Actor Justin Baldoni said he is leaning on family and friends on the heels of filing a $400 million lawsuit against his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively.
Paparazzi caught Baldoni walking through Los Angeles International Airport with his family on Friday morning when he shared that he was “grateful to be with the family,” reported TMZ.
When asked how he is “getting through” his public spat with Lively, who accused him of sexual harassment in a lawsuit she filed last year, he shook his head in disappointment.
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“We have amazing friends and family,” said Baldoni, silently thinking before adding, “faith.”
Baldoni is suing Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds for defamation, civil extortion, and attempting to destroy his “personal and professional reputations and livelihood” in a smear campaign.
As director of their film, Baldoni also accused Lively and Reynolds of usurping his control over the project.
Baldoni, his publicist Jennifer Abel, Wayfarer Studios and CEO Jamey Heath are all listed as plaintiffs. Baldoni also hit The New York Times with a $250 million defamation lawsuit, alleging that a story focusing on Lively’s troubles working with Baldoni included “a defamatory headline designed to immediately mislead the reader.”
Lively’s legal team blasted Baldoni as attempting to shift blame with his lawsuit.
“In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim,” they wrote in a statement. “The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”
