\n\tMonths after Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni settled their It Ends with Us dispute, a related case involving top Hollywood publicists continues to offer its own fresh revelations. Stephanie Jones, who handled PR for both Baldoni and the movie\u2019s production company Wayfarer Studios, has been pursuing a suit in federal court against Baldoni\u2019s crisis communications strategists and former clients on the film project, alleging defamation as well as other claims.<\/p>\n
\n\tRevealing documents from Jones\u2019 litigation previously became central<\/a> to Lively\u2019s own assertions in court. They have also exposed the alleged workings of a sprawling secret smear machine<\/a>, reliant on anonymously operated websites filled with damaging assertions, whose impact radius spans from Rebel Wilson<\/a> and Andrew Huberman<\/a> to Scooter Braun<\/a> and Travis Scott<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tIn new filings, Jones argues that defendant Melissa Nathan, another prominent entertainment industry publicist, committed perjury and hid evidence about her role in creating the sites, including one which targeted Jones. She cites new evidence \u2014 including texts, emails and invoices \u2014 obtained from a former Nathan employee at her firm, The Agency Group PR, known as TAG.<\/p>\n \n\tNathan, who infamously wrote a colleague \u201cyou know we can bury anyone<\/a>,\u201d has previously sworn under oath that she hasn\u2019t been involved in the creation of the websites, which often peddled defamatory claims. According to new exhibits in Jones\u2018 filing, a paper trail suggests otherwise, detailing in one instance how the employee, who appears to have been responsible for drafting copy for the websites, received direct editing instructions from Nathan to make the material \u201ca lot more meaty\u201d and to keep in mind that it \u201chas to also be good enough for us to be able to point a journalist towards.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJones\u2019 litigation compares contemporaneous notes taken by Nathan\u2019s employee from a May 2024 phone call with her boss about a planned site attacking Jones with similar resulting language on an anonymized site activated two days later. The filings also detail how they worked with fixer Jed Wallace, another defendant, to publish the material with the intent that it would be untraceable. (Wallace has also denied involvement in the purported scheme.)<\/p>\n \n\tNathan didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n \n\tA digital forensics consultant hired by Jones\u2019 lawyers previously submitted a report, filed in court, analyzing raw online data to argue that Wallace is, in fact, connected to her site as well as a slew of others. Now, an email sent by the TAG employee to Nathan on Oct. 18, 2024 \u2014 titled \u201cItems I\u2019m working on at the moment\u201d adds new information, including repeatedly referencing Wallace\u2019s seeming participation.<\/p>\n \n\tThe note refers to \u201cSite Drafting\u201d for \u201cAlexander Brothers,\u201d a reference to the former New York City real estate agents who were later found guilty of running a sex-trafficking conspiracy. The New York Times has reported<\/a> that TAG worked with them around the time a \u201cmysterious website suddenly appeared\u201d which \u201cpurported to expose a conspiracy meant to take down the brothers.\u201d The email also references \u201cSite Drafting & Updates\u201d for a project labeled \u201cAmanda Ghost,\u201d likely the endeavor which has since become subject to its own ongoing case in which Wilson appears to have been involved<\/a> in disparaging a producer on her movie The Deb. (The TAG employee writes of the line item: \u201cthis is probably part of what Rebel is paying [for].\u201d) Wilson has repeatedly denied the claims.<\/p>\n \n\tThe TAG employee\u2019s correspondence also points to other possible clients, including some previously unreported. One is \u201cLMDV \/ Jessica Serfaty,\u201d enumerating \u201cCalls \/ Crisis Plan \/ Site Drafting & Updates.\u201d This is a likely reference to the billionaire sunglasses heir Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio and the actress-influencer Jessica Serfaty. In July 2024 she accused her then-fianc\u00e9e of abuse, then quickly retracted the allegation<\/a>. A month later Serfaty claimed she\u2019d discovered a tracking device<\/a> in her car. (Shortly after the TAG employee sent the October 2024 email, Del Vecchio was reported to be under investigation<\/a> by Italian prosecutors for his connection to a private investigation firm which had allegedly hacked state security databases.)<\/p>\n \n\tNeither Del Vecchio nor Serfaty responded to THR.<\/p>\n \n\tAnother item listed in the TAG employee\u2019s email is \u201cHiya,\u201d likely referring to the zero-sugar vitamin brand Hiya Health. The staffer doesn\u2019t explicitly refer to drafting a website but does describe working on a \u201cCrisis Scenario Plan.\u201d Hiya didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n \n\tTamara Rubin, who has long run a popular online resource called Lead Safe Mama focused on lead poisoning and exposure risk from consumer products, earlier told THR that a website targeting her materialized in October 2024, along with defaming edits to her Wikipedia page.<\/p>\n \n\tRubin had said the experience had \u201csubstantially impacted\u201d both her business and her personal life, but she didn\u2019t know who was behind it. Lead Safe Mama had reported<\/a> that Hiya vitamins tested positive in a lab result for lead and other heavy metals weeks before the anonymous attacks against her. (The company responded directly<\/a> to her days after she published her findings.)<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a relief to finally know, to have that closure,\u201d Rubin says now to THR, explaining she believes the new Jones filing identifies the culprit in her own case. \u201cIt\u2019s also horrific, the length that a children\u2019s vitamin company would go to discredit me.\u201d She notes that Hiya was at the time in the process of being acquired in a deal with another nutritional supplements company that would close in December 2024 for $205 million<\/a>. \u201cThey were trying to protect the bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Months after Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni settled their It Ends with Us dispute, a related case involving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[44291,88],"class_list":["post-860575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bryan-freedman","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}