Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds Accuse Justin Baldoni & PR Team Of Continuing Smear Campaign Against ‘It Ends With Us’ Actress, Double Down On Gag Order Request

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds aren’t holding back at all today on why a so-called gag order is necessary for “extrajudicial statements” by Justin Baldoni’s lead lawyer in the ever-deepening dispute between the It Ends With Us stars over what happened during filming of the Sony-distributed domestic violence film and what happened before it was released. “Requiring counsel to heed the ethical rules that bind them is not a gag order; it is a mechanism that would ensure the proceedings in this Court are are not prejudiced by counsel’s conduct outside of the courtroom,” attorney Esra Hudson declared for the couple Friday evening in a letter to Judge Lewis J.

Liman over Baldoni, his main lawyer Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios and others. “The Wayfarer Parties are attempting to draw a dangerous false equivalence that may have profound consequences not just for this case, but for other women who are sexually harassed in the workplace given the high profile of this matter,” the lawyer from Manatt, Phelps & Phillips continues in the four-page correspondence just filed in federal court in New York.

In what has become a very fast-paced match of legal and media volleyball, the filing from the Gossip Girl alum and Deadpool actor’s side comes just over 24 hours after Baldoni attorney Kevin Fritz wrote to Liman rejecting the couple’s demand of January 22 for a gag order, claiming “the Lively Parties now invoke attorney disciplinary rules as an intimidation tactic.” Read the letter from Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds’ lawyer on continuing smear campaign &need for protective order here For a multi-lawsuit matter that honestly has seen all sides and the respective PR chiefs play the press as much if not more than