(NewsNation) — Amber Heard condemned an alleged smear campaign against Blake Lively, who accused her “It Ends With Us” director and co-star Justin Baldoni of on-set sexual harassment.
“This PR team was the same PR team that Depp got back in the Amber Heard v. Depp case,” Heard’s attorney Elaine Bredehoft said Monday night on NewsNation’s “CUOMO.” “Most PR firms, you assume, are supposed to promote their clients. That’s not what this PR firm does, and it’s what is clear in Blake Lively’s complaint. They do exactly the opposite.”
Bredehoft said the team allegedly hired by Baldoni “intentionally fabricates stories” through TikTok and other social media.
“That’s what happened to Amber Heard. They went after her to destroy her rather than to try to promote Depp. And it worked to a large extent,” Bredehoft added. “The social media attack on Amber was absolutely horrific, and I’m so glad that Amber has come out in support of Blake Lively.”
Heard, who now lives in Spain, gave a statement to NBC News, saying, “Social media is the absolute personification of the classic saying ‘A lie travels halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on.’ I saw this firsthand and up close. It’s as horrifying as it is destructive.”
In the complaint, Lively accuses Baldoni and the studio of embarking on a “multi-tiered plan” to damage her reputation following a meeting in which she and her husband Ryan Reynolds addressed “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Baldoni and a producer on the movie.
The plan, the complaint said, included a proposal to plant theories on online message boards, engineer a social media campaign and place news stories critical of Lively.
Baldoni enlisted publicists and crisis managers in a “sophisticated, coordinated, and well-financed retaliation plan” meant to “bury” and “destroy” Lively if she went public with her on-set concerns, the complaint alleges.
“To safeguard against the risk of Ms. Lively ever revealing the truth about Mr. Baldoni, the BaldoniWayfarer team created, planted, amplified, and boosted content designed to eviscerate Ms. Lively’s credibility,” the complaint states. “They engaged in the same techniques to bolster Mr. Baldoni’s credibility and suppress any negative content about him.”
Bryan Freedman, an attorney representing Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, called the claims “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.”
He pushed back against Lively’s allegations of a coordinated campaign, saying the studio “proactively” hired a crisis manager “due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production.”
Freedman also said Lively threatened to not appear on set and not promote the film “if her demands were not met.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.