A judge in the legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni has unsealed messages that claim to prove Baldoni’s team hired social media experts to wage an alleged ‘smear campaign’ against Lively.
The cache of communications, totalling 60 exhibits, was filed in New York federal court last week by Lively’s team. The texts and emails appear to lay out the salary and expectations for a social media guru—and self-proclaimed “hired gun”—to control commentary about Lively and Baldoni online. Now, the judge overseeing the case has made the documents public.
Among the key exhibits is an August 8, 2024 email, obtained by the Daily Mail, in which Baldoni’s publicist, Melissa Nathan, introduced a social media expert, Jed Wallace, to Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios business partner, Jamey Heath.
“Please meet Jed who will be having his team assist on all social activity based off our own conversations as well as their digital plan you are in receipt of,” Nathan wrote in her introduction between Wallace and Heath. “Jed and team has worked on some of the most monumental [behind the scenes] projects globally and I’m extremely happy to make this intro between you both.”
The email also confirmed the team would be “going for their Quote two option for $30,000 [per month] for 3 months.”
Per the Daily Mail, who was first to break the news, invoices show Wallace later billed the team in August, September and October of 2024.
Another text message between Heath and Nathan, further outlined a quote for an unconfirmed company for “the creation of social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts, helping to change narrative and stay on track.”
“All of this will be most importantly untraceable,” Nathan allegedly added.
Wallace has denied being hired to conduct any ‘smear campaign’, saying he was paid to monitor social media for Baldoni’s team. Wallace is currently suing Lively for defamation in a separate case, filed in Texas.
While little is known about Wallace, who was described by his lawyers as a “very private person”, the Daily Mail claims to have seen a now-deleted LinkedIn page belonging to Wallace, describing him as a “hired gun” with a “proprietary formula for defining artists and trends”.
Meanwhile, another email from August 7, 2024, obtained by Page Six, between Melissa Nathan and her team at TAG PR, and Wayfarer Studios members (including Heath), further appears to outline a social media strategy pertaining to Lively.
The plan allegedly included steps to “leverage relationships with Discord, Reddit, X, [Instagram], TikTok, YouTube etc. to expose behaviour of Blake and other parties, both current and past, and engage directly with communities to adjust or influence conversations taking place in real time.” Another line item suggested a plan to “Work to remove links that are harmful to Wayfarer Studios, Justin, and the narrative alongside the appropriate teams.”
One sentence also flagged that “the social team are now worried about Blake activating the Taylor Swift fan base, which is a major concern.” It continued: “With this in mind and to ensure Justin and the studio are 100% protected moving forward, they have now changed the fee to $30,000 per month due to the uptick in social chatter.”
Lively’s team has released a statement on the new evidence, saying: “There is an overwhelming amount of evidence documenting the smear campaign instigated by Justin Baldoni, Melissa Nathan, Jed Wallace and the rest of the Wayfarer Parties.
“All you need to do is look at Melissa Nathan’s texts, Baldoni’s responses, and Jed Wallace’s ‘services’.”
Baldoni and his team has always denied any efforts to conduct a ‘smear campaign’, and maintain no wrongdoing towards Lively.
