Justin Baldoni Sues New York Times for $250 Million Over Blake Lively Story | TMZ Live - video Dailymotion

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Justin Baldoni is suing The New York Times for $250 million over the publication's bombshell article, in which they alleged the actor and others coordinated a smear campaign against his "It Ends with Us" costar, Blake Lively.

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00:00If you thought Blake Lively's lawsuit against Justin Baldoni was the end of that,

00:05if you will, it was kind of a play.

00:08Yes, nice and done.

00:10Well, you're wrong, because Justin Baldoni has filed not just a lawsuit against the New York Times,

00:16a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times, which published a 4,000-word story,

00:25basically outlining all of the misdeeds that the Times claimed that Justin Baldoni committed

00:34during the filming of It Ends With Us.

00:36And basically, he's saying that this was a hatchet piece, that the New York Times was

00:41out to get him, and left out a lot of context.

00:44So let's point to—

00:45Well, not just context.

00:46That they're saying it was just flat-out distorted and lies.

00:50Right.

00:50So let's point one example of this.

00:52So let's go to the Times story.

00:55This is the New York Times story.

00:56Baldoni repeatedly entered her—meaning Blake Lively's makeup trailer—uninvited

01:01while she was undressed, including when she was breastfeeding.

01:04Now, this goes to her sexual harassment allegation against him in her lawsuit.

01:08So now let's show more context of why he went in there.

01:13This was a text message that Justin Baldoni exchanged with Blake Lively.

01:17And this is her to him.

01:18Yeah.

01:18New pages can always be sent to me as well, please.

01:22Now, what they're talking about with new pages is script.

01:24Script, right.

01:25And then Blake Lively says, I'm just pumping in my trailer if you want to work out lines,

01:30which certainly sounds like an invitation to come into the trailer—

01:34It is.

01:34—knowing that she's—

01:35That is an invitation.

01:37That is.

01:37So what Baldoni is saying is that this was manufactured, not real.

01:44The New York Times, if they saw the actual email or the actual text which they put in their story,

01:53they would not have put it the way they did because it was an invitation by Blake

01:58and it wasn't an intrusion by Baldoni.

02:01So this is critical, of course, to the underlying lawsuit by Baldoni against the Times,

02:04because in order to prevail in a defamation case, he would have to show that the Times

02:08acted with a reckless disregard for the truth.

02:11Basically, they had alternative information and they neglected to present it because they

02:16wanted to paint a very specific picture.

02:18That's the allegation, Jason.

02:19That's the allegation.

02:20And that's what Baldoni would ultimately have to prove in order to prevail.

02:24The New York Times is in a tough place here.

02:26I mean, by not presenting this other information, they've got to come back and say,

02:30we just didn't have it.

02:31We didn't know it existed.

02:32And I don't know how successful they're going to be in presenting that case.

02:36The New York Times, by the way, has said they stand by the story that there is

02:41nothing they're retracting.

02:42So they're being very strong here, saying that this was a valid story.

02:46That's what they're saying.

02:47There's more, a lot more in this lawsuit against the Times.

02:52There was an allegation that Blake Lively was being shown pornographic material

02:58by both Baldoni and the producer of the movie.

03:04Jamie Heath, who also helps to run Wayfarer Studios, who's Justin's best friend,

03:08who is behind a lot of what he does professionally.

03:10Who she's also suing, by the way.

03:11Right.

03:12So let's show you more context on that one.

03:15So this was what Blake Lively had said as a condition of her continuing to work on this film,

03:22no more showing nude videos or images of women,

03:24including producer's wife, to Blake Lively and or her employees.

03:28So what was the video that was shown?

03:30Was it a sex video?

03:31Well, they say no.

03:33That this is what the video in question was a non-pornographic recording of

03:38Heath's wife during a home birth, a deeply personal one with no sexual overtone.

03:44To distort this benign event into an act of sexual misconduct is outrageous and emblematic

03:50of the lengths to which Lively and her collaborators are willing to go to defame plaintiffs.

03:54That's from Justin Baldoni's lawsuit.

03:56So now you have dueling lawsuits.

03:59We are being told that there will be yet another lawsuit filed

04:03by Baldoni against others connected to Blake Lively.

04:07So there are now multiple lawsuits.

04:11She may counter with yet another.

04:14We don't know.

04:15But this is going to be...

04:17Jason, I got to tell you, this, I suppose anything can settle.

04:22But it feels like the New York Times, at least right now,

04:24is digging in so hard that I don't see any kind of a settlement looming.

04:29Not for now.

04:29That's for sure.

04:30I mean, he wants to make more.

04:32He obviously would love to get a huge settlement out of the Times.

04:35But he's trying to make a bigger point that is going to relate also back to the Blake

04:38Lively lawsuit against him, which he's defending himself in.

04:43And in that suit, if he can point out that she withheld information from the New York Times

04:49in order to present a particularly negative picture against him,

04:53or frankly, these text messages exist and do

04:56contradict the allegations she made about him in the complaint, that's a huge win for him.

05:01He has a lot to lose here.

05:03On the verge of losing his career based on the allegations by Blake Lively,

05:06he needs to defend himself full-throatedly.

05:09And I don't think he wants to settle with the Times quite yet,

05:12because that's his best ability to get a lot of information from them that it could be useful.

05:16Hi, I'm Sarah from Casserole, Colorado.

05:19I'm a big Blake Lively fan.

05:21I always have been.

05:22And after everything that I've seen and that I've read about this whole situation,

05:27I really think that Justin Baldani is really just trying to save face in the situation,

05:32because I can't imagine someone with her platform and her following that she would

05:36make up such false allegations against someone else,

05:38knowing the extremities of what could happen afterwards.

05:42It is interesting, and I've known Justin Baldani for a long time,

05:45and his biggest issue has been women's rights and feminism,

05:50and that men should treat women better, and that men should be sensitive to women's needs.

05:55And so the portrait that Blake Lively is painting

05:59is the complete opposite of everything that Justin Baldani has worked for many,

06:03many years to create.

06:05So either that was a completely false narrative that he was creating,

06:08or maybe what Blake Lively is saying isn't exactly what happened.

06:12That is really interesting.

Justin Baldoni Sues New York Times for $250 Million Over Blake Lively Story | TMZ Live

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