Star publicist Stephanie Jones was vilified last year for “leaking” her former employee’s texts — which revealed the alleged plot to smear Blake Lively — to the New York Times, allegedly to punish the staffer for planning to steal clients.
But Page Six has gotten hold of a subpoena that proves that Jones — who reps Scooter Braun and Tom Brady among others — didn’t plant the messages to bury her fellow flack, but was actually ordered to hand over the texts by a court.
Jones and her company, Jonesworks, repped “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios. Jonesworks partner, Jen Abel, handling their account.
When a blockbuster Times story came out last year claiming that Abel and Baldoni had cooked up a plot to discredit his co-star Lively to undermine her claims that he mistreated her on set (which he has staunchly denied), it was widely believed that Jones had taken the messages from Abel’s phone and passed them along to the newspaper.
In one of a slew of lawsuits and countersuits that have emerged since the story was published, Baldoni claimed that as his feud with Lively began to hit the press in August last year, the relationship between Jones and Abel deteriorated rapidly and that Jones fired Abel “suddenly,” “seizing her phone, and marching her out of the Jonesworks Los Angeles office.”
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman later said, “Ms. Jones maliciously turned over communications from the phone she wrongfully took from her own partner.”
The suit also claimed that Jones feared that Abel would try to poach other Jonesworks clients.
But on Thursday, Jones filed a response claiming that she turned over the texts only because she recieved a subpoena. (Page Six has reviewed the subpoena).
It’s as yet unclear how the texts made it from the people who served the subpoena to the Times.
Jones’ response claims, “First, there was no leak. … Information was produced pursuant to a subpoena. Wayfarer’s willfully avoids this reality to advance its publicity seeking leak narrative but they cannot change the subpoena.”
The case is expected to make it to the courtroom sometime next year.
The post PR accused leaking Blake Lively smear-plot texts as revenge was actually forced to hand over the messages appeared first on Page Six.
