Justin Baldoni’s lawyer denies Blake Lively’s allegations, says ‘leaked’ texts lack critical context

Justin Baldoni's lawyer has addressed the controversy surrounding text messages included in Blake Lively's lawsuit.  

Shortly after Lively, 37, filed a lawsuit accusing her *It Ends With Us* co-star and director of sexual harassment, Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, responded publicly.  

In her lawsuit, Lively accused Baldoni of orchestrating a campaign to harm her reputation. She presented text messages between Baldoni and his team as evidence to support her claims.  

Freedman countered that the text messages had been taken out of "critical context."  

He also argued that the texts were “leaked,” challenging the claim that Lively obtained them through a subpoena.  

Regarding Baldoni’s crisis management team, The Agency Group PR, which was hired during the *It Ends With Us* press tour controversy, Freedman defended their hypothetical “scenario planning” efforts to counter Lively’s allegations.  

Freedman shifted the blame, suggesting that Lively’s own actions contributed to the damage to her reputation.  

He said in a statement to *Us Weekly*: "TAG PR operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources.  

"The standard scenario planning TAG PR drafted proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively's own actions, interviews and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful, and responded organically to that which the media themselves picked up on," he continued.  

"It's ironic that the *New York Times*, through their effort to 'uncover' an insidious PR effort, played directly into the hands of Lively's own dubious PR tactics by publishing leaked personal text exchanges that lack critical context — the very same tactics she's accusing the firm of implementing," Freedman concluded.  

Lively’s lawsuit, filed on Friday, December 20, came one day before *The New York Times* published related court documents.  

The lawsuit included exhibits with “thousands of pages of text messages and emails” that Lively claimed to have obtained through a subpoena.  

In response to Freedman’s statement and his assertion that the texts were “leaked,” Lively’s legal team clarified that the messages in her lawsuit were lawfully acquired through a subpoena.  

"The subpoena disclosed and referenced in the Complaint was served on Jonesworks LLC," the statement read.