Currently, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s lawsuits against each other have been merged so there will be one trial, which will likely happen next year. Within the consolidated trial, Baldoni’s publicists/crisis PR team are also taking action against Blake. Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel sued Blake Lively and Blake’s team before Baldoni’s lawyers filed their suit, and then Nathan and Abel joined Baldoni’s suit. Nathan and Abel are also part of the $400 million lawsuit against the New York Times, and they maintain that Blake lashed out at them and blamed them for the organic backlash to Blake’s own actions. The situation with Nathan and Abel has sort of gotten lost in the shuffle of “Baldoni vs. Lively,” but I hope some or all of it gets untangled before and during the trial. Meanwhile, there was another PR/crisis-management group hired by Wayfarer (Baldoni’s production company) and now they’re suing Blake as well. It’s complicated, but the Hollywood Reporter tries to untangle it:

Blake Lively has been sued by a crisis management firm that allegedly played a key role in the legal standoff between her and It Ends With Us director-star Justin Baldoni. Jed Wallace of Street Relations, in a complaint filed in Texas federal court on Tuesday, accuses Lively of defamation for roping him into the criss-crossing lawsuits, one of which alleged that he created artificial content on social media platforms that appeared to attack her and defend Baldoni. He seeks at least $7 million and a court order stating that he didn’t engage in harassment or retaliation against the actress.

The move comes after Lively dropped a petition on Tuesday filed in Texas state court last month seeking a court order to depose Wallace, though it may be a precursor to the actress adding him as a defendant to her ongoing lawsuit against Baldoni and his company Wayfarer.

In that filing, Lively accused Wallace of weaponizing a digital army to create and promote content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums. Baldoni’s public relations team that allegedly orchestrated the campaign to undermine the actress would then feed pieces of the manufactured content to reporters, with the goal of making it go viral in order to “influence public opinion and thereby cause an organic pile-on,” the petition said.

“Another day, another state, another nine-figure lawsuit seeking to sue Ms. Lively ‘into oblivion’ for speaking out against sexual harassment and retaliation,” said Lively’s legal team, led by Michael Gottlieb, in a statement. “This is not just a publicity stunt—it is transparent retaliation in response to allegations contained within a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint that Ms. Lively filed with the California Civil Rights Department. While this lawsuit will be dismissed, we are pleased that Mr. Wallace has finally emerged from the shadows, and that he too will be held accountable in federal court.”

Wallace’s 10-page lawsuit faults Lively for naming him in the petition and complaint she filed with the California Civil Rights Department, which accused him of illegal harassment and retaliation, that sparked the feud without evidence.

“As Lively later admitted she knew of no facts to support the allegations,” writes Charles Babcock, a lawyer for Wallace, in the complaint. “Neither Wallace nor Street had anything to do with the alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, failure to investigate or aiding and abetting the alleged harassment or alleged retaliation. Neither could they have breached a contract with Lively because no such contract exists.”

Wallace — who described himself as a “hired gun” and purported to have a “proprietary formula for defining artists and trends,” per Lively’s petition — was retained on behalf of Baldoni and his company Wayfarer, who also brought on veteran crisis PR exec Melissa Nathan of The Agency Group (Nathan is named in Lively’s lawsuit). A text from Nathan to Jennifer Abel, another PR rep for Baldoni, cited in the filing stated, “Can I start a Signal thread with you, me and Jed,” implicating him in the alleged smear campaign initiated by the It Ends With Us director.

Lively detailed efforts by Wallace to “seed and influence online forums” on Reddit attacking her and defending Baldoni. Nathan didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

[From THR]

So, Nathan and Abel hired Jed Wallace/Street Relations to “seed” negativity about Blake online, and Blake initially name-checked Wallace originally in a lawsuit, but dropped it. And now Wallace is suing Blake. It’s certainly interesting because, in my opinion, the “social manipulation” part of Blake’s case is not very strong (Lively and the New York Times misrepresented Nathan and Abel’s text sarcasm). And yet, putting Wallace into the mix might end up being the smoking gun for Lively’s case if her lawyers can actually show that Wallace was hired to “seed” negativity. It’s curious that Wallace sued her outright, that’s all I’ll say.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.