On Aug. 21, Jonesworks founder Stephanie Jones called publicist Jen Abel into the office. The two women had been in the thick of a grueling crisis PR campaign on behalf of client Justin Baldoni, the “It Ends With Us” director and the subject of incessant media coverage thanks to a mysterious rift with the film’s star, Blake Lively.
But Jones wasn’t looking to strategize over the latest headlines. Instead, Abel was met by a security guard and an attorney and handed a document to sign and told to relinquish her phone. Jones had caught wind of the fact that Abel was poised to leave and start her own firm. Jonesworks had been hemorrhaging star clients like Dwayne Johnson and Jeff Bezos over the past year.
Six days earlier, Business Insider published an unflattering investigation into Jones that was months in the works and noted, “When employees did leave, Jones did not always let them go easily.” Four months later, the contents of Abel’s phone were laid bare in a New York Times story and complaint filed by Lively against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment and embarking on a smear campaign against her.
One element of the story that has fascinated legal observers is how Lively’s attorneys obtained Abel’s text messages, in which she and other members of Baldoni’s PR team talk about how to “bury” Lively. Those messages typically would never see the light of day — or, if they did, it would only be after years of litigation and discovery.
Her lawyers stated in the filing that “Ms. Lively obtained the communications set forth in this Complaint through legal process, including a civil subpoena” — but did not identify the source.
On Monday, Lively’s lawyers said they obtained the messages via a subpoena to Jonesworks LLC.
Bryan Freedman, who represents Abel, Baldoni, crisis publicist Melissa Nathan, Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios and others involved in the case noted that none of his clients were subpoenaed over the matter.
He said he planned to sue Jones.
“If all of the text messages were produced in that ‘subpoena,’ then Lively’s team knows the true facts of what actually happened and did not happen,” Freedman said. “The truth is completely different than what has been portrayed in the complaint and they know that. The complete set of text messages unequivocally show that there was no smear campaign initiated at all which is why certain texts are incomplete and other texts, which tell the truth, are purposefully excluded.”
Freedman has invited Variety to review the complete trove of texts and emails written by his clients with regards to their handling of the campaign and “to come to your own conclusion. I will open it all up to show the complete truth.”
Jones’ attorney countered that she is being made a “scapegoat” in the affair for having simply responded to a subpoena.
“Desperate to shift attention away from their disgraceful sliming of Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni’s team is doubling down on their smears by going after someone who had nothing whatsoever to do with this ugly campaign,” said the attorney, Kristin Tahler, a partner at Quinn Emanuel. “Having pushed Steph Jones out of her long-standing business with Baldoni, Jen Abel and Melissa Nathan are now looking to scapegoat Steph for having the temerity to respond to a court-ordered subpoena. Unfortunately for them, Steph won’t be bullied – even by paternalistic threats of being sued into oblivion. To quote Nathan herself, ‘it just shows you have [SIC] people really want to hate on women.’”
California law does allow for pre-litigation discovery in certain circumstances.
“The reason for that is there are some occasions where if you don’t have some basic factual evidence, you may not know whether or not you are going to file,” said Nicole Page, a partner at Reavis Page Jump LLP. “You may need that information to make the decision.”
The sprawling case puts a spotlight on crisis publicists, who typically remain behind the scenes but have become the story here, with four separate agencies engulfed in the spectacle. While Jones is never mentioned in Lively’s complaint, another firm, Tag PR, is, with its founder Nathan mentioned 88 times. In the days ahead of “It Ends With Us’s” Aug. 9 release date, speculation exploded on social media about a feud between Lively and Baldoni, with observers noting that the actor had stopped following her director on Instagram. While Baldoni continued to work with Jonesworks, that firm brought in Nathan and Tag, a company backed by Scooter Braun, whose clients include Drake, Travis Scott and Rebel Wilson.
Jones is the one person known to have had possession of Abel’s phone after parting ways with her subordinate. Some observers say it’s telling that Jones is not mentioned in Lively’s complaint even though she, too, engaged in efforts to boost her client’s standing in the feud with his star. In an added tangle, Jones is married to Jason Hodes, a partner at the talent agency WME, which reps Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. WME also represented Baldoni but dropped him as a client after the complaint was filed.
In an email Jones sent to several Wayfarer executives on Aug. 14 viewed in its entirety by Variety, Jones wrote that Baldoni should “Prepare Alternate Stories**: We should mobilize a robust network of supporters and third-party advocates ready to counter these narratives on deep background as well as some on the record, making it clear that the claims being made are untrue and unfounded.”
Lively’s team filed the complaint with the California Civil Rights Department. The state agency can either launch its own investigation or issue a “right to sue” letter that allows plaintiffs to file a suit in civil court. Complaints to the agency typically are not made public, unless the complainant chooses to do so.
The CRD declined to comment on the case. “To protect its integrity, we’re unable to comment on, even to confirm or deny, a potential or ongoing investigation,” an agency spokesperson said.
Lively’s complaint states claims of sexual harassment and retaliation and alleges that the PR campaign waged against her was payback for her initial harassment complaints.
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