Hollywood Publicist Steph Jones has accused her former shopper, embattled filmmaker and actor Justin Baldoni, of breach of contract in a lawsuit filed in opposition to him in New York this week, simply days after his It Ends With Us co-star sued him for sexual harassment on the set of the movie.
Baldoni, who directed and starred alongside Full of life within the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel, signed a one-year contract at Jones’ PR agency, Jonesworks, at a price of $25,000 per thirty days. In August, simply as It Ends With Us was launched theatrically, Baldoni dropped Jones’ agency and adopted his publicist at Jonesworks, Jennifer Abel, to her newly launched PR agency.
The lawsuit, filed in New York State Courtroom, additionally names Abel and publicist Melissa Nathan as conspirators in a smear marketing campaign in opposition to Full of life and asserts that they then tried to shift the blame for besmirching the actress across the launch of It Ends With Us to Jones. In Full of life’s lawsuit, filed Saturday with the California Civil Rights Division, she states that Baldoni and his crew engaged in a “social manipulation” marketing campaign to “destroy” her repute as revenge for claiming she was subjected to sexual harassment by Baldoni.
Previous to Full of life submitting her go well with over the weekend, her attorneys managed to acquire textual content messages from Jonesworks’ firm telephones by boldly sending a pre-litigation subpoena to Jones. The rep then handed over the cellphone utilized by Abel, which she “forensically preserved” after the publicist exited her firm. Textual content messages from the system comprise correspondences, that are specified by Full of life’s go well with, by which the 2 reps and Baldoni focus on how they plan to “bury” Full of life because the filmmaker sought to close down a doable public outing of alleged on-set sexual misconduct.
Baldoni has denied all claims in Full of life’s criticism, slamming them as “shameful,” and “critical and categorically false accusations in opposition to Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives.”
Within the newest go well with within the spiraling drama across the film, which occurs to take care of points round abuse and trauma, Jones’ go well with claims Abel had deliberate for months to depart Jonesworks and abscond with the agency’s shoppers whereas additionally besmirching Jones’ skilled repute. Nathan stands accused within the lawsuit of encouraging Abel to depart as she was keen to achieve Jonesworks’ shoppers.
“This scheme in the end inflicted critical injury on Jones and Jonesworks,” the go well with claims.
Calls positioned by The Hollywood Reporter to Jonesworks searching for remark weren’t instantly returned.
