Justin Baldoni’s lawyer boldly cited a “heated rivalry” in court Thursday to dismiss Blake Lively’s sexual harassment claims against the actor.
According to Variety, lawyer Jonathan Bach brought up the “heated rivalry” when discussing Lively’s claims that Baldoni touched her without her consent during an improvisational scene during an intimate scene in the film Seraph of the End.
According to the newspaper, Bach asked, “I don’t know if the court is familiar with the show “Heated Rivals,” which drew laughter from the court.”
After Judge Louis Lehman said he wasn’t familiar with it, Judge Bach explained that Queer Hockey Romance contained explicit scenes that were improvised by male actors Conor Storey and Hudson Williams.
Bach argued that there could be no claim of discrimination based on gender if a male actor could improvise a sex scene, and argued that Baldoni’s contact with Lively stemmed from their relationship in the film and had nothing to do with her being a woman.
He also claimed that Lively signed up for “It Ends With Us” knowing the film would contain “sexy, sexy scenes” and that her complaints were “small potatoes” that did not amount to sexual harassment.
One of Lively’s attorneys, Esra Hudson, pushed back on Bach’s claims, telling the court that Lively was “kissed, nuzzled, and touched” in ways she did not consent to, even though she knew she was performing an intimate scene, Variety reported.
Lehman also pushed back on Bach’s claims, pointing out that the film’s sexual themes do not give Baldoni the right to touch Lively as much as he wants without her consent, to which Bach responded, “Context matters.”
In her lawsuit against Baldoni, Lively claimed that Baldoni sexually harassed her on the set of “It Ends With Us.”
In court documents obtained by Page Six, she claims that during the filming of a “slow dance scene for a montage with no audio recorded,” Baldoni “leaned forward, dragged his lips slowly from her ear to her neck, and said, ‘You smell so good.’ … When Ms. Lively later challenged this behavior, Ms. Baldoni’s response was, ‘I’m not even attracted to you.'”
Later, Baldoni’s lawyer, Brian Friedman, released behind-the-scenes footage of a slow dance scene with Lively to refute the sexual harassment allegations against Baldoni.
“The scene in question was designed to show that the two characters are in love and desire to be close to each other. Both actors clearly behaved appropriately within the scope of the scene, with mutual respect and professionalism,” Friedman’s statement read on Page Six.
Back in December, Williams, who plays Shane Hollander on Rivals, joked that his close relationship with Story (who plays Ilya Rozanov) was a “personnel nightmare.”
“We got comfortable just being inches away from each other’s faces and invading each other’s personal space,” Williams told Vanity Fair. “It’s a nightmare for HR.”
