Justin Baldoni Hit With Defamation Suit As PR Team Turn On Each Other Over Blake Lively’s ‘It Ends With Us’ Smear Campaign Allegations

deadline.com:

Justin Baldoni is probably about to have an even worse Christmas than anticipated, and, amidst sexual harassment, retaliation and It Ends With Us smear campaign claims from Blake Lively, things were looking pretty bad already.

Pummeled and increasingly shunned by Hollywood power players, podcast co-hosts and non-profits as a consequence of Lively’s allegations that paint the one-time feminist ally as misogynistic, petty and kind of dim, Baldoni just got hit with his first formal lawsuit out of the enlarging scandal.

Now Stephanie Jones, the founder of the Jane The Virgin vet’s own former PR company, is going after him, his Wayfarer Studios and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel for defamation, breach of contract and more. “Defendants Abel and Nathan secretly conspired for months to publicly and privately attack Jones and Jonesworks, to breach multiple contracts and induce contractual breaches, and to steal clients and business prospects,” declares an eight-claim complaint filed by the Quinn Emanuel represented PR boss this Christmas Eve. “Behind Jones’s back, they secretly coordinated with Baldoni and Wayfarer to implement an aggressive media smear campaign against Baldoni’s film co-star, and then used the crisis as an opportunity to drive a wedge between Jones and Baldoni, and to publicly pin blame for this smear campaign on Jones—when Jones had no knowledge or involvement in it,” the jury trial seeking filing in New York State court adds.

In the midst of the whole BTS IEWU chaos both on and off set, Abel exited Jonesworks  in early July to form her own PR firm RWA Communications.