Justin Baldoni Sues His Former Publicist, Claims She 'Initiated' Legal Drama by Leaking Texts to Blake Lively's Team
Justin Baldoni is suing his former publicist Stephanie Jones.
The 41-year-old actor and filmmaker, along with his current publicist Jennifer Abel, are waging a battle against the Joneswork PR boss and claim that she “initiated” the It Ends With Us legal drama.
Stephanie formerly represented Justin and his production company Wayfarer Studios while Jennifer worked under her as the point-person on Justin‘s account. It was previously reported that Jennifer had quit Jonesworks PR in summer 2024 and had planned on staying on through the end of the It Ends With Us press tour, but her position was terminated.
It has since been reported that Stephanie was the one who leaked Jennifer‘s text messages to Blake Lively‘s team, which has been considered to be the catalyst for all of the lawsuits.
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“It is undeniable that Stephanie Jones initiated this catastrophic sequence of events by violating the most basic of privacy rights, as well as any remaining trust her clients held,” Justin’s attorney Bryan Freedman said in a statement to JustJared.com.
He added, “No stranger to stirring up crisis scenarios for departing clients, Ms. Jones maliciously turned over communications from the phone she wrongfully took from her own partner to her cohort, [Lively’s personal publicist] Leslie Sloane, immediately after Jones was terminated for cause by Wayfarer due to her own wrongful behavior.”
The lawsuit details what allegedly happened after Stephanie handed over Jennifer‘s phone to Blake‘s team.
“Jones [had] turned over the contents of Abel’s phone to Lively and her team — without a subpoena — so they could slice and dice her communications to to construct a false narrative about the source of Lively’s bad publicity. In turning over these materials to Lively, Jones knew full well that the blowback would engulf not only Abel but also her clients, Wayfarer and Baldoni. As a result of Jones’ malicious scheme, Abel’s life has been turned upside down. Her career and reputation have been destroyed, her private information leaked, and her email inbox and social media pages filled with a daily stream of death threats and abuse,” the lawsuit states.
Justin‘s attorney is pointing out some of the allegations against Stephanie outside of this lawsuit.
“Stephanie Jones, founder of Jonesworks, has a well-documented history of highly questionable conduct in the workplace, which the Lively parties would have seen with even the smallest amount of online research, yet they walked right into Ms. Jones’ ploy of bitter revenge against her most-trusted employee at the expense of her own long-term client,” Freedman said in a statement. “We will not stop until our clients are cleared of all wrongdoing and compensated for the vast damages that they have incurred.”
The lawsuit was first reported by Variety.
One day ago, Justin responded to Blake‘s motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit that he filed against her.