Justin Baldoni called out Blake Lively for playing the victim on the set of “It Ends With Us,” calling it “the Taylor Swift playbook.”
In court documents released and obtained by Page Six Thursday, Baldoni was asked during his deposition about the Jan. 3 meeting, where Lively detailed the conditions needed for her to return to set.
At the time, she had already spoken to HR about feeling uncomfortable around Baldoni, 41, and producer Jamey Heath.
As a response to the “traumatizing” meeting, the “Jane the Virgin” actor wrote to a friend group that included actor Rainn Wilson and singer Andy Grammer, “[Lively] had the nuclear bomb.
“If she doesn’t promote the movie, she can leak that I’m a bad person or that she felt unsafe with me and all the stuff she has on me. Then she’s the victim. It’s the Taylor Swift playbook,” he said, referencing the singer’s reputation for “playing the victim” in her feuds.
“So she can ask for whatever she wants because she knows I know.”
At the time, Baldoni had stated that Lively, as well as Ryan Reynolds and Swift, were more influential in Hollywood than he was and therefore, they controlled the movie’s success.
He confessed to Michael Gottlieb, who represents Lively and was questioning him during the deposition, “I think when you are somebody small in the industry like myself, and you’re dealing with a titan like Ms. Lively and some of the most powerful people in the world, which are her best friends, and you’re in the situation that I was in, I think it’s very reasonable, especially at this point, to be concerned about what’s possible and what’s not. I — I was spinning at this point.”
In fact, Baldoni had wanted to depose Swiftin his trial against Lively, but was dropped in a surprising move. Nonetheless, the legal battle caused a rift between Lively and Swift, who have been friends for several years.
In her list of 17 demands for her to be able to return to set of “It Ends With Us” comfortably, Lively asked that an “intimacy coordinator must be present at all times when [she] is on set,” as well that the set be closed when any nudity or sex scenes were being filmed.
She also demanded that no improvisation be allowed when it came to intimate scenes, that she not be touched when she was not filming a scene and that no comments about her physical appearance be made outside of her character portrayal.
During the lengthy deposition, Baldoni also confessed to telling the “Gossip Girl” alum, 38, that he was circumcised.
He claimed the topic arose when they were discussing her being pregnant with her now-2-year-old son, Olin.
However, he could not expand on how the topic came to be other than saying she did not ask him “directly.”
On Thursday, Lively demanded she get “her day in court”after Baldoni requested to dismiss her lawsuit against him.
She slammed his request as nothing more than his “latest effort to avoid accountability for the hostile environment” on set.
The heavily redacted 76-page court document accused the “Five Feet Apart” director and his co-defendants of “throwing the kitchen sink at Lively’s sexual harassment and retaliation claims.”
Her attorneys also noted that his team “supercharged” negative “narratives” about Lively, who was turned into a “bully” when she was just “a mother of four with decades of experience in the industry who simply sought a safe and respectful workplace.”
Lively’s claims — of alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and lost wages — “must be sent to a jury,” the filing continued.
After sparking feud rumors following the release of the movie in 2024, Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against the director in December 2024. She then filed her official lawsuit later that same month.
Baldoni countersued Lively in January for $400 million — though it was thrown out in June and officially closed in October.
Baldoni requested Lively’s $161 million lawsuit be dismissed as well in November, claiming “no reasonable jury” would find him guilty.
The post Justin Baldoni calls out Blake Lively for playing the victim on set: ‘It’s the Taylor Swift playbook’ appeared first on Page Six.
