Justin Baldoni's legal team has shared leaked footage from the "It Ends With Us" set in an attempt to refute Blake Lively’s sexual harassment allegations against him.
The 37-year-old actress filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign against her after the actors starred in the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel.
In the explosive filing, she claimed her director-costar exhibited “disturbing" and “unprofessional” behavior on set, which caused a "hostile work environment" and “grief, fear, trauma, and extreme anxiety," cited by PEOPLE.
Among the Gossip Girl alum’s accusations was that during the filming of “a slow dance scene for a montage in which no sound was recorded,” the Jane The Virgin star “leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, ‘it smells so good’... When Ms. Lively later objected to this behavior, Mr. Baldoni’s response was, ‘I’m not even attracted to you,'" per US Weekly.
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The 40-year-old has denied Lively's claims and instead filed a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times as the publication was the first to report Lively's allegations.
Baldoni has also launched a $400 million countersuit, which was filed on January 16, accusing the actress and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, of leveraging their combined star power to discredit Baldoni.
The couple is being accused of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage, to the tune of $400m in damages, The Independent reported.
In addition to this, Baldoni's team has released a 10-minute video that shows Lively filming a scene with the actor, in which their characters, Lily and Ryle, slow dance for a slow-motion montage.
The two actors appear to speak to each other out of character as they act out a scene intended to have no dialogue.
Watch the video below:In the newly-released clip, obtained by TMZ, which shows three consecutive takes of the slow dance scene, Baldoni and Lively are seen laughing and talking casually as they discuss the direction for the romantic sequence, which is set in a bar.
At one point, Lively suggests that the characters talk instead of kissing, and in another part of the clip, Baldoni leans in and asks the actress: “Am I getting beard on you today?” to which she laughs and says, “I’m probably getting spray-tan on you." Baldoni then responds: “It smells good".
The Age of Adaline star alleged in her December complaint that Baldoni "did not act in character as Ryle" for the scene and that the actor's physical intimacy was out of bounds.
However, Baldoni's legal team has hit back, stating that the footage "clearly refutes Ms. Lively’s characterization of his behavior".
"The scene in question was designed to show the two characters falling in love and longing to be close to one another. Both actors are clearly behaving well within the scope of the scene and with mutual respect and professionalism," they added, per Entertainment Weekly.
The legal counsel noted in their statement that the videos are "all three takes filmed of the sequence" but it's unclear if there is additional footage that was shot and not included here.
They also added that their client "has nothing to hide," and said: "Justin and team have the right to defend themselves with the truth and this is what we will be continuing to show with the upcoming website containing all correspondence as well as relevant videos that directly quash her claims."