Blake Vigorous and Justin Baldoni are immersed in a legal battle arising from their work in Finish with us. The situation began in earnest in December, when actress and producer Vigorous filed a complaint against director and co-star Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment during production and of working with others to launch a smear campaign against her. Since then, lawsuits have been filed, but before all that, a disaster manager looked at what typically happens behind the scenes during public relations situations like this.
When the 37-year-old actress filed the complaint against 40-year-old Justin Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios, she included a series of text messages. These texts published by the New York Instances were communications shared between Baldoni, his representative, Jennifer Abel and his disaster team led by Melissa Nathan. The messages allegedly showed the group discussing ways to influence public opinion in favor of Baldoni. In his lawsuit against the NYT, Baldoni argued that the texts were “selected and altered communications stripped of necessary context.”
However, after viewing the messages included in the Adaline Period An anonymous media agent intervened in the student’s complaint. The person, who has allegedly used disaster companies before, spoke with Variety about the Baldoni/Vigorous situation weeks ago. While they noted a common element found in the way Baldoni’s camp supposedly approached the matter, they also expressed surprise at another aspect of this:
It is quite common for people in crises to be reactive, monitoring and responding to situations. But organizing this entire campaign? To put this in writing?
All in all, it seems that the means of correspondence is what surprised this person. Until that point, it was noted that Melissa Nathan said her methods for supposedly changing the narrative would be “untraceable.” While speaking to the industry, the anonymous source shared more sentiments as he also said the following:
Repair shops often employ a few cyber warriors who come in to manage conversations, but it’s an unwritten code that you won’t hire companies or social media agitators to go out and write a new narrative.
Within the messages about the alleged smear campaign were mentions of some celebrities, including singer and songwriter Taylor Swift, a friend of Blake Vigorous. Swift was mentioned in a leaked email that emphasized the seriousness of Justin Baldoni’s situation. One crisis official even said: “We have seen the most innocuous problems become huge because of social media or that the biggest crises have no effect on social media. You just can’t know at this stage. But BL has the same fan base as TS, so we will take it very seriously.” Hailey Bieber’s name also came up, as Baldoni’s team allegedly referenced a thread involving her as a means of strategizing.
This legal situation has extended beyond the complaint and the included text messages. Now in the mix is Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit against the NYT, seeking $250 million for alleged defamation, false light invasion of privacy and more. Blake Vigorous, who responded to the lawsuit, also formally filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and others for alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and more. It remains to be seen how the texts shared between Baldoni’s team continue to influence the matter.
