• Justin Baldoni sued The New York Times over its story about Blake Lively’s sexual harassment allegations.
• The Times stood by its reporting and said it would defend itself against the lawsuit.
• Lively also filed a lawsuit accusing Baldoni of retaliation for her harassment allegations.

Justin Baldoni is taking legal action against The New York Times after the newspaper reported his co-star Blake Lively’s allegations of misconduct against him.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, named Baldoni, his publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, and “It Ends With Us” producers Jamey Heath and Steve Sarowitz as plaintiffs.

The lawsuit, obtained by Business Insider, accused the Times of relying “almost exclusively” on what it called Lively’s “uncorroborated and self-serving narrative” and said the newspaper “disregarded a wealth of evidence who contradicted their claims and revealed their true motives”. .”

The lawsuit, embedded in full below, included screenshots of messages that allegedly contradicted the Times’ reporting.

The lawsuit said the plaintiffs suffered at least $250 million in damages.

In a statement to BI, a Times spokesman said the newspaper stands by the reporting and will “vigorously defend” the lawsuit.

“Our story was reported meticulously and responsibly. “It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and extensively in the article,” the statement said.

The spokesman also said that the newspaper published Baldoni’s full statement on its story and that he and other subjects “did not point out a single error” in their reporting.

Lively’s attorneys said in a statement provided to BI: “This lawsuit does not change the claims asserted by Ms. Lively in her complaint to the California Department of Civil Rights, nor her federal complaint filed earlier today.”

Baldoni and members of his public relations team were named in the federal lawsuit, which was also reviewed by Business Insider. It was based on the California civil rights complaint and accused Baldoni and others of launching a campaign of retaliation against her for speaking out about sexual misconduct.

The attorneys also said they encourage everyone to read Lively’s full statement of claim, embedded below.

Representatives for Baldoni did not immediately address Lively’s lawsuit when contacted by BI.

Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and the other plaintiffs who sued the Times, told BI in a statement that Lively and her team orchestrated a “vicious smear campaign” against his clients and that the Times “caved to the wishes and whims of two “have powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites.”

The Times’ bombshell story “‘We Can Bury Everyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” was published on December 21 and detailed messages were exchanged between Baldoni and his PR team.

Around the same time, Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment and coordinating a smear campaign to tarnish her reputation.

Baldoni’s lawyers argued in their complaint Tuesday that the Times’ story was based on “a premise that is absolutely false and easily refuted,” and said the Times had access to news reports that proved Lively, not Baldoni, was to blame be.

Read Baldoni’s lawsuit against the Times:

Read Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni and others: