Justin Baldoni‘s former publicist, Stephanie Jones, is hitting back at his claims that she leaked confidential information as part of an effort to defame Blake Lively.
In two filings Thursday night in U.S. District Court in New York, attorneys for Jones say she produced the sensitive material not as a voluntary act of subterfuge, but in response to a subpoena. A story in the New York Times about the tangle behind the scenes of the film, set off a media frenzy by drawing on that information, which included text messages from principal figures.
Baldoni and Lively, co-stars in the hit 2024 film It Ends With Us, have been engaged in a multi-front legal battle in recent months. While the film was a left-field commercial smash, its production and marketing formed the core of an interconnected and explosive set of legal claims between members of both camps. The saga is on track to make it to the courtroom in early 2026.
Lively has maintained that she was harassed, intimidated and otherwise mistreated during the course of making and promoting the film, including being subjected to an effort to smear her reputation. Baldoni, who directed the film in addition to starring in it, maintains that Lively’s charges are unfounded and have damaged his career.
Last December, Jones sued Baldoni, Wayfarer and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel (the latter a former partner at Jonesworks), alleging they breached their contracts with Jonesworks as part of their efforts to harm Lively. Abel and Wayfarer then countersued last month, with their attorney, Bryan Freedman, accusing Jones of leaking not just in legal filings but via comments to the press.
“Wayfarer’s breach of contract counterclaim primarily rests on specious allegations that Jones and Jonesworks leaked ‘confidential information’ in breach of the services agreement between Jonesworks and Wayfarer,” lawyers wrote in the “memorandum of law” filings, one directed to Abel, the other to Wayfarer. “This fails on numerous fronts. First, there was no leak. … Information was produced pursuant to a subpoena. Wayfarer’s willfully avoids this reality to advance its publicity seeking leak narrative but they cannot change the subpoena.”
Deadline has viewed a copy of the subpoena cited by Jones. Dated last October, it orders her to turn over all related pieces of communication, including email and texts.
Freedman, who reps Baldoni, Wayfarer, Abel, Nathan and alleged Baldoni fixer Jed Wallace, has also clashed with Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds. The involvement of the two A-list stars, the Times and a handful of seasoned PR operatives and lawyers, along with the film’s $350 million in global box office (and the bitter irony of its storyline about domestic abuse) has created a spectacle of immense fascination in Hollywood and beyond.
Attorneys for Jones also seized on the contention by Abel, a former partner at Jonesworks, that she kept everything above board. On the contrary, they argue, using text messages said to be from Abel, the ex-employee was looking to do damage to Jones on the way out the door.
“Abel’s counterclaims are nothing but a master-class in dissembling and diversion: a ‘nothing is my fault’ retort that seeks to avoid any accountability for her unethical and unlawful actions revealed in Jonesworks’ Complaint. Abel has no real response for her duplicitous campaign to ruin Jones’s reputation, steal Jonesworks’ clients, and, with co-conspirator Melissa Nathan, ‘make really good money and be happy,’” the Abel filing says, citing text messages from the former partner. “Instead, she resorts to hyperbolic fantasy – seeking to rewrite history with a series of falsities, attempted character assassination of Jones, and defamatory accusations about supposed ‘leaks’ of information when, in reality, the text messages she wrote on a company phone were produced by the company in response to a lawfully delivered subpoena.”
Jones’ legal team also takes aim at what they describe as Freedman’s opportunistic positioning. “The reporting that has dominated the news – smear campaigns against Jones, personal jabs, false allegations she was behind the Lively smear, etc. – have quite literally zero to do with the lawsuit Jones has filed,” the lawyers wrote. “As these filings make clear and this brief reinforces in plain terms, Jones’ lawsuit isn’t one about a movie or the drama surrounding it. It’s about whether a former client and a former employee broke their contractual obligations. Whether it was Abel stealing droves of confidential documents or Wayfarer and Baldoni failing to pay fees to Jonesworks, it is abundantly clear: these defendants are in violation of the law.”
In a statement provided to Deadline, Maaren A. Shah, an attorney for Jones and Jonesworks, decried the “distraction games in the press” being played by Abel and Wayfarer. The maneuvers are a “desperate diversion from the reality that they have no answer for their blatant misconduct – and have yet to produce a shred of evidence disproving Ms. Jones’ claims. They may wish it weren’t the case, but the fact remains that Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios and Ms. Abel brazenly and repeatedly breached their contractual obligations to Ms. Jones and Jonesworks, shamelessly framing her as the culprit behind the smear campaign they themselves created targeting Ms. Lively.”
The Jones filing comes the same day Lively’s team submitted its reply in support of her motion to dismiss Baldoni’s amended complaint of earlier this month. The amended complaint is in response to an attempt by Reynolds to exit the defamation and extortion case.
The new filing rejects Baldoni’s amended complaint, which alleged that Reynolds and Lively worked together and “engaged in a coordinated effort to exaggerate benign interactions in service of a false narrative that Lively had been sexually harassed” in a 42-page memorandum of law filed April 1.
“Unable to identify any actionable statements by Ms. Lively, they argue she is liable for things her husband allegedly said. In 2025, wives are not responsible for their husband’s words; it is incredible that Baldoni, a person who calls himself a ‘feminist,’ would take such a position,” today’s filing said.
Patrick Hipes contributed to this report.
