Blake Lively's Team Calls Justin Baldoni's $400 Million Suit "Desperate"

Blake Lively’s legal team issued a statement in response to Justin Baldoni’s latest filing against her, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloane. According to Lively’s lawyers, the $400 million suit is a “desperate” attempt to shift blame and comes straight from the “abuser playbook.”

ICYMI, on Jan. 16, Baldoni sued the couple and their PR rep for civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage. The suit, which was obtained by TMZ, also claims Lively took control of her It Ends With Us wardrobe and rewrote a pivotal scene in the film.

“This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook,” Lively’s legal team said in a statement given to People on Jan. 16. “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. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.”

The statement continued, “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 alleged that Baldoni and Wayfarer are using the latest suit to try to “shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni.”

But according to Lively’s legal team, other factors were at play: “The evidence will show that the cast and others had their own negative experiences with Mr. Baldoni and Wayfarer. The evidence will also show that Sony asked Ms. Lively to oversee Sony’s cut of the film, which they then selected for distribution and was a resounding success.”

The lawyers’ statement continued, “Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault. Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing. In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim. The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”