we can bury anyone.\u201d Wayfarer founder Steve Sarowitz similarly stated, \u201cThere will be two dead bodies when I\u2019m done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWayfarer, Baldoni\u2019s production company, has maintained that any actions it took were meant to defend itself and that it never ended up taking many of the offensive action the company contemplated.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his lawsuit, the director alleged that Ryan Reynolds, Lively\u2019s husband, approached his WME agent at the premiere of Deadpool & Wolverine demanded that the agency drop Baldoni. \u201cThe wielding of power and influence became undeniable,\u201d the complaint stated. \u201cBaldoni and Wayfarer grew increasingly fearful of what Lively and Reynolds were capable of, as their actions seemed aimed at destroying Baldoni\u2019s career and personal life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWME has denied those allegations<\/a>, saying that neither Lively nor Reynolds was involved in its decision to no longer represent Baldoni.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn Baldoni\u2019s filing there is a claim that Reynolds pressured Baldoni\u2019s agent at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere. This is not true,\u201d the agency said at the time. \u201cBaldoni\u2019s former representative was not at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere nor was there any pressure from Reynolds or Lively at any time to drop Baldoni as a client.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WME, Blake Lively\u2018s agency that dropped Justin Baldoni hours after she accused him of sexual harassment, is going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3164,458,146,85,46,3165,83349],"class_list":{"0":"post-373891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-blake-lively","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-justin-baldoni","14":"tag-wme"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}