Blake Lively accused of harassment and intimidation
A YouTuber has sought a protective order against Blake Lively after alleging the actress sought to "harass and intimidate" her by issuing a subpoena as part of her ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni.
Blake Lively has been accused of trying to "harass and intimidate" a YouTuber.
Content creator Lauren Neidigh, who posts under the username LethalLauren904 has sought a protective order against the former Gossip Girl star after the 37-year-old actress attempted to subpoena her as part of her legal battle with It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni, who she is suing for sexual harassment and retaliation.
Lauren slammed the subpoenas that Blake's team had sent to Google and X in an attempt to gain information, even though the one against her had been dropped, Us Weekly reports.
The YouTuber claimed she had tried to speak to Blake's lawyers but they were "largely unresponsive" and could not explain why her banking information was relevant to the case.
She wrote in a letter to the judge: “[Lively’s] Subpoena targeted creators who have expressed unfavourable opinions about her online. The Subpoena was not supported by any evidence.
"It served to intimidate, harass, chill constitutionally protected free speech, and threaten the safety and privacy of non-parties who are not involved in this litigation."
And though the Another Simple Favor star had dropped the subpoena, she left it open-ended, meaning it could still be reissued in the future, which Lauren argued placed “an undue burden on [her] and [served] to harass and intimidate [her] for her lawful expression of her unfavorable opinions of [Lively] online."
The content creator requested a protective order prohibiting Blake from issuing any further subpoenas for her information due to the "ongoing threat" of "further abusive discovery requests" down the line, which she argued were designed to "intimidate" her for her "lawful expression".
She also asked for sanctions.
The subpoenas had sought information on the accounts of several content creators, including financial detail on some of them, with Lauren, Kassidy O'Connell and others opposing the legal demands, insisting Blake had no authority to obtain their private information.
At the time, the actress' representative insisted the requests were not “accusations of wrongdoing” but simply “tools for gathering admissible evidence in federal court.”
The spokesperson added: “There is no silencing of content creators, they are obviously making their views known. This is a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against Justin Baldoni and a number of other Wayfarer defendants and we are simply seeking information to aid in our fact gathering.
“Remember [Baldoni’s crisis PR rep’s] own words: to shield Justin Baldoni from the possibility that Blake Lively might publicly reveal he sexually harassed her and others, [Baldoni’s rep] planned an ‘untraceable’ media campaign designed to ‘bury’ Ms. Lively.
"The subpoenas to social media companies are one piece of the puzzle to connect the evidentiary dots of a campaign that was designed to leave no fingerprints.”
Days later, the investigation into Lauren, Kassidy, and a third social media star was dropped but Blake is still in the process of gathering information on other content creators who had spoken about her and Justin, who she has alleged arranged a smear campaign in retailiation for her complaining about his conduct on the set of It Ends With Us.
Justin has denied the allegations against him.
