Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively are still furiously duking it out publicly, even though all of their drama is now part of multiple lawsuits. Last week, Baldoni finally sued Blake directly, as well as Ryan Reynolds and Lively and Reynolds’ publicist Leslie Sloane. This was after Baldoni sued the New York Times on New Year’s Eve, and after Blake Lively got everything going just before Christmas with a complaint to the California Civil Rights Department and then a lawsuit. In my opinion, the strength of Baldoni’s lawsuit is providing context and details around some of Blake’s claims. In the court of public opinion, he has (in my opinion) successfully shown that Blake has exaggerated and misrepresented certain events and situations. How it will all pan out in court, I have no idea.

Baldoni’s lawsuit also featured a treasure trove of written communications between Baldoni and Lively, as well as some comms between Baldoni and his Wayfarer team about Blake. Baldoni’s legal team now says that they’re launching a website to publish all of those communications so that people can read everything and decide for themselves. His lawyers told People: “Justin Baldoni and team has nothing to hide and this once more proves this. [Baldoni and his co-plantiffs] have the right to defend themselves with the truth. This is what we will be continuing to show with the upcoming website containing all correspondence as well as relevant videos that quash her claims.”

In addition to the promised website, Baldoni released the raw footage of one of the scenes in question in Lively’s lawsuit, where Lively and Baldoni’s characters were supposed to be slow-dancing at a bar. In Lively’s suit, she claims this is where Baldoni behaved inappropriately, “[Baldoni] leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, ‘it smells so good.’”

Baldoni’s version of what this footage shows is that he and Blake both know they’re filming it for a “falling in love” montage without any dialogue and that Baldoni was in character, trying to act like he was falling in love, period. Lively’s response to Baldoni releasing the footage? Her team made this statement to TMZ:

“Justin Baldoni and his lawyer may hope that this latest stunt will get ahead of the damaging evidence against him, but the video itself is damning. Every frame of the released footage corroborates, to the letter, what Ms. Lively described in Paragraph 48 of her Complaint.”

“The video shows Mr. Baldoni repeatedly leaning in toward Ms. Lively, attempting to kiss her, kissing her forehead, rubbing his face and mouth against her neck, flicking her lip with his thumb, caressing her, telling her how good she smells, and talking with her out of character.”

“Every moment of this was improvised by Mr. Baldoni with no discussion or consent in advance, and no intimacy coordinator present. Mr. Baldoni was not only Ms. Lively’s co-star, but the director, the head of studio and Ms. Lively’s boss.”

Blake leaning away from Justin in the scene was not acting, according to her lawyers. They say, “The video shows Ms. Lively leaning away and repeatedly asking for the characters to just talk. Any woman who has been inappropriately touched in the workplace will recognize Ms. Lively’s discomfort. They will recognize her attempts at levity to try to deflect the unwanted touching. No woman should have to take defensive measures to avoid being touched by their employer without their consent.”

[From TMZ]

They were both speaking out of character within the scene, for what it’s worth. He was trying to “act” but then she spoke to him out of character, so he was directing her within the scene and she was legitimately pulling away out of discomfort. There was an intimacy coordinator working on the film as well – Lively mostly blew off those meetings, which meant that Baldoni had to speak to the intimacy coordinator solo and communicate the IC’s suggestions to Blake. What a mess.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.