Last week, Blake Lively filed a lawsuit against Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment and social manipulation. From the coverage of Blake’s case against Baldoni, it seems like she has ample documentation for the sexual harassment part of her claim. She got the studio (Sony) involved in the process during filming, which goes a long way towards explaining why Sony went out of their way to give Blake everything she wanted in It Ends With Us’s post-production and promotion, including allowing Blake to bring in a different editor and create her own cut of the movie.

The social manipulation part of her case is turning out to be a radioactive issue in Hollywood though. Hollywood insiders are fascinated by Blake’s claims that she received access (via “subpoena”) to texts and emails between Baldoni’s publicist and crisis management team. Variety analyzed how Lively possibly got access to “private” work-product messages within Baldoni’s team, and they suggest that this was actually a retaliatory measure by Jonesworks founder Stephanie Jones – retaliation against Baldoni’s publicist Jen Abel, who worked at Jonesworks but was making moves to leave and start her own PR firm. As in, Jones grabbed all of the contents of Abel’s phone, then handed everything off to Blake Lively’s team, all to burn Abel just as Abel was leaving. Which is the backstory for this – Stephanie Jones is now suing Baldoni.

Justin Baldoni‘s former publicist sued him, his company and his current publicity team on Tuesday, amid a spiraling scandal over an alleged smear campaign against Baldoni’s “It Ends With Us” co-star Blake Lively.

Steph Jones, who owns Jonesworks, accused Baldoni of breaching their contract, which required him to pay her $25,000 per month. Baldoni dropped the firm in August, a few months into a year-long deal, after his Jonesworks publicist, Jennifer Abel, left the company to start her own publicity firm. Jones also sued Abel and publicist Melissa Nathan, accusing them of implementing the smear campaign against Lively behind her back and without her knowledge. She alleges that they are now trying to blame her for the ensuing meltdown.

“To this day, Abel and Nathan continue to point the finger falsely at Jones now that their own misconduct is coming to light, and to defame and attack Jones in the industry,” the lawsuit states.

Abel, Nathan, and Baldoni are represented by attorney Bryan Freedman. On Monday, Freedman threatened to sue Jones for releasing the contents of Abel’s phone to Lively’s legal team. Freedman, Abel and Nathan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Jones’ suit. In her lawsuit, Jones relates that she “forensically preserved” Abel’s company phone after Abel was fired.

[From Variety]

I’m not saying that Baldoni and his crisis management team (which he hired in August) didn’t implement a smear campaign or an amplification campaign to hurt Blake. I absolutely think something like that occurred, but I also think there’s a lot of other sh-t happening behind-the-scenes and it’s about PR people beefing with other PR people. Blake’s lawsuit was like a bomb going off in the world of Hollywood PR and crisis management. I also wanted to link to this Hollywood Reporter story – Baldoni’s publicist Jen Abel posted a lengthy explanation on Facebook, which she deleted (probably at the advice of her lawyer). Abel completely rejects the notion that she was actively spreading smears about Lively, but it’s an insider look at how a publicist and crisis manager monitor these kinds of situations.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.