Justin Baldoni has issued a stinging retort to the Hollywood power agent of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds who also dropped the major bombshell that he was the one to ‘fire’ It Ends With Us star amid the lawsuit and ongoing drama surrounding the film.
Ari Emanuel – who is the chief executive of WME’s parent company Endeavor – appeared on a live taping of the Freakonomics podcast where he talked about his personal relationship with Lively, 37, and Reynolds, 48, days after it was revealed that she had subpoenaed cell carriers to look for more receipts in her ongoing legal battle.
During the live interview held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, Emanuel made fun of Baldoni’s, 41, last name as he referred to him as ‘bologna’ during the show and now the actor has hit back.
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman told DailyMail.com on Friday: ‘Mr. Ari Emanuel is notably one of the best agents, and clearly the most loyal, in Hollywood.
‘As I understand it, Justin hasn’t been called “Bologna” since the fifth grade. Perhaps Ari’s perspective would be different if they had ever met in the half decade they were clients of his agency.’
Baldoni had been dropped from WME on December 21 which was the same day that it was reporter that Lively had sued him for sexual harassment and accused him of running a smear campaign against her.
Justin Baldoni (pictured in LA back in December) has issued a stinging retort to the Hollywood power agent of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds who also dropped the major bombshell that he was the one to ‘fire’ It Ends With Us star amid the lawsuit and ongoing drama surrounding the film
Lively and Reynolds are pictured in New York back in August
Emanuel boldly revealed during the taping ‘I fired him’ regarding Baldoni and pledged his allegiance to Lively and Reynolds as he said: ‘I am a ride-or-die.’
Earlier in the podcast the American businessman from Chicago gushed about working with the power couple for over a decade as he called them ‘really incredible people.’
Emanuel said: ‘They’ve never had any bad mojo out there or treated people badly.’
He also explained that if everything that Lively alleges in her lawsuit is true then those involved are ‘really bad people.’
Emanuel continued talking about Lively and Reynolds as he said: ‘These are good people who have been in the business for decades and have never had any bad press about them. And all the people they’ve worked with like them.’
This comes days after it was revealed that Lively had sent subpoenas to cell carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon as she looks for more ‘receipts’ amid her ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni.
Lively is seeking proof that Baldoni — who directed and co-starred with her in the romantic drama — orchestrated a smear campaign against her.
Her lawyers also sent subpoenas to two internet providers, Cloudflare and AOL, as well as to Jed Wallace, a crisis consultant accused of launching a ‘digital army’ against the actress on Baldoni’s behalf.
Ari Emanuel – who is the chief executive of WME’s parent company Endeavor – appeared on a live taping of the Freakonomics podcast where he talked about his personal relationship with Lively, 37, and Reynolds, 48, where he referred to Baldoni as ‘bologna’
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman (pictured in New York earlier this month) told DailyMail.com on Friday: ‘Mr. Ari Emanuel is notably one of the best agents, and clearly the most loyal, in Hollywood. ‘As I understand it, Justin hasn’t been called “Bologna” since the fifth grade. Perhaps Ari’s perspective would be different if they had ever met in the half decade they were clients of his agency’
Earlier in the podcast the American businessman from Chicago Emanuel gushed about working with the power couple for over a decade as he called them ‘really incredible people, as he said: ‘They’ve never had any bad mojo out there or treated people badly’
Wallace has denied the allegations and recently filed a $7 million defamation suit against Lively.
‘Ms. Lively has initiated discovery that will expose the people, tactics, and methods that have worked to “destroy” and “bury” her reputation and family over the past year,’ her attorneys, Esra Hudson and Michael Gottlieb, shared with Deadline on Wednesday.
‘We will now receive all of the “receipts” that, unsurprisingly, are n
owhere to be found on Mr. Freedman’s website, and like Ms. Lively, those “receipts” will have their day in court,’ they added, in reference to Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, and the website thelawsuitinfo.com, outlining Baldoni’s version of events.
Speaking of well-known PR guru, Jed, Lively’s spokesperson stated, ‘We look forward to investigating more about Jed Wallace’s entire business model and what else he was doing to distract from the very real sexual harassment and retaliation claims made by Ms. Lively.’
‘We are delighted to be able to start discovery on it,’ the spokesperson added.
Her rep also noted that Wallace’s involvement was detailed in messages the team had already obtained, where Baldoni’s team allegedly gloated about how easily the public was swayed to dislike her.
In December 2024, Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and launching a smear campaign against her.
The New York Times published text messages Lively cited as evidence. Baldoni responded by claiming the published messages were incomplete and released what he alleged were the full exchanges in a lawsuit against the NYT in early January.
This comes days after it was reported that Lively sent subpoenas to cell carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon as she looks for more ‘receipts’ amid her ongoing legal battle with Baldoni; Pictured 2023
The It Ends With Us star, 37, is seeking proof that Baldoni — who directed and co-starred with her in the romantic drama — orchestrated a smear campaign against her; Pictured 2024
Further messages were included in a subsequent lawsuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds.
Earlier this month, the filmmaker published a website that his legal team alleged had all of the ‘receipts’ for his and Lively’s court battle.
Lively alleges that Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios hired Crisis PR chief Melissa Nathan to discredit any accusations she might make about his behavior on the set of It Ends With Us.
Her TAG firm allegedly then employed Wallace to run an online smear campaign against Lively, damaging her reputation and the launch of her new product line.
Nathan and publicist Jennifer Abel acknowledged planning a strategy for their client, but claim they never implemented it because public opinion turned against Lively organically.
‘Ms. Lively has initiated discovery that will expose the people, tactics, and methods that have worked to “destroy” and “bury” her reputation and family over the past year,’ her attorneys shared with Deadline on Wednesday; Pictured 2024
‘We will now receive all of the “receipts” that, unsurprisingly, are nowhere to be found on Mr. Freedman’s website, and like Ms. Lively, those “receipts” will have their day in court,’ they added, in reference to Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, and their website; Pictured 2023
The referenced website (pictured above) contains legal documents that share Baldoni’s side of the story
The texts included in Lively’s original complaint appear to show the moment-to-moment breakdown of how Baldoni and his PR team discussed her.
His publicity team, according to a strategy document for Baldoni that Lively filed with her complaint, identified ‘several potential scenarios at play here which we should be prepared for, should [Lively] and her team make her grievances public’.
Many of the text messages are between the women, including one exchange in which Nathan states that she can ‘bury anyone’. The message was sent in reply to Abel’s text which says that Baldoni, ‘wants to feel like she [Lively] can be buried’.
‘Of course – but you know when we send over documents we can’t send over the work we will or could do because that could get us in a lot of trouble,’ Nathan responds, adding, ‘We can’t write we will destroy her’.
She followed up the message with another which reads, ‘Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands.’
‘You know we can bury anyone but I can’t write that to him. I will be very tough.’
< p class="imageCaption">Her lawyers also sent subpoenas to two internet providers, Cloudflare and AOL, as well as to Jed Wallace, a crisis consultant accused of helping Baldoni create a smear campaign against her. Wallace has denied the allegations and filed a $7 million defamation suit against Lively
In her complaint filed with the California Civil Rights Department on December 20, Lively named Wallace and his company Street Relations as a defendant
Her filing described Wallace as an independent public relations contractor who allegedly ‘weaponized a digital army’ to create and promote negative content about her
Meanwhile, Baldoni appeared to have suggested that it would be beneficial if they could orchestrate a targeted social media campaign.
He sent a message showing a screenshot of a Twitter thread about allegations of bullying against Hailey Bieber with the caption: ‘This is what we would need’.
Baldoni — who served as director and starred as Ryle Kincaid, the partner of Lively’s character Lily Bloom in It Ends With Us — has refuted the claims of orchestrating a smear campaign through his lawyer.
‘It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film,’ he said.
‘Interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions.’
At the beginning of the month Baldoni launched his own website dedicated to defending himself against Lively’s sexual harassment allegations.
In an attempt to share his side of the story, the actor, who is seeking to offer transparency to the public amid his legal battle, shared a website containing his amended complaint and a timeline of relevant events related to the case.
The decision to publish the site on Saturday comes after the star amended his $400 million suit accusing Lively of giving The New York Times advance access to her sexual harassment complaint.
His attorney told DailyMail.com that Baldoni’s amended his lawsuit due ‘to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light.’
‘This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along, that due to purely egotistical reasons Ms. Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through a complex web of lies, false accusations and the manipulation of illicitly received communications,’ Freedman continued.
Lively sued Baldoni in December, accusing him of sexually harassing her and fostering a toxic work environment on the set of their movie It Ends With Us
In her complaint, Lively claimed Baldoni worked to tarnish her reputation with a team that included his publicist Jennifer Abel (pictured) and crisis PR expert Melissa Nathan
Many of the messages included in the complaint show exchanges between publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis management expert Melissa Nathan
Baldoni also appears to wade in at times and suggest his own tactics to discredit Lively
The messages show the publicists celebrating after they manage to minimize reports about Lively’s allegations in the press
He concluded: ‘The ongoing public interest in this case online has ironically shed light on the undeniable facts pertaining to The New York Times and how heavily Ms. Lively and her representatives were not only deeply involved in the attempted take down and smear campaign of Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and their teams but that they themselves initiated it.’
The list of Lively’s grievances against Baldoni is a long one, but the most damning of all is her claim that he sexually harassed her while filming It Ends With Us with unwanted kissing, talking about his sex life and trying to insert gratuitous raunchy scenes into the script.
After Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni in January, he quickly filed a $400million countersuit against Blake, her husband Ryan and their publicist Leslie Sloane over claims of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.
Amongst the pages of documents, emails and text messages he recently shared on his website is an intriguing set of handwritten notes made by Baldoni during his meeting with the film’s intimacy co-ordinator which may well prove to be the key to the whole case.
Lively has painted a picture whereby there was no intimacy co-ordinator involved in the production until she demanded one; Baldoni introduced unwanted kissing in intimate scenes, and he spoke to her about his own sex life.
However, his timeline appears to show that there was in fact an intimacy co-ordinator engaged from the outset, who Lively declined to meet until filming began. This ultimately resulted in Baldoni, who was also the director, having to convey the intimacy co-ordinator’s notes to Lively himself.
Her depiction of his adding graphic scenes to the film, Baldoni insists, was simply him filling her in on what had been discussed, such as her character ‘orgasming’ – and, damningly, he claims that Lively seemed unable to discern between a professional conversation about acting out sex scenes and being sexually harassed.
Texts sent by Baldoni to his co-star prior to shooting the movie appear to show that Lively declined to meet the intimacy coordinator before filming started.
Baldoni hired the coordinator on April 5, 2023, and tried to set up a meeting or call between her and his co-star.
He sent Lively a message to say: ‘Just hired intimacy coordinator who I LOVE. Will set you up to meet/FT with her next week for intro.’
Lively claimed in her lawsuit against Baldoni that he sexually harassed her by adding unwanted kisses into romantic scenes; Baldoni and Lively pictured on set
In turn, Baldoni sued the Times defamation and launched a $400m lawsuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, claiming Lively attempted to hijack his film; Lively and Reynolds seen in 2024
However, Lively responded to decline his invitation, saying: ‘I feel good. I can meet her when we start 🙂 thank you though!’
Baldoni then raised the issue with an unnamed female producer, who gave him the go-ahead to meet the coordinator without Lively and report back to her on the guidance given.
Baldoni’s text read: ‘Just wanted to tell you about this – seems she doesn’t want to meet intimacy coordinator until we start which may mess up the workflow, but I can still meet with her of course.’
The producer responded: ‘That’s fine if she doesn’t want to meet her now. You’ll just have to walk her through what you and [intimacy coordinator] are thinking.’
Baldoni’s complaint alleged that because of Lively’s rejection of the meeting, ‘many sex scenes were not written with simultaneous collaboration and input from both Lively and the intimacy coordinator, as Baldoni had long intended’.
Baldoni, Lively, and Reynolds are scheduled to go to trial in New York on March 29, 2026.
