Justin Baldoni's Lawyer Claims Blake Lively Has One 'Heinous Pivot Left' After The Actor's $400M Lawsuit

The legal showdown between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively continues to heat up, with the actor's lawyer launching a scathing rebuke of Lively's "abuser playbook" statement.

Baldoni and his publicists had sued Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for allegedly cooking up a scheme to discredit them and destroy their careers. However, the actress's lawyer called their lawsuit "another chapter in the abuser playbook."

Now Justin Baldoni's lawyer has responded, branding Blake Lively and her team's response the "heinous pivot" they have left.

According to Deadline, Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, called out Lively's response to his client's recently filed $400 million lawsuit, where he accused her of plotting to kill his career and discredit him by making false accusations of sexual harassment.

Freedman said, "After my clients filed a comprehensive lawsuit packed with almost 200 pages of undeniable facts and documentary evidence which crushed their false allegations of a smear campaign by providing doctored communications to the New York Times, Blake and her legal team have just one heinous pivot left, and that is to double down on the revoltingly false sexual allegations against Mr. Baldoni."

"The mere fact that Ms. Lively feels that she can publicly destroy Mr. Baldoni's reputation in an attempt to devastate his future career and then deny him or his team their own ability to defend themselves against her is preposterous," he added.

The legal battle between the pair is set to get more intense as Freedman suggested they'll now "fight even harder for the voiceless" in the Domestic Violence community.

The whole debacle stemmed from the "Gossip Girl" star's lawsuit before Christmas accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of the film, as well as masterminding a "smear campaign" to tarnish her image.

In his new statement, Freedman says that Baldoni never attempted to publicly accuse Lively of any of "her own wrongdoings during filming" and that he "kindly addressed all her concerns during filming in the correct manner despite the fact that he wholly disagreed."

The lawyer further notes that Baldoni "was committed to do things differently and to keep the peace as she specifically admitted to in her own lawsuit."

He added, "We will not only continue to defend our clients against Blake's power, privilege, and all-out lies, but we will now fight even harder for the voiceless in the DV community who are unfairly suffering while she continues to push on her own self-serving and selfish vendetta in the media."

Baldoni filed a $400 million lawsuit on Thursday, making several allegations. In the filing, the 40-year-old actor-director accused her of attempting to take away his stake in the adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel, which he directed, and of using her and her husband's star power and influence to pressure him into accepting one of her rewrites for the film.

He claimed Lively was contentious on set because she wanted to change many parts of the scripts even though she had not read the book until filming was underway.

In his filing, Baldoni also noted that when the movie entered the pre-production phase, Lively allegedly asked to "take a pass" on the rooftop scene, in which her character, Lily Bloom, meets his character, Ryle Kincaid, for the first time.

Baldoni claimed Lively "went silent for multiple days" and later said in an alleged text message that his reaction to her rewrite "didn't feel great" to her, her husband, and what Baldoni characterizes as "another megacelebrity friend," who was identified as Taylor Swift.

Lively's lawyers responded to Baldoni's lawsuit, claiming he was employing "DARVO" tactics against his co-star.

The actress's attorneys released a statement accusing Baldoni of using the "abuser playbook" in his new filing.

"This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook," Lively's lawyers said, per the Daily Mail.

They added, "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. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender."

Elsewhere in their statement, Lively's attorneys claimed that Baldoni's lawsuit is "retaliation" for her earlier filed suit where she accused him of sexual harassment and fostering a toxic workplace environment on the set of "It Ends With Us."

The statement alleged Baldoni's production company Wayfarer Studios "opted to use the resources of its billionaire co-founder to issue media statements, launch meritless lawsuits, and threaten litigation to overwhelm the public's ability to understand that what they are doing is retaliation against sexual harassment allegations."

Lively's attorneys continued, "They are trying to shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni. The evidence will show that the cast and others had their own negative experiences with Mr. Baldoni and Wayfarer."