The Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni story is getting even more complicated: Now Baldoni's former publicist is suing two of the people named in Lively's complaint against Baldoni and others. Stephanie Jones, who TMZ refers to as a "big deal celeb publicist" who used to rep Baldoni, says Jennifer Abel, her former employee, was assigned to handle publicity for the actor when he was her client. Jones is suing Abel and Melissa Nathan, the crisis PR specialist Baldoni hired after things went sour between him and Lively, for defamation. According to her lawsuit, Abel and Nathan conspired to make Jones look bad so that Abel could eventually leave Jones' firm and take some of Jones' clients, including Baldoni, along with her.
"Behind Jones's back, they secretly coordinated with Baldoni and [his studio] Wayfarer to implement an aggressive media smear campaign against Baldoni's film co-star, and then used the crisis as an opportunity to drive a wedge between Jones and Baldoni, and to publicly pin blame for this smear campaign on Jones—when Jones had no knowledge or involvement in it," the suit claims. It also cites text messages, allegedly from Abel, in which she complained about Baldoni: "I can't stand him. He's so pompous. ... you're not that important and nobody gives a s--- how hard your life is," one allegedly read. Another: "He needs to be humbled. When this movie flops, he's going to try to blame every person around him for it."
Jones says she discovered in August that Abel had downloaded confidential company documents, fired her, and then uncovered the alleged plot between Abel and Nathan. Her lawsuit, which also alleges breach of contract and more, also names Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, which parted ways with her firm amid the feud with Lively, the New York Times reports. Abel, however, has opened her own studio and still works with Wayfarer. (More Justin Baldoni stories.)
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