Four months after the release of It ends with usBlake Lively will sue Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director, for sexual harassment, claiming he also made a coordinated effort to destroy her professional reputation during the film’s release. In a legal complaint filed Friday, Lively notes that Baldoni enlisted the services of Melissa Nathan — a crisis PR specialist whose previous clients include one Johnny Depp — to help him.

It has been public knowledge for some time that Depp manipulated the truth and exploited the public’s dislike of complicated, independent women to win his 2022 libel trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard, portraying her as abusive and unstable . The media war that Baldoni waged against Lively was similar, making the actress appear difficult and out of touch, in part because she emphasized that she and her husband Ryan Reynolds had commissioned their own adaptation of “Baldoni.” It ends with us. (This cut, and not Baldoni’s, was ultimately released.) In text messages subpoenaed by Lively’s lawyers, Baldoni also discusses the various promotional and social media strategies that could be used to skew the narrative surrounding the film in his favor.

But Lively’s complaint details the toxic work environment that Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath created during filming. Early 2024, after returning to the set of It ends with us After the guild walkouts the year before, Lively called a meeting with Baldoni and several of the film’s producers and, according to documents, demanded that Baldoni and Heath stop “BL and//or their associates,” among other inappropriate behavior, such as improvising kissing scenes . (She also requested that an intimacy coordinator be present on set.) Elsewhere, the documents allege that “during filming, Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath invaded Ms. Lively’s privacy by entering her makeup trailer uninvited.” while she was moving out, even when she… “breastfed her toddler.” Apparently, Baldoni enlisted Nathan’s help after realizing Reynolds had blocked him on Instagram in hopes of addressing Lively’s complaints to be anticipated on set.

Baldoni’s legal team has called the lawsuit “shameful” and full of “categorically false allegations,” but at this point I think we all owe Blake Lively an apology. As Nathan put it in a text message: “It’s actually sad because it just shows how much people really want to hate women.” Nobody deserves to put up with this – star Hollywood actor or otherwise.