Blake Lively’s brother-in-law defended the actress amid her sexual harassment lawsuit against Justin Baldoni.
Bart Johnson took to the Instagram comments section of a post from the New York Times on Lively’s case. “Her complaints were filed during the filming. On record. Long before the public conflict. The cast unfollowed him [Baldoni] for a reason,” the High School Music actor wrote, per Page Six.
“His PR team was stellar. Gross and disgusting but highly effective,” he added. “Read the article, their text message exchanges and his PR campaign strategy to bury her by any means necessary. No one is with out [sic] faults. But the public got played.”
While he said Lively isn’t without fault, he pointed out that she has a lot of responsibilities, like raising her and Ryan Reynolds’ four kids.
“Just IMAGINE being a stay at home mom raising 4 kids, married to the busiest man in Hollywood and at the same time being a girl boss running multiple companies while writing, producing, running non profits and working 16+ hour days from home so you can be with your kids,” Johnson explained.
“Launching 2 new businesses you been working on / developing for many years (launch scheduled by distributors, not you, btw) all while getting attacked by a VERY expensive PR smear campaign because you filed a sexual harassment claim for the very film you have to go out and promote with just the right tone or you get cooked!?”
On Dec. 21, news surfaced that Lively had filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, her co-star and director of the film, This Ends With Us. The 37-year-old accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, a hostile work environment, and trying to tarnish her reputation with a targeted social media campaign. Baldoni has rejected her claims.
Blake’s sister, Robyn—who’s married to Johnson—also responded to the actress’ legal complaint: “FINALLY justice for my sister @blakelively,” Robyn wrote on her IG Story alongside screenshots of a New York Times article about Lively’s suit.
