BLAKE LIVELY VS. JUSTIN BALDONI - CAN ANYONE REALLY WIN?

As It Ends With Us' Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni forge ahead with their lawsuits concerning alleged misconduct on the set of the film, experts share their takes on how the drama has already affected the costars' lives and careers

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It feels like Hollywood's longest game of he said, she said. Over the summer, reports of tension between It Ends With Us lead Blake Lively and her director and costar, Justin Baldoni, dominated headlines as they promoted the project.

Then, in late December, Lively filed a bombshell legal complaint in California claiming Baldoni had sexually harassed her during filming and later attempted to ruin her reputation via vicious and targeted online attacks. The New York Times picked up on it and swiftly published an exposé about the alleged retaliatory smear campaign Baldoni and his associates waged against Lively, 37. "You know we can bury anyone," Baldoni's PR Melissa Nathan is alleged to have said in a text message.

Baldoni's attorney, Bryan Freedman, called the allegations "categorically false." Still, the public fallout was swift: The Jane the Virgin alum, 41, and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, were dropped by talent agency WME, which also represents Lively and her husband of 12 years, Ryan Reynolds. Two days later, the cohost of Baldoni's feminist Man Enough Podcast abruptly left the show. Over on TeamLively, her It Ends With Us costars Jenny Slate and Brendan Sklenar publicly expressed support for her, as did celebs like her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants castmates as well as Amber Heard and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Then, it was Baldoni's turn to strike. On New Year's Eve, he filed a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times, reporting that the outlet "cherry-picked' and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead." A few weeks later, he filed a federal lawsuit accusing Lively, Reynolds and their publicist of defamation, claiming the power couple steamrolled him while filming It Ends With Us and that Lively plotted to destroy his career.

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