Crisis publicist sues Blake Lively for defamation, saying she weaponized a digital army against her
Blake Lively previously alleged that this crisis PR firm was hired to smear her image with a «digital army»
Blake Lively is facing another lawsuit in her ongoing It Ends With Us legal battle with costar Justin Baldoni, this time from a publicist she named in the complaint she filed with the California Civil Rights Department.
On Tuesday, Feb. 4, Jed Wallace of the Texas-based crisis-management firm Street Relations, Inc., sued Lively, 37, alleging defamation. This came after Lively filed a petition on Jan. 21 requesting a deposition from Wallace, which was then rescinded Tuesday, according to Wallace’s lawsuit.
In Lively’s December civil rights complaint, her lawyers alleged that Wallace was hired by Baldoni’s PR team to assist in the alleged smear campaign, claiming he «weaponized a digital army around the country from New York to Los Angeles to create, seed and promote content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums.»
Wallace’s lawyers claim in his new lawsuit that her recent petition «conceded that Lively has no facts supporting the allegations she made against Wallace and Street in the Precursor which ‘made headlines around the world’ as she now, apparently under the threat of sanctions from one of Plaintiffs’ attorneys, sought to ‘investigate the scope of Mr. Wallace’s conduct.’ «
