{"id":201573,"date":"2025-09-05T06:13:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T06:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201573\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T06:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T06:13:13","slug":"is-the-alleged-smear-campaign-against-blake-lively-tied-to-rebel-wilsons-legal-battle-over-the-deb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201573\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Alleged Smear Campaign Against Blake Lively Tied to Rebel Wilson\u2019s Legal Battle Over \u2018The Deb\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Were the alleged smear campaigns against Blake Lively<\/a> and against the producers of Rebel Wilson<\/a>\u2019s directorial debut \u201cThe Deb<\/a>\u201d intertwined? Lawyers for the latter say yes, according to a cross complaint filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court that names a new defendant familiar to those following Lively\u2019s legal battle against Justin Baldoni<\/a>\u2018s crisis publicist Melissa Nathan.<\/p>\n

According to the new filing, the \u201cPitch Perfect\u201d star expressed interest in \u201cone of those sites,\u201d in an apparent reference to a series of anonymous websites that appeared a month later targeting \u201cThe Deb\u201d producer Amanda Ghost last summer with \u201cgrotesque\u201d lies.<\/p>\n

More from Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last year, Ghost and fellow \u201cDeb\u201d producers Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden\u00a0<\/strong>sued Wilson for defamation over a series of social media posts<\/a> in which Wilson accused them of \u201cinappropriate behavior towards the lead actress of the film [and] embezzling funds from the film\u2019s budget.\u201d In Thursday\u2019s filing, they go a step further and point to the hidden PR apparatus behind Wilson\u2019s alleged smear campaign against Ghost, citing a text message written by Nathan that was recently unearthed as part of the sprawling Lively-Baldoni litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo basically Rebel wants a one of those sites\u2026 Should be a mixture of that document that I think Carolina pulled about Amanda goes [sic] or the intern pulled\u2026 It can be really really harsh\u2026 Russian oligarchs and making her a madam basically lol[.],\u201d Nathan wrote in August 2024 to another publicist at TAG PR, the same firm at the center of Lively\u2019s claims that she was the victim of an untraceable smear campaign. (The message is included in Thursday\u2019s filing.)<\/p>\n

Later that month, anonymously written sites like amandaghost.com and amandaghostsucks.com popped up and claimed that Ghost was \u201cthe Indian Ghislaine Maxwell\u201d and \u201cmadame for one of the world\u2019s richest men.\u201d (Ghost is of Indian descent. Multibillionaire Len Blavatnik\u2019s AI Films financed \u201cThe Deb.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cBehind the scenes, [Wilson] used paid PR professionals to launch a shockingly low and racially-charged attack on another professional woman, all to get her own way in a business dispute and destroy the reputation of a woman who dared to stand up to her,\u201d the complaint says in reference to Ghost.<\/p>\n

Ghost, who is represented by Sheppard Mullin partner Camille Vasquez, seeks compensatory and punitive damages, alleging that Wilson crossed every possible line in her bid to claim a writing credit on the Australia-set musical that premiered last year at the Toronto Film Festival<\/a> but remains without a distributor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe increasing use of these disturbing PR tactics in Hollywood and elsewhere function like a cancer in our society,\u201d Vasquez said in a statement. \u201cThey manipulate the public, destroy reputations, and\u00a0have\u00a0taken\u00a0a\u00a0real\u00a0and\u00a0palpable\u00a0toll on their victims. \u00a0It\u2019s time to shine a light on these trolls hiding behind their keyboards and hold them accountable for the damage they cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nathan declined comment.<\/p>\n

The 21-page complaint paints Wilson as a faux feminist who weaponized her platform to destroy the reputations of her business partners when they refused acquiesce to her demands.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s the link to the Lively-Baldoni case that will likely raise eyebrows. Lively has claimed that TAG masterminded a smear campaign against her the same month that the mysterious and disparaging websites about Ghost first surfaced. Separately, but related, Baldoni\u2019s former publicist Stephanie Jones is suing Baldoni, Nathan and publicist Jennifer Abel for trashing her reputation. According to her own legal filings, Jones was disparaged via anonymous websites including http:\/\/www.stephaniejonesleaks.com<\/a> and made a declaration in June that she was \u201cunable to identify the true identity of the individual or individuals who created the defamatory websites.\u201d But that would appear to be at odds with the docket. According to a separate exhibit, web hosting company Hostinger International Ltd. responded to a Jones subpoena five months prior to her declaration that shows stephaniejonesleaks.com was created by Courtney Engel, a former employee of Jones\u2019 who doesn\u2019t appear to have any professional connection to Nathan or TAG.<\/p>\n

Still, Vasquez, who previously worked with Nathan when she represented Johnny Depp in his courtroom battle with the Amber Heard case, looks to draw a direct line between a campaign Wilson allegedly carried out against Ghost and the Lively-Baldoni case.<\/p>\n

\u201cMs. Ghost is informed and believes, and thereon alleges that \u2026 a person named \u2018Jed\u2019 \u2026 was involved in coordinating and directing the publication of defamatory materials via the websites, in collusion with Ms. Nathan and her staff, and with Rebel,\u201d the cross-complaint states.<\/p>\n

That would be a reference to Jed Wallace<\/a>, another key figure in the Lively-Baldoni case. The Texas-based social media guru worked with TAG to bolster Baldoni\u2019s image last summer when the media and influencers began to write about a mysterious rift between the director and Lively on the set of the film \u201cIt Ends With Us.\u201d Lively is suing and being sued by Wallace for defamation.<\/p>\n

Best of Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Were the alleged smear campaigns against Blake Lively and against the producers of Rebel Wilson\u2019s directorial debut \u201cThe…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":201574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[111425,45511,111429,185,171,34615,85911,111428,111426,483,111427,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-201573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-amanda-ghost","9":"tag-blake-lively","10":"tag-camille-vasquez","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-justin-baldoni","14":"tag-legal-battle","15":"tag-los-angeles-superior-court","16":"tag-melissa-nathan","17":"tag-rebel-wilson","18":"tag-smear-campaigns","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115150219320762376","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}