Blake Lively Responds to Justin Baldoni’s $400 Million Lawsuit

Shortly after Justin Baldoni filed a $400 million lawsuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, the It Ends With Us actress’ legal team has issued a response, calling Baldoni’s actions “another chapter in the abuser playbook” and an “attempt to turn the tables on the victim.”

“This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook,” said Lively’s Manatt, Phelps & Phillips attorneys and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in a statement via to Deadline on Thursday, Jan. 16.

“This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim,” they continued. “This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.” The statement added of Baldoni’s lawsuit, “Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault.”

“Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing,” Lively’s team insisted. “In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim. The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”

Earlier in the day, Baldoni had filed a $400 million lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against Lively, Reynolds, their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s firm, Vision PR, Inc. in response to Lively’s accusations that her It Ends With Us director and co-star had sexually harassed her and led a retaliatory campaign against her.

Baldoni’s suit, filed on behalf of the actor, producer Jamey Heath, publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan, claims 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.

Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, told PEOPLE in a statement at the time, “This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media.”

“It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret,” Freedman continued. “Blake Lively was either severely misled by her team or intentionally and knowingly misrepresented the truth.”

“Let’s not forget, Ms. Lively and her team attempted to bulldoze reputations and livelihoods for heinously selfish reasons through their own dangerous manipulation of the media before even taking any actual legal action. We know the truth, and now the public does too,” the statement added. “Justin and his team have nothing to hide, documents do not lie.”

Baldoni’s lawsuit comes just weeks after the Jane the Virgin alum filed a libel suit against The New York Times, accusing the newspaper of having “‘cherry-picked’ and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead” in its expose surrounding Lively’s sexual harassment lawsuit. In response, a New York Times spokesperson has defended its story as “meticulously and responsibly reported.”