Blake Lively Called Intimacy Coordinators ‘Critical’ Prior to Lawsuit

Before Blake Lively filed a complaint against her It ends with us costar and director Justin BaldoniAlleging sexual harassment, retaliation and more, the actress spoke about the vital importance of intimacy coordinators.

“I think it’s essential to have an intimacy coordinator,” Lively, 37, said. digital spy in an August 2024 interview, published three months before she filed a lawsuit against Baldoni in the Southern District of New York.

“You coordinate the stunts, you coordinate the dancing, it’s choreography,” she continued. “So it’s about being able to say, ‘This is what’s happening here, here and here in a waterfall’ and ‘This is what’s happening here and here in a dance,’ but like ‘ Now you guys get your bodies together, and your mouths and everything else, and just action and cuts.

Lively added that she thought “being choreographed” during intimate scenes was “critical for everyone’s safety.”

Lively officially sued Baldoni on Tuesday, December 31, 2024, Us every week previously confirmed, alleging sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, emotional distress, invasion of privacy and lost wages. In addition to Baldoni, Lively sues publicists Melissa Natahan And Jennifer Abelas well as Wayfarer Studios.

Lively also filed a complaint with the California Department of Civil Rights, citing similar allegations.

“I hope my legal action helps bring back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics aimed at harming people who speak out about misconduct and protecting others who may be targeted,” Lively said in a statement to We.

In response, Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit lawsuit against The New York Times the same day and for its reporting on Lively’s sexual harassment accusations. In the lawsuit, Baldoni accuses the publication of defamation and invasion of privacy, alleging that the newspaper “cherry-picked” communications and omitted context in order to mislead readers.

The lawsuit also alleges that Lively waged a “strategic and manipulative” smear campaign against Baldoni, using false “allegations of sexual harassment to assert unilateral control over all aspects of the production.”

Baldoni also alleges that Lively never met with an intimacy coordinator during filming It ends with us.

“In this vicious smear campaign entirely orchestrated by Blake Lively and her team, the New York Times “I have cowered before the desires and whims of two powerful Hollywood ‘untouchable’ elites, disregarding the journalistic practices and ethics once worthy of the revered publication by using falsified and manipulated text and intentionally omitting the texts that challenge the public relations narrative they have chosen,” Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, said via a statement to Us on Tuesday, December 31.

“In doing so, they predetermined the outcome of their story and aided and abetted their own devastating public relations campaign designed to revitalize Lively’s struggling public image and counter the organic wave of criticism among the online public,” Freedman continued. . “The irony is rich.”