When coordinated negative publicity spirals out of control, the collateral damage rarely stops with the primary target. The high-profile promotional feud surrounding the film It Ends With Us took a litigious and revealing turn when Steph Jones, owner of crisis PR firm Jonesworks, filed a sweeping lawsuit in New York against actor-director Justin Baldoni, his company Wayfarer Studios, and publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan.
According to The New York Times, the lawsuit exposes what industry insiders have suspected for months: a deliberate, covert public relations war executed behind the scenes. Jones claims that after Abel defected to partner with Nathan, the pair orchestrated aggressive bad-press operations aimed at co-star Blake Lively to distract from mounting friction and alleged workplace misconduct claims on set.
When Lively filed an administrative complaint with the California Civil Rights Department citing sexual harassment and retaliation, her legal team served subpoenas uncovering company-issued phone records. Forensic extraction revealed text messages outlining detailed directives to "bury" Lively in the court of public opinion. Now, Jones alleges that Abel and Nathan attempted to scapegoat Jonesworks for the fallout, orchestrating hit pieces and attempting client poaching, culminating in formal claims for defamation, tortious interference, and breach of fiduciary duty.
This dispute represents a textbook anatomy of how smear campaigns operate in the modern media landscape. Coordinated leaks, background briefing of entertainment reporters, and whisper campaigns were allegedly leveraged not merely to spin a narrative, but as offensive lawfare against an opposing party. As highlighted in our ongoing negative PR case studies, weaponizing press contacts without airtight confidentiality or plausible deniability almost always backfires when discovery subpoenas enter the equation.
For high-net-worth figures and studio heads, the fallout extends far beyond tabloid gossip. Both Baldoni and the PR operators now face compounding reputational degradation that threatens distribution partnerships, brand endorsements, and corporate valuation. In high-stakes disputes, resorting to black-hat PR tactics without defensive guardrails transforms a standard workplace conflict into a catastrophic corporate crisis.
How NegativePublicRelations.com would respond
How NegativePublicRelations.com would respond
When a crisis erupts at the intersection of workplace misconduct allegations and toxic studio press, deploying an aggressive, covert offensive smear is catastrophic amateurism. In the first 72 hours, NegativePublicRelations.com would have implemented strict crisis reputation management and de-escalation protocols.
First, our team would establish defense intelligence monitoring across digital outlets, social platforms, and media desks to audit where genuine exposure lay, shutting down all off-the-record rogue briefing. Rather than executing offensive hit pieces that leave digital paper trails subject to subpoena, our focus would center on defensive containment and objective narrative framing.
Second, to address existing hostile search sentiment and emerging algorithmic bias, we would initiate ai-search-reputation-management and authoritative counter-publishing to balance search queries around the project without attacking individuals.
Third, for executives and publicists caught in crossfire defamation, we provide executive reputation management and lawful negative content removal for unauthorized leaks and misleading reports. We insulate client communications through formal legal-privilege channels, ensuring communications strategy never devolves into actionable tortious conduct.
This post is based on reporting by The New York Times. We rewrite and analyze the story; the original article remains the property of its publisher.
Justin Baldoni’s Ex-Publicist Sues Over Alleged Blake Lively Smear CampaignFacing a similar situation? Our reputation strategists can help.
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