Blake Lively has broken her silence on the recent unedited footage Justin Baldoni released from their film, It Ends With Us, after she accused him of sexual harassment.
The actress, 37, claims the explosive video, showing all three takes of a dance scene between the duo, proves that she was uncomfortable during the scene.
‘Justin Baldoni and his lawyer may hope that this latest stunt will get ahead of the damaging evidence against him, but the video itself is damning,’ her lawyer told TMZ.
‘Every frame of the released footage corroborates, to the letter, what Ms. Lively described in Paragraph 48 of her Complaint.’
Her teams claims that the video ‘shows Mr. Baldoni repeatedly leaning in toward Ms. Lively, attempting to kiss her, kissing her forehead, rubbing his face and mouth against her neck, flicking her lip with his thumb, caressing her, telling her how good she smells, and talking with her out of character.’
Lively’s lawyer also added that none of the intimacy shown in the video was choreographed.
Blake Lively, 37, has broken her silence on the recent unedited footage Justin Baldoni released from their film, It Ends With Us, after she accused him of sexual harassment
‘Every moment of this was improvised by Mr. Baldoni with no discussion or consent in advance, and no intimacy coordinator present.’
‘Mr. Baldoni was not only Ms. Lively’s co-star, but the director, the head of studio and Ms. Lively’s boss.’
Blake leaning away from Justin in the scene was not acting, according to her lawyers. They say,
Lively’s legal team claims that her ‘leaning away’ from Baldoni during the scene was not acting, and that the clips shows her ‘repeatedly asking for the characters to just talk.’
‘Any woman who has been inappropriately touched in the workplace will recognize Ms. Lively’s discomfort.’
‘They will recognize her attempts at levity to try to deflect the unwanted touching. No woman should have to take defensive measures to avoid being touched by their employer without their consent.’
It was one of the biggest bombshells in a lawsuit packed full of them – that Baldoni sexually harassed Lively while filming a dance scene by dragging his lips down her neck and telling her ‘it smells so good’.
In her civil rights complaint filed last month, the actress insisted nobody overheard the comment because the romantic montage was silent and the microphones were switched off.
Lively claims the explosive video, showing all three takes of a dance scene between the duo, proves that she was uncomfortable during the scene; the two seen in a still from the movie
But DailyMail.com has exclusively obtained an explosive video with Baldoni’s sound equipment was switched on, showing all three takes.
The tapes show how friendly the two stars were before it all went so wrong. They laugh and joke around – even joshing about the size of Baldoni’s nose and talk about how they spend their time with their spouses.
They include a complete record of the conversation in question at around the seven-minute mark that makes clear the comment about her smelling so good was in response to Lively talking about her spray tan as they film a romantic dance.
Baldoni tells Lively he’s probably getting his beard on her and she responds by saying she’s probably getting spray tan on him. Then he quips back ‘it smells good’ before both laugh and she tells him the scent actually comes from her body makeup.
And while the montage does indeed show Baldoni nuzzling Lively’s neck as part of the scene in which they play lovers, the conversation between them is all business with the pair spending most of it talking about lighting and their other halves.
The clip, which is raw footage shot while filming It Ends With Us, comes complete with audio and was passed to DailyMail.com by the actor’s production company Wayfarer and his lawyer Bryan Freedman who has previously said Baldoni has ‘nothing to hide’.
DailyMail.com’s exclusive footage is the latest revelation in a lengthy saga that began with rumors of rancor behind the scenes of It Ends With Us when it was released last August.
It then exploded into a legal fight just before Christmas when the glamorous blonde sued Baldoni for sexual harassment.
At the same time, the New York Times released a story based on Lively’s legal filing that accused him of orchestrating a negative publicity campaign against her and put the smell claim front and center.
In turn, Baldoni sued the Times for defamation and, last week, launched a $400m lawsuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds that accused her of using her celebrity power to hijack his film and attempt to torpedo his career.
