Bombshell text messages and emails allegedly proving that Justin Baldoni orchestrated a “smear campaign” against Blake Lively have been unsealed by the judge overseeing the case.
Last week, in the latest development in the ongoing legal war between the “It Ends With Us” co-stars, Lively’s attorneys filed in New York federal court over 60 exhibits obtained through discovery in her lawsuit against Baldoni.
In an August 2024 email obtained by Page Six on Monday, Baldoni’s publicist Melissa Nathan introduced his Wayfarer Studios business partner, Jamey Heath, to social media guru Jed Wallace, a PR contractor and the owner of Street Relations, whose since-deleted LinkedIn profile reportedly described him as a “hired gun” with a “proprietary formula for defining artists and trends.”
Nathan wrote, “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.”
She noted that Wallace was “aware” that Nathan and her PR company, The Agency Group (TAG), would be “going for their Quote two option for $30,000 PM for 3 months.”
She explained that Wallace and his team have “worked on some of the most monumental [behind the scenes] projects globally” and added that she and TAG would be “working alongside” him.
According to the Daily Mail, which was first to report the news, Nathan referred to a two-part quote for “mostly untraceable” social media services in a text to Heath two days earlier.
“Quote two $25k per month — min 3 months as it needs to seed same as above — this will be for creation of social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts, helping to change narrative and stay on track,” Nathan reportedly wrote, stressing that “all of this will be most importantly untraceable.”
Although she didn’t name Wallace or Street Relations in the message, she reportedly said that the quotes came “from the two teams we use that get the best results.”
A source told the Daily Mail that “quote two” was in reference to Wallace and Street Relations.
The source added that the “creation of social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts” meant using anonymous accounts controlled by Wallace’s team to push already-existing pro-Baldoni news articles on social media and argue with Lively fans online.
However, the source claimed the work ended up being unnecessary due to the avalanche of “organic” criticism of Lively from real accounts.
In another text conversation from August 2024, a seemingly stressed-out Heath told someone named Andy that he was “in the middle of navigating crisis.”
“I’ve hired a crisis management team. Costing 9million dollars. Also our pr team. Just have to manage every land mine so it doesn’t go off. And there’s just so much to it,” he explained.
A source told the Daily Mail Heath was exaggerating the $9 million figure and that TAG was hired by Wayfarer for $15,000.
In an August 2024 email — addressed to Heath, Nathan and Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel — Nathan’s employee Katie Case outlined their “social and digital mitigation and remediation” plan, emphasizing that “the integral part here is to execute all without fingerprints.”
The group planned to “monitor and report” forums, threads and sites “working against Wayfarer Studios, Justin and the overall narrative, as well as derogatory comments.”
They also intended to “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.”
Case stressed the importance of “push[ing] up positive PR to change subject matter opinion on the first page of Google” and “remov[ing] links that are harmful to Wayfarer Studios, Justin and the narrative alongside the appropriate teams.”
Another goal was to take “down full Reddit and all social accounts as needed” while “starting threads with theories the team approves of and asking questions that no longer place Wayfarer and Justin on the back foot.”
The group was focused on “changing the overall narrative and helping keep it on track.”
This is also the email in which Lively’s then-friend Taylor Swift was mentioned, as Case explained that she and her team were “now worried about Blake activating the Taylor Swift fan base, which is a major concern. With this in mind and to ensure Justin and the studio are 100% protected moving forward, they have now changed the fee to $30,000 per month due to the uptick in social chatter.”
In an undated text group involving Nathan, Case wrote that Lively’s team should “grow up,” arguing that “they promoted a movie about DOMESTIC VIOLENCE as if it was a silly rom com,” wondering, “what did they expect.”
Case then shared an infamous Instagram video of Lively encouraging moviegoers to “wear your florals” when they watch the film.
“Like come on,” Case wrote. “We had NOTHING to do with that.”
An unnamed member of the group chat agreed, replying, “This is crazy. She doesn’t have a good reputation. All of this is organic stuff from real people making TikToks — not bots.”
Case added, “We didn’t tell Jed to go after the idea that her promo was inappropriate. That happened organically. Because people saw the actual movie and were like wait… This is a movie about domestic violence. That they wore florals [to].”
In a January 2024 group text with fellow “It Ends With Us” executives, Baldoni, who also directed the movie, explained that he was “trying to find [his] balance of captaining a ship and leading it while it’s being held hostage.”
Baldoni, 41, said he was trying to figure out “how to give her most of what she wants while maintaining some of my own vision,” seemingly referring to Lively, 38.
He added he felt he was “acting and working with this person who can and will use anything she can against” him, pointing out, “It’s all scary — yet I know I have protection.”
Lively, who is suing Baldoni for allegedly sexually harassing her on the set of their August 2024 movie before he and his team planned a reputational takedown, told the Daily Mail, “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.
“All you need to do is look at Melissa Nathan’s texts, Baldoni’s responses and Jed Wallace’s ‘services.’”
Wallace, who is suing Lively for defamation, has denied both the alleged smear campaign and use of fake accounts, claiming he was merely paid to monitor social media for Baldoni’s team.
Baldoni, who has denied the allegations, countersued Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for defamation and extortion. However, his lawsuit was tossed out in June.
Lively and Baldoni are expected to testify when her case is tried in March 2026.
