Blake Lively called intimacy coordinators “critical” ahead of lawsuit

Before Blake Lively filed a lawsuit against her It ends with us costar and director Justin Baldonialleging sexual harassment, retaliation and more, the actress opened up about the vital role of intimacy coordinators.

“I think it’s important to have an intimacy coordinator,” Lively, 37, said DigitalSpy in an August 2024 interview that was released three months before she filed her lawsuit against Baldoni in the Southern District of New York.

“You coordinate the stunts, you coordinate the dance, it’s choreography,” she continued. “So it’s being able to say, ‘This is happening here, here, and here for the stunt,’ and ‘This is happening here, and here for the dance,’ but like, ‘Now put your bodies together and your mouths and whatever,’ and just the action and cuts.”

Lively went on to say that she believes “being choreographed” during intimate scenes is “critical to everyone’s safety.”

Lively officially sued Baldoni on Tuesday, December 31, 2024, My Weekly previously confirmed, alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and loss of wages. In addition to Baldoni, Lively is suing publicists Melissa to Natasha and Jennifer Abelas well as Wayfarer Studios.

Lively also filed a complaint with the California Department of Civil Rights, citing similar allegations.

“I hope my legal action will help pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics that harm people who speak up about misconduct and help protect others who may be targeted,” Lively said in a statement. Our.

In response, Baldoni filed for $250 million action against The New York Times on the same day and for her coverage of Lively’s sexual harassment allegations. In the lawsuit, Baldoni accuses the publication of defamation and false light invasion of privacy, saying the newspaper “picked” the communication and left out context to mislead readers.

The lawsuit also alleges that Lively conducted a “strategic and manipulative” smear campaign against Baldoni, using false “sexual harassment allegations to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production.”

Baldoni also claims that Lively never met with an intimacy coordinator during filming It ends with us.

“In this brutal smear campaign completely orchestrated by Blake Lively and her team New York Times hidden from the whims and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites, disregarding the journalistic practices and ethics of a once respected publication by using edited and manipulated texts and deliberately omitting texts that challenge their chosen PR narrative,” Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman told us via statement on Tuesday, December 31.

“By doing so, they predetermined the outcome of their story and aided and abetted their own devastating PR smear campaign to reinvigorate Lively’s self-imposed public and counter an organic wave of criticism among the online public,” Freedman continued. . “The irony is rich.