Warring stars Lively and Baldoni both file lawsuits over It Ends With Us

The actor Blake Lively has sued the director of It Ends With Us, Justin Baldoni, and several others associated with the film, alleging harassment and a coordinated campaign to attack her reputation for coming forward about her treatment on the set.

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The federal lawsuit was filed in New York on Tuesday, hours after Baldoni and many of the other defendants in Lively's suit sued the New York Times for libel for its story on her allegations, saying the newspaper and the star were the ones conducting a smear campaign.

Lively's suit alleges that Baldoni, the film's production company Wayfarer Studios and others engaged in "a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others, from speaking out". She accuses Baldoni and the studio of embarking on a "multi-tiered plan" to damage her reputation after a meeting in which she and her husband, the actor Ryan Reynolds, addressed "repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour" by Baldoni and a producer, Jamey Heath, who is also named in both lawsuits.

The plan included a proposal to plant theories on online message boards, engineer a social media campaign and place news stories critical of Lively, the suit alleges.