Justin Baldoni‘s former publicist, Stephanie Jones, is hitting again at his claims that she leaked confidential info as a part of an effort to defame Blake Full of life.
In twin filings Thursday evening in U.S. District Courtroom in New York, attorneys for Jones say she produced the delicate materials not as a voluntary act of subterfuge, however in response to a subpoena. A narrative within the New York Occasions concerning the tangle behind the scenes of the movie, set off a media frenzy by drawing on a few of that info, which included textual content messages from principal figures.
Baldoni and Full of life, co-stars within the hit 2024 movie It Ends With Us, have been engaged in a multi-front authorized battle in latest months. Whereas the movie was a left-field industrial smash, its manufacturing and advertising and marketing shaped the core of an interconnected and explosive set of authorized claims between members of each camps. The saga is on monitor to make it to the courtroom in early 2026.
Full of life has maintained that she was harassed, intimidated and in any other case mistreated in the course of the course of constructing and selling the movie, together with being subjected to an effort to smear her fame. Baldoni, who directed the movie along with starring in it, maintains that Full of life’s prices are unfounded and have broken his profession.
Final December, Jones sued Baldoni, Wayfarer and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel (the latter a former companion at Jonesworks), alleging they breached their contracts with Jonesworks as a part of their efforts to hurt Full of life. Abel and Wayfarer then countersued final month, with their lawyer, Bryan Freedman, accusing Jones of leaking and delivering that message not simply in authorized filings however in feedback to the press.
“Wayfarer’s breach of contract counterclaim primarily rests on specious allegations that Jones and Jonesworks leaked ‘confidential info’ in breach of the companies settlement between Jonesworks and Wayfarer,” legal professionals wrote within the “memorandum of legislation” filings, one directed to Abel (learn the submitting right here), the opposite to Wayfarer (learn the submitting right here). “This fails on quite a few fronts. First, there was no leak. … Data was produced pursuant to a subpoena. Wayfarer’s willfully avoids this actuality to advance its publicity in search of leak narrative however they can’t change the subpoena.”
Deadline has considered a duplicate of the subpoena cited by Jones. Dated final October, it orders her to show over all associated items of communication, together with e-mail and texts.
Freedman, who reps Baldoni, Wayfarer, Abel, Nathan and alleged Baldoni fixer Jed Wallace, has additionally clashed with Full of life’s husband, Ryan Reynolds. The involvement of the 2 A-list stars, the Occasions and a handful of seasoned PR operatives and legal professionals, together with the movie’s $350 million in international field workplace (and the bitter irony of its storyline about home abuse) has created a spectacle of immense fascination in Hollywood and past.
Attorneys for Jones additionally seized on the competition by Abel, a former companion at Jonesworks, that she saved every part above board. Quite the opposite, they argue, utilizing textual content messages stated to be from Abel, the ex-employee was seeking to do harm to Jones on the way in which out the door.
“Abel’s counterclaims are nothing however a master-class in dissembling and diversion: a ‘nothing is my fault’ retort that seeks to keep away from any accountability for her unethical and illegal actions revealed in Jonesworks’ Grievance. Abel has no actual response for her duplicitous marketing campaign to break Jones’s fame, steal Jonesworks’ shoppers, and, with co-conspirator Melissa Nathan, ‘make actually good cash and be completely satisfied,’” the Abel submitting says, citing textual content messages from the previous companion. “As a substitute, she resorts to hyperbolic fantasy – in search of to rewrite historical past with a collection of falsities, tried character assassination of Jones, and defamatory accusations about supposed ‘leaks’ of data when, in actuality, the textual content messages she wrote on an organization cellphone had been produced by the corporate in response to a lawfully delivered subpoena.”
Jones’ authorized workforce additionally takes intention at what they describe as Freedman’s opportunistic positioning. “The reporting that has dominated the information – smear campaigns towards Jones, private jabs, false allegations she was behind the Full of life smear, and so on. – have fairly actually zero to do with the lawsuit Jones has filed,” the legal professionals wrote. “As these filings clarify and this transient reinforces in plain phrases, Jones’ lawsuit isn’t one a couple of film or the drama surrounding it. It’s about whether or not a former consumer and a former worker broke their contractual obligations. Whether or not it was Abel stealing droves of confidential paperwork or Wayfarer and Baldoni failing to pay charges to Jonesworks, it’s abundantly clear: these defendants are in violation of the legislation.”
In a press release offered to Deadline, Maaren A. Shah, an lawyer for Jones and Jonesworks, decried the “distraction video games within the press” being performed by Abel and Wayfarer. The maneuvers are a “determined diversion from the truth that they don’t have any reply for his or her blatant misconduct – and have but to provide a shred of proof disproving Ms. Jones’ claims. They might want it weren’t the case, however the truth stays that Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios and Ms. Abel openly and repeatedly breached their contractual obligations to Ms. Jones and Jonesworks, shamelessly framing her because the wrongdoer behind the smear marketing campaign they themselves created focusing on Ms. Full of life.”
The Jones submitting comes the identical day Full of life’s workforce submitted its reply in assist of her movement to dismiss Baldoni’s amended criticism of earlier this month. The amended criticism is in response to an try by Reynolds to exit the defamation and extortion case.
The brand new submitting rejects Baldoni’s amended criticism, which alleged that Reynolds and Full of life labored collectively and “engaged in a coordinated effort to magnify benign interactions in service of a false narrative that Full of life had been sexually harassed” in a 42-page memorandum of legislation filed April 1.
“Unable to establish any actionable statements by Ms. Full of life, they argue she is responsible for issues her husband allegedly stated. In 2025, wives aren’t chargeable for their husband’s phrases; it’s unbelievable that Baldoni, an individual who calls himself a ‘feminist,’ would take such a place,” right now’s submitting stated.
Patrick Hipes contributed to this report.
