The legal drama surrounding “It Ends With Us” stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni continues to boil over.
Now Lively has been served with a new lawsuit, this accusing her of defamation.
Jed Wallace and his crisis PR firm, Street Relations Inc., filed a lawsuit against Lively on Tuesday for defamation after she named both parties in her December civil complaint against “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni.
While Lively did not name the parties in her formal lawsuit, Wallace said the damage had already been done after naming Wallace and Street Relations in her initial complaint with the State of California Civil Rights Department.
“Neither Wallace nor Street had anything to do with the alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, failure to investigate or aiding and abetting the alleged harassment or alleged retaliation,” the lawsuit, which was obtained by Fox News Digital, states. “Neither could they have breached a contract with Lively because no such contract exists.”
According to the suit documents, Lively’s claims “made with either negligence or ‘actual malice’” have caused “millions of dollars in reputational harm including both general and special damages through emotional harm (Wallace), actual damages and real and projected loss of business (Wallace and Street) in an amount that exceeds $1,000,000.”
Wallace and Street Relations seek punitive damages in an amount of “not less than $6,000,000.”
The on-going legal battle between the two co-stars of the movie has been going on since last December when Lively detailed allegations of sexual harassment, retaliation, intentional affliction of emotional distress, negligence and more against Baldoni and film producer Jamey Heath in a complaint first filed with the California Civil Rights department and later in federal court.
In response, Baldoni filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of civil extortion and defamation.
Baldoni’s team also released unedited footage from the set of “It Ends With Us” that they claim refutes Lively’s previous accusations of sexual harassment.