Increasingly it seems that Kevin Costner and Horizon II stunt performer Devyn LaBella aren’t just in dispute over the latter’s sexual harassment claims against the Yellowstone alum, but they are also deeply divided over what the other is actually fighting in court about.
“As a desperate measure, Defendants now claim that Ms. LaBella intends to interfere with their free speech rights regarding creative works,” a sharp September 5 filing from SAG-AFTRA member and Barbie alum LaBella in LA Superior Courts exclaims. The document is in opposition to a move last month by Costner, the production and lawyer Marty Singer to have the whole matter tossed out. or at least gutted.
“By Defendants’ logic, the anti-SLAPP statute would prohibit any suit based on a film industry worker’s objection to the breaking of safety protocols during filming,” the 21-page document from attorneys at Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai and Valli Kane & Vagnini adds, ahead of a September 18 hearing on the dismissal motion. “This would place such workers at the mercy of powerful companies and famous directors, and risk silencing those who try to vindicate their hard-won rights created explicitly to protect them from such harm. This is a perverse use of a law meant to protect public participation in the exercise of free speech.”
LaBella is seeking a variety of damages, As well, she wants a court order that an intimacy coordinator will be on set of Costner’s “future” films and all the defendants, of which Costner is one, to “submit to anti-sexual harassment and anti-sexual violence training provided by a reputable organization.”
Costner has called LaBella’s initially May filed accusations of being “the victim of a violent unscripted, unscheduled rape scene” on the still unreleased Western sequel a “bold-faced lie” meant to “damage my reputation.” On the other side, in the filing last week arguing against the dismissal motion of late August, the stuntwoman insists documents and declarations from Costner and others are “rife with contradictions regarding the duration of the shot, which of Ms. LaBella’s undergarments were visible, what the content of the shot was to be, and how the shot was executed.”
In Labella’s POV, the big problem with the May 2, 2023 scene was the absence of “an intimacy or stunt coordinator.” LaBella in essence alleges that Costner and company are trying to muddy the waters to bear her in a suit that different from the one she actually filled.
“The differences in safety protocols are as vast as they are alarming,” the plaintiff’s opposition filing from last week bluntly states of a May 1st shoot two years ago on Horizon II and the scene the next day. “The May 2nd shot was missing all of Ms. Labella’s contractually required protections,” says LaBella, who has received public backing in her case from Horizon intimacy coordinator Celeste Chaney. “This is the basis for the lawsuit, not the content or creative process of filming a sexually violent film.”
“Defendants violated Ms. LaBella’s contractual rights and her rights under state discrimination law.”
Never at a loss for fightin’ words for his clients, Singer stood his and Costner’s ground today.
“This may be a new filing, but it’s really just more of the same old nonsense,” the Lavely & Singer founder said in a statement Monday. “These claims are not only groundless, they are ridiculous. There are 12 independent witnesses who confirm that Ms. LaBella’s claims are fabricated. Kevin Costner has been very clear about why he refused to give in to a transparent shakedown. He is determined to stand up and fight for the truth – and we will continue to do so.”
This legal action could be where the real drama and future of Costner’s partial self-funded Western saga is. After the less than blockbuster result of the first Horizon, there is no release date on the calendar for Horizon II — and a planned Horizon III and Horizon IV haven’t even begun filming.
Cut to September 18 in a downtown LA courtroom for a look at where this all goes.
The post Kevin Costner Resorting To A “Desperate Measure” To Have ‘Horizon II’ Suit Tossed, Stuntwoman Says; “Nonsense,” Oscar Winner’s Lawyer Insists appeared first on Deadline.
