The judge overseeing the legal battle between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively has unsealed the text messages and emails, which allegedly prove that the It Ends With Us director orchestrated a “smear campaign” against his co-star.
The emails and texts came to light after Lively’s team filed more than 60 exhibits (documentary evidence which will be brought before the jury during trial) and submitted them to the court in support of her legal claims that Baldoni was seeking to ruin her reputation through a calculated reputation take-down in the media.
On August 14, Judge Lewis J. Liman chose to unseal redacted exhibits, revealing further details about the services Baldoni and his company, Wayfarer Studios, hired for crisis management
A series of emails between Baldoni’s publicist, Melissa Nathan, and his Wayfarer Studios associate, Jamey Heath, appear to claim that his team hired a man named Jed Wallace, who was known to be a “social media guru”. According to the unsealed documents, Wallace was paid $90,000 USD ($138,867.46 AUD approx) for a three-month contract.
“Please meet Jed, who will be having his team assist on all social activity based off our own conversations as well as their digital plan you are in receipt of,” Nathan wrote, noting that Wallace and his team had worked on some of “the most monumental behind-the-scenes projects globally”.
According to the Daily Mail, Nathan went on to refer to a “mostly untraceable” social media campaign via text with Heath.
“Quote two $25k per month — min 3 months as it needs to seed the same as above — this will be for creation of social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts, helping to change the narrative and stay on track”.
She continued, “All of this will be, most importantly, untraceable.”
A source told the Daily Mail that the social media campaign consisted of anonymous troll accounts controlled by Wallace’s team to create and push a pro-Baldoni narrative through news articles on social media and argue with Lively fans online. However, the insider said that the work turned out to be unnecessary as it was taken over by “organic” critcism of Lively online.
In another email from August 2024 obtained by Page Six, Nathan’s employee Katie Case outlined their “social and digital mitigation and remediation” plan, noting that “the most integral part here is to execute all without fingerprints”.
The team allegedly made plans to monitor online spaces “working against Wayfarer Studios, Justin and the overall narrative, as well as derogatory comments” as well as “leverage relationships with Discord, Reddit, X, IG, TikTok, YouTube, etc. to expose behavior of Blake and other parties, both current and past, and engage directly with communities to adjust or influence the conversations taking place in real time”.
In a statement, Lively’s team maintains that the unsealed emails and texts are proof of a smear campaign.
“There is an overwhelming amount of evidence documenting the smear campaign instigated by Justin Baldoni, Melissa Nathan, Jed Wallace and the rest of the Wayfarer Parties,” a spokesperson told the Daily Mail.
“All you need to do is look at Melissa Nathan’s texts, Baldoni’s responses, and Jed Wallace’s ‘services’.”
Meanwhile, Wallace has denied that he had any involvement in a smear campaign or creating any fake troll accounts. Instead, he said he was only paid to monitor social media for Baldoni’s team. Back in July, Judge Liman dismissed Lively’s claims against Wallace, and Wallace is now suing Lively in Texas for defamation.
“Blake Lively made false statements to the press through a private administrative filing, claiming Mr Wallace and Street Relations had sexually harassed her, retaliated against her, aided and abetted others who did the same, breached a contract with her and engaged in other improper conduct,” Wallace’s attorney, Chip Babcock, commented to the Daily Mail.
“Mr Wallace, who is a very private person, has never met or spoken to Ms Lively. Ever. He has not engaged in a smear campaign against her at any point in time.”
Lively’s case against Baldoni is due to face court in March, 2026.
