15 hours ago
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Justin Baldoni's ex-publicist wants it known she was not part of the alleged plot to smear Blake Lively -- and, in fact, she's now suing the women Blake accused ... claiming they tried to destroy her reputation, too.
Here's the deal ... Stephanie Jones is a big deal celeb publicist, who reps folks like Tom Brady, Russell Wilson, Venus Williams and Baldoni ... up until this year, anyway. In the lawsuit she just filed, Jones says her ex-employee Jennifer Abel was assigned to handle Baldoni's publicity, and it was Abel's decision to hire Melissa Nathan, a crisis PR specialist, when the "It Ends With Us" feud was starting to erupt.
Remember, as TMZ first reported, Jennifer and Melissa are the 2 publicists Blake is accusing of launching the smear campaign.
Now, in the new docs obtained by TMZ, Stephanie says Jennifer and Melissa's real goal was, "tearing down Jones' reputation to take her clients and enrich themselves upon Abel's planned departure from" Jones' PR firm.
Her lawsuit includes alleged text messages between the women ... one of which, shows Melissa telling Jennifer, "I know. And once you are gone -- we will be on accounts together and make really good money and be happy."
There are others discussing Jennifer leaving Jones' firm and stealing Baldoni as a client.
In the suit, Stephanie stresses her ex-employee, Jennifer, didn't even like Baldoni. One alleged text she sent said, "I can't stand him. He's so pompous. ... you're not that important and nobody gives a s**t how hard your life is."
Jennifer also allegedly texted that Baldoni needed to be taken down a notch. In projecting "It Ends With Us" might bomb at the box office, she wrote ... "He needs to be humbled. When this movie flops, he's going to try to blame every person around him for it."
But, Stephanie claims Jennifer and Melissa also had their knives out for her -- in the suit, she says they worked media contacts to plant negative stories about her. Specifically, she cites one article headlined, "Who's Afraid of Stephanie Jones?"
There are other texts where Jennifer is clearly excited about the plan to screw her boss. For instance, she allegedly texted Melissa, "We are going to war ... I feel so alive hahahahah." And Melissa replied, telling Jennifer she was leaving Stephanie's company "with a BANG."
According to the suit, Stephanie discovered Jennifer's plot in August -- because she allegedly downloaded confidential company documents -- and fired her. It appears Stephanie found all these text messages through a sweep of Jennifer's devices after she got canned.
Stephanie is suing Justin, Jennifer, Melissa and Justin's company, Wayfarer Studios, for defamation, breach of contract and more. She wants the court to award unspecified damages she believes her company has suffered.
Her lawyer Kristin Tahler tells TMZ ... "For moths, this group has gaslit and disparaged Stephanie Jones and her company for financial gain, to settle personal scores and most recently to distract from their disgraceful smearing of Blake Lively." She adds, Stephanie is suing simply to "recover the reputation she has worked decades to establish."
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