Texts link Justin Baldonis crisis PR pro to secret 'smear' sites, complaint alleges

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Set us as preferred Melissa Nathan, the crisis management public relations pro hired by actor-director Justin Baldoni amid his lengthy legal feud with actor Blake Lively, is in the hot seat after Baldoni’s former publicist claimed that Nathan played a key role in operating a network of anonymous “smear” websites.The publicist, Stephanie Jones, filed an initial complaint in New York Supreme Court in December 2024, accusing Baldoni’s crisis PR team of waging a coordinated effort to undermine her and deflect blame for what she called a retaliatory smear campaign targeting Lively.But new documents filed last week brought front and center a “key question from the outset of this case”: Who was behind the creation of anonymous websites that popped up in May 2024 and accused Jones of “holding clients hostage” and leaking their secrets? Nathan did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment Friday.

But in a deposition, she said she was absolutely not the mastermind behind the now-defunct stephaniejonesleaks.com.In the recent filing, Jones claims she repeatedly sought communications that could support her suspicions about the website’s origin, and last week received documents from Katherine Case, a former employee of Jones’ PR firm, Jonesworks, who subsequently worked for Nathan’s crisis management firm, the Agency Group.

Movies Stephanie Jones has sued Baldoni and his crisis PR team alleging a smear campaign to discredit her and Blake Lively during the fallout from ‘It Ends With Us.’Those documents, the filing alleges, show Nathan repeatedly testified falsely about the websites, and confirm that “Melissa Nathan was directly involved in a scheme to utilize untraceable websites to destroy the reputation of her competitors and those adverse to her clients.Stephanie Jones and Jonesworks were a...