Justin Baldoni plans to sue his “It Ends With Us” co-star Blake Lively, according to his lawyer.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freeman, was asked by NBC News if his client plans to sue Lively.
“Absolutely … yes,” Freeman said in the interview, which aired on Thursday, Jan. 2.
“We plan to release every single text message between the two of them. We want the truth to be out there. We want the documents to be out there,” he continued. “We want people to make their determination based on receipts.”
The attorney did not give a timeline but noted their action would be “soon.”
According to People, the plaintiffs will include Baldoni, his production company, Wayfarer Studios, his publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan.
Per the outlet, they plan to name Lively in the suit, her publicist Leslie Sloane and Baldoni’s former publicist, Stephanie Jones — who herself sued Baldoni, Abel, Nathan and Wayfarer Studios on Dec. 24.
The series of lawsuits began on Dec. 20, when Lively, 37, filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, 40, who not only co-starred in “It Ends With Us” but also directed it.
The movie is about a domestic violence relationship between their characters, and it’s based on a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover. It premiered over the summer, and it was a hit, grossing over $300 million on a $25 million budget.
Lively’s lawsuit alleged that Baldoni sexually harassed her on the set.
According to the legal docs, the “Gossip Girl” star also accused Baldoni of “a coordinated effort to destroy her reputation” after the movie was released.
Lively said in the docs that the alleged smear campaign caused harm to her business and led to her family experiencing “severe emotional distress.”
At the time that “It Ends With Us” came out, there were rumors of a feud between Lively and Baldoni, as they didn’t appear together to promote the film.
Lively alleged in the suit that “things got so bad during filming, there was an all-hands-on-deck meeting to address what she claims was a hostile work environment.”
The “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” actress also claimed that Baldoni and his allies “engaged in a ‘social manipulation’ campaign to ‘destroy’ her reputation.”
As evidence, she included texts from Baldoni’s publicist to a studio publicist saying the actor “wants to feel like [Ms. Lively] can be buried.”
After the suit became public, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman told The Post: “It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation.”
“These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media,” Baldoni’s lawyer told The Post in a statement.
Baldoni’s upcoming lawsuit against Lively follows his lawsuit against the New York Times, which first reported Lively’s allegations in the Dec. 21 article “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.”
On Dec. 31, Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against the Times, alleging that the paper used “‘cherry-picked’ examples of stories and Baldoni and Lively’s alleged communications on the set.
For example, Lively’s accusation alleges, “[Baldoni] repeatedly entered her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including when she was breastfeeding.”
In his suit, Baldoni alleges that Lively sent him a text message saying, “I’m just pumping in my trailer if you wanna work out our lines,” to which he responded, “Copy. Eating with crew and will head that way.”
A spokesperson for the Times said, “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents … We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
Baldoni’s lawsuit also accuses Lively’s husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, of allegedly berating him during a heated meeting at their Tribeca penthouse in New York, in which he accused the director of “fat shaming” his wife.
The “Jane the Virgin” actor also claimed Reynolds pressured Baldoni’s agency, WME, to drop him — allegedly during the “Deadpool & Wolverine” premiere in July, which took place before Baldoni hired his crisis PR team.
A WME rep denied the accusations that Reynolds or Lively pressured the company to drop Baldoni as a client.
Lively’s attorneys told The Post about the Times lawsuit, “Nothing in this lawsuit changes anything about the claims advanced in Ms. Lively’s California Civil Rights Department Complaint, nor her federal complaint, filed earlier today. This lawsuit is based on the obviously false premise that Ms. Lively’s administrative complaint against Wayfarer and others was a ruse based on a choice ‘not to file a lawsuit against Baldoni, Wayfarer,’ and that ‘litigation was never her ultimate goal.’ As demonstrated by the federal complaint filed by Ms. Lively earlier today, that frame of reference for the Wayfarer lawsuit is false. While we will not litigate this matter in the press, we do encourage people to read Ms. Lively’s complaint in its entirety. We look forward to addressing each and every one of Wayfarer’s allegations in court.”
Freeman told People about Baldoni suing Lively, “This lawsuit will uncover and expose the false and destructive narrative that was intentionally engineered by a trusted media publication who relied upon nefarious sources and neglected a thorough fact checking process to confirm the validity of these texts.”