Oh man, Justin Baldoni’s publicist promises that Blake Lively and her team are the actual worst

Justin Baldoni’s publicist, who is at the center of the scandal around an alleged smear campaign against Blake Lively, has spoken up in defence of her client. 

Jennifer Abel — who formed part of the team allegedly behind the campaign and whose name appeared in the text messages filed in Lively’s suit — aired her thoughts on the situation in a since-deleted Facebook post. She claimed that certain messages between herself, Baldoni, and the broader crisis management PR team hired in the wake of Lively’s sexual assault allegation, were removed from the suit because they “didn’t fit the narrative.” Abel declared that “there was no ‘smear’ implemented” and that “no negative press” about Lively during the promotion of It Ends With Us “was ever facilitated.”

The publicist went on to write that no smear campaign against the actress was needed “because the internet was doing the work for us,” a fact which Abel and her team “rejoiced and joked in.” She said, per The Hollywood Reporter, that the text messages simply show that Baldoni’s crisis team “sophomorically reveled and again, joked, privately to each other about the internet’s feedback” to Lively, whom she said was “making our lives incredibly difficult over the course of the [promotional] campaign.” 

While Abel denied any wrongdoing in terms of actively smearing Lively, she did say Baldoni’s team was involved in “flagg[ing] accounts that we needed to monitor and work[ing] with a social team to help us stay on top of the narrative.” However, according to the publicist, this did not amount to a smear campaign, because “we didn’t have to do anything over the top to protect our client.” As for the context around how Lively made “our lives incredibly difficult,” Abel claimed she was informed at the start of the It Ends With Us press tour that the actress and her own team “had been planting horrible stories about my client,” which led to the hiring of the crisis management team. 

Abel went on to vouch for Baldoni on a personal level, saying the actor — who also directed the film and produced it under his company, Wayfarer Studios — has “dedicated his life to the equal treatment of others, especially women.” Abel described Baldoni as having “no incidents of negative treatment of others,” and said she “felt good about our efforts” in representing him. Abel’s statement arrived on the same day as one delivered by Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman. 

He claimed that Baldoni’s PR team “operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats,” adding that the team’s drafted plans in response to Lively “proved unnecessary as audiences found [her] own actions, interviews and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful.” Freedman went on to condemn The New York Times, who first broke news of Lively’s lawsuit, as “play[ing] directly into the hands of Lively’s own dubious PR tactics.” It comes amid a flurry of new developments around the lawsuit, which first came to light earlier this week. 

Lively has received support in her legal efforts from notable names like Colleen Hoover — who authored the book upon which It Ends With Us is based — as well as her Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants co-stars America Ferrera and Alexis Bledel. Amber Heard, who was up against the same crisis PR management team during her infamous case with Johnny Depp, also shared her own thoughts about the bombshell revelations.