Justin Baldoni’s Ex-Publicist Slams Claim She ‘Leaked’ Texts To Blake Lively

Justin Baldoni‘s former publicist Stephanie Jones has hit back at claims she “leaked” text messages to Blake Lively that allegedly showed his team orchestrating a negative PR campaign against her.

Baldoni recently added Jones as a defendant in his $400 million countersuit against Lively, but the PR expert says she was legally bound to turn in the texts.

Blake Lively has also recently accused Justin Baldoni of using “scorched earth” tactics in an attempt to silence her.

Baldoni’s former publicist, Stephanie Jones, has denied “leaking” text messages to Blake Lively that purportedly showed his team coordinating a smear campaign against the actress.

In a new legal document filed on Thursday, Jones, whose company Jonesworks PR represented Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios throughout the production of “It Ends With Us,” accused the actor of “brazenly” breaching his contract and slammed his claims that she was in on defaming him.

Baldoni added Jones as a defendant in his $400 million lawsuit against Lively, claiming she “maliciously” turned over a phone containing sensitive messages to the “Gossip Girl” star.

In one of the purported texts, Baldoni’s other publicist and Jones’s former client, Melissa Nathan, wrote, “We can bury anyone.”

However, Jones has now said she was legally obligated to turn over the texts to Lively after being served a subpoena in October.

According to the Daily Mail, the purported subpoena ordered Jones to produce a wide range of documents and conversations concerning Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, noting that anything outside that would be punishable as contempt of court.

Elsewhere in her filing, Jones claimed that Baldoni and her former partner, Jennifer Abel, had violated their contracts with her by allegedly conspiring with Nathan.

In a statement released to the Daily Mail, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, insisted that Jones “violated” the terms of her working relationship with the actor.

“It is undeniable that Stephanie Jones initiated this catastrophic sequence of events by violating the most basic of privacy rights, as well as any remaining trust her clients held,” Freedman said.

“No stranger to stirring up crisis scenarios for departing clients, Ms. Jones maliciously turned over communications from the phone she wrongfully took from her own partner to her cohort [Lively’s publicist] Leslie Sloane, immediately after Ms. Jones was terminated for cause by Wayfarer due to her own wrongful behavior,” he added.

Meanwhile, Jones’s attorney, Kristin Tahler, claimed in a statement that Abel, Nathan, and Baldoni attempted to “destroy” her client’s business by “bullying distortion and outright disparagement.”

“Ms. Jones’ lawsuit is based entirely on facts and concrete evidence. That suit clearly shows that Jen Abel conspired with Melissa Nathan and others to steal reams of confidential documents, clients, and staff and eventually attempt to destroy the business that Ms. Jones spent decades building,” Tahler said.

The statement continued, “Abel, Nathan, Baldoni, and their co-defendants attempted to achieve these outcomes through bullying distortion and outright disparagement. These facts are backed up by dozens of messages provided in the suit we filed month ago and cannot be credibly disputed.”

“Having no facts or evidence, we see a familiar playbook — smear our client, culminating in the work of fiction masquerading as the counterclaims that were filed Thursday,” she added.

Meanwhile, Lively has slammed Baldoni for employing “scorched earth” tactics in an attempt to silence her over her sexual harassment lawsuit against him.

Her lawyers claimed in a statement to Us Weekly that Baldoni is trying to “tear down” California laws that were put in place to protect victims from being sued “into oblivion” by their perpetrators.

“Mr. Baldoni has gone from monetizing a brand devoted to believing and supporting women to leading the charge to tear down the very law that protects women who come forward about sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination,” they wrote.

“California’s sexual harassment privilege, AB 933, was enacted to stop perpetrators of sexual harassment from abusing defamation lawsuits to sue their accusers into oblivion,” the statement continued.

“The chilling message scorched earth litigation sends to victims is stay silent or be destroyed,” Lively’s team said.