Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni had ‘genuine affection’ before feud, Hollywood intimacy coordinator claims

nypost.com:

feud that turned legal.Mia Schachter, who has worked on the shows “Lessons in Chemistry,” “Perry Mason” and “American Crime Story: Impeachment” but didn’t work on “It Ends With Us,” shared her take in the new documentary “He Said, She Said: Blake Lively vs Justin Baldoni” that aired Monday on Channel 5 in the UK.“From reading their text messages, I do get the sense that, at one point, there was genuine affection between them and what felt like a friendship,” she said about the “It Ends With Us” co-stars.Schachter also brought up that Lively, 37, allegedly refused to meet the film’s intimacy coordinator before production (a claim made by Baldoni in his $400 million January countersuit), which she claimed indicated that the star trusted Baldoni, 41, at the time.“And those texts made me think that at one point, she did feel a lot of trust with him,” she said.Lively sued Baldoni in December for sexual harassment.

Baldoni later countersued and released text messages between the pair that he claims proves his innocence.In Lively’s lawsuit, she alleged Baldoni improvised kissing scenes and wanted to add sex scenes to the film.

In his countersuit, Baldoni alleged that Lively agreed to shoot their intimate scenes without meeting with an intimacy coordinator beforehand.The “Jane the Virgin” actor also released raw footage of a dancing scene wherein Lively claimed that Baldoni made her feel uncomfortable.

Baldoni denied Lively’s claims and accused the “Gossip Girl” alum of trying to take over the direction of the scene.“His team seemed to be accusing Blake of trying to direct that scene and undermine his creative vision.