Blake Lively calls Justin Baldoni a ‘clown’ in text message

Blake Lively called Justin Baldoni a “stupid director” and a “clown,” according to newly released court documents in his legal case.

The two starred together in This Is Us, but Lively sued Baldoni in December 2024, accusing him of sexual harassment and launching a smear campaign against her. Baldoni vehemently denies the claims and is defending the lawsuit, which names him and his production company Wayfarer Studios, the company behind “It Ends With Us.”

Text messages between Lively and people close to her in 2023 appear to show Lively calling Baldoni a “crazy pig,” while her friend Taylor Swift suggested Baldoni knew the lawsuit was coming “because he pulled out his little violin.”

Baldoni’s $400m (£295m) countersuit was dismissed by a judge in June last year.

Lively’s case is scheduled to go to trial in May.

Newly unsealed documents show that both Lively and Baldoni confided in friends and colleagues about the filming and subsequent press tour of “With Us,” which is set to be released in August 2024.

In the message, Lively called Baldoni “this stupid director of my movie” and described him as “a clown” who “thinks he’s a writer now.”

In documents filed earlier this week, Lively’s team did not deny the language she used but said the text messages lacked context.

They submitted a “complete” text exchange to the court, including a subsequent message Lively sent to Baldoni in which he said “we have all benefited from her relationship with Swift and husband Ryan Reynolds” and “I can assure you, you will too.”

Sigrid McCawley, a member of Lively’s legal team, said in a statement to the BBC that newly disclosed evidence “shows that concerns from Ms Lively and others were recorded in real time as early as the spring of 2023, which Wayfarer understood to be ‘sexual harassment’ concerns.”

McCauley’s statement continued, “The evidence also documents how Wayfarer refused to investigate and instead sought to ‘bury’ Ms. Lively and others who spoke out through retaliation.”

Baldoni’s legal team has not yet responded to the BBC’s request for comment, but Baldoni and Wayfarer’s attorney Bryan Feldman told CNN, “From a legal perspective, the evidence does not support these claims. A brief reading of the newly released exchange of messages makes the truth crystal clear. We remain confident in the legal process and the clearing of all parties involved in Justin Baldoni’s name.”

The messages also reveal what Lively said about Baldoni: “Despite his repeated disturbing behavior and actions, I still feel sorry for him.

“Reminding him multiple times a day to smear me…asking him not to molest me sexually or emotionally? To make his movie better? To bring together all the biggest musicians and entertainers to make his movie better? To lead a marketing campaign for free?”

She continued: “I really don’t know that there’s anything I’ve ever done that he could discredit me for. Ryan (Reynolds) said (Baldoni) should be writing me letters of apology and thank you every day. Instead, he chose to turn me into a monster.”

“But what was my crime? I just kept focusing on the job and giving him every opportunity to do better. And he kept acting like a crazed pig.”

The messages also appear to show that Lively texted Baldoni’s former The Man Enough podcast co-host Liz Plank in May 2023 and told her “I went home and cried today” after an “SOS set visit.”

Plank responded that she “thought things might have gotten better” and that it was “amazing how much they got away with.” It’s unclear who “they” refers to.

Plank recalled working on Baldoni’s set as “truly one of the worst days of[her]life,” the documents state.

Later that year, Lively also texted actress and co-star Jenny Slate, saying she was “scared” to return to the set and “scared of being hit by the experience in a really disturbing way.”

In her testimony, Slater also alleged inappropriate behavior on the film set, with court documents showing she made complaints against Baldoni and producer Jamie Heath during the filming of “This Is Over.”

Heath is the CEO of Wayfarer Studios.

Likewise, text messages sent by Baldoni hinted at friction between him and Lively.

In February 2024, Baldoni told Heath that he was worried Lively would use her accusations against him as leverage.

He wrote: “She has the nuclear bomb. If she doesn’t promote the movie she can give away that I’m a bad person or that she feels insecure about me and ‘everything’ about her. Then she’s the victim.”

Her legal filing accuses Baldoni and Heath of “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing conduct” as well as a hostile work environment.

The text messages were made public Tuesday ahead of a summary judgment hearing scheduled for Jan. 22 in Lively’s ongoing lawsuit.