(NewsNation) — A New York judge has unsealed emails and text messages used by Blake Lively in her sexual harassment lawsuit against Justin Baldoni to show an alleged smear campaign by her former co-star and his team.

The emails revealed messages between Baldoni’s publicist Melissa Nathan and her coworkers, Wayfarer Studios business partner Jamey Heath and Jed Wallace, a crisis management consultant, among others. 

Lively sued Baldoni and his studio Wayfarer in December 2024 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. 

She filed a complaint alleging that Baldoni and his team ran a “press and digital plan” to destroy her reputation after she accused Baldoni of sexual harassment during the production of “It Ends With Us.” 

Justin Baldoni’s team was working on a ‘mitigation plan’ to counter bad press

In one email between Nathan, Wallace and Heath dated Aug. 8, 2024, Nathan said they would be “going for their Quote two option for $30,000 PM for 3 months,” referring to Wallace’s services. 

She told Heath that Wallace and his team have “worked on some of the most monumental BTS [behind the scenes] projects globally.” 

Nathan also notes that she and others from her company, The Agency Group, would be “working alongside” him.

In an email from Aug. 7, 2024, to Heath, Nathan and Baldoni’s publicist, Jennifer Abel, a TAG employee named Katie Case summed up a “social and digital mitigation and remediation” plan. 

Part of the plan was “monitoring and directly influencing forums that are working against Justin and Wayfarer to adjust the narrative in real time,” Case wrote. 

“The integral part here is to execute all without fingerprints,” the email states. 

The plan also included monitoring and reporting sites that are engaging in “derogatory comments” about Baldoni and his company. 

Another goal was to take down full Reddit and all social accounts as needed while “starting threads with theories the team approves of and asking questions that no longer place Wayfarer and Justin on the back foot.” 

The email also mentioned “concerns” about Taylor Swift, who was friends with Lively at the time. 

“The social team are now worried about Blake activating the Taylor Swift fan base, which is a major concern,” Case wrote. 

In an email composed by Wallace back to Baldoni’s team the same day, he writes: “’We will work in lockstep with TAG [Nathan’s firm], but engaged separately.” 

Justin Baldoni’s team texts that they had ‘nothing’ to do with Blake Lively backlash

In a group text, Case wrote that they “had nothing to do with” the negative press Lively got while she promoted the film. 

“Someone has to tell them to grow up – they promoted a movie about DOMESTIC VIOLENCE as if it was a silly rom com,” Case says about Lively’s team. 

Case wrote the comments with an Instagram post of Lively encouraging moviegoers to “wear your florals” when they go to watch the film, which was about domestic violence. 

“Like come on,” Case added. “We had NOTHING to do with that.”

Case then says her team did not engage Wallace to go after Lively’s interviews about the film because backlash started “organically.” 

An unnamed person on the chat reacts, saying, “She doesn’t have a good reputation. All of this is organic stuff from real people making TikToks – not bots.”

Justin Baldoni’s business partners say he’s ‘navigating crisis’ 

On Aug. 4, 2024, Heath texted an individual named “Andy” that he was “in the middle of navigating crisis.”

“I’m so nervous,” he writes. “I’ve hired a crisis management team. Costing 9million dollars. Also our pr team. Just have to manage every land mine so it doesn’t go off. And there’s just so much to it,” he said.

Justin Baldoni stressed out about his movie being held ‘hostage’ 

In a text message written by Baldoni to his partners in January 2024 while the movie was filming, he says he’s “trying to find [his] balance of captaining a ship and leading it while it’s being held hostage,” apparently referring to Lively. 

Baldoni directed and produced the film. 

He wrote that he’s navigating “how to give her most of what she wants while maintaining some of my own vision.” 

Baldoni adds that he’s “acting and working with this person who can and will use anything she can against” him, pointing out, “It’s all scary — yet I know I have protection.”

Baldoni and Lively are expected to go to trial in March 2026.