Justin Baldoni Says Blake Lively’s Publicist Leslie Sloane Made Him Scapegoat For Client’s “Woes” And Shouldn’t Be Permitted To Exit Case

deadline.com:

Blake Lively‘s longtime publicist Leslie Sloane wants out of her client’s legal battle with Justin Baldoni. However, the It Ends With Us director says no way.

On the same day the federal judge in the Lively-Baldoni melee called the matter a “feud between PR firms,” lawyers for Baldoni submitted paperwork in the court docket drawing a line on the Vision PR boss’ wish to exit the whole thing. “As alleged in the Wayfarer Parties’ First Amended Complaint, the Sloane Parties played an active and integral role in a conspiracy to inflict harm on the Wayfarer Parties,” said a March 6-filed memorandum of opposition from Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, execs and his own PR team of Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel against Vision PR founder Sloane’s motion to have herself and her firm dismissed from the sprawling suit.

In many ways the memo intentionally or not sums up most of now-axed WME client Baldoni and the Wayfarer Parties’ perspective on the entire high-profile brawl over what happened during the making of It Ends With Us and the alleged astroturfing attacks against Lively that followed. “In a desperate effort to salvage Lively’s reputation and to escape her wrath, the Sloane Parties conspired with Lively and Consolidated Defendants Ryan Reynolds (“Reynolds”) and The New York Times Company (“New York Times”) to make scapegoats of the Wayfarer Parties for Lively’s woes,” they say with vivid language perhaps more suited to a sword and sorcery saga. “On information and belief, the Sloane Parties worked for months to drop breadcrumbs and hints of sinister allegations to the public while secretly feeding defamatory falsehoods to any reporter who would listen, including Megan Twohey of the New York Times,” the document adds with