The chief executive for talent agency WME’s parent company recently set the record straight on what he says went down when Justin Baldoni was fired from the agency—and how he feels about clients Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.
“I mean it is a fucked up, bad situation with what Baldoni is doing,” Ari said during a live recording of the Freakonomics podcast, set for release in March E! News can confirm. And after it was noted by host Stephen Dubner that Justin was once a WME client, Ari starkly added, “Until I fired him.” (For his part, Justin previously did not reply to E! News’ request for comment amid reports he was let go from the agency.)
The executive when on to share his opinion on the allegations Blake leveled against Justin and his production company Wayfarer Studios—first in a workplace complaint and subsequently a lawsuit—including allegations of sexual harassment during the filming of It Ends With Us as well as retaliation after the fact.
“I’ve known Ryan and Blake for over a decade,” Ari explained. “They’re really incredible people. In Hollywood, they have been incredibly successful. People work with them, they’ve never had any bad mojo out there or treated people badly. They are charitable, they’ve given tons of money away.”
He continued, “If what is alleged in her lawsuit that what happened on social media is true, just because she complained to the studio that things were unhealthy on the set, and that he was director and this man was the producer, and they did to her what is being alleged—they’re really bad people.”
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Reiterating his stance on Ryan and Blake, Ari didn’t mince words. “I am a ride or die,” he emphasized. “And they are good people.”
In response, Justin’s attorney Bryan Freedman issued a statement on the actor’s dynamic with Ari.
“Mr. Ari Emanuel is notably one of the best agents, and clearly the most loyal, in Hollywood,” the lawyer said. “As I understand it, Justin hasn’t been called ‘Bologna’ since the fifth grade. Perhaps Ari’s perspective would be different if they had ever met in the half decade they were clients of his agency.”
Ari’s comments come amid what has become an increasingly contentious legal battle between the two It Ends With Us stars. What began as rumors of an onset feud during press for the movie soon burgeoned into a legal back-and-forth.
In the time since the Gossip Girl alum filed her initial complaint with the California Civil Rights Department, Blake and Justin have each filed lawsuits against the other. Justin has also filed a defamation suit against the New York Times (which the newspaper categorically rejects), while Blake has been sued for defamation by the crisis PR firm Justin hired last year(a suit her team slammed as a “publicity stunt”).
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And as both sides continue to build their cases, Blake filed a subpoena for Justin’s phone records in an attempt to prove the allegations he was involved in the alleged smear campaign.
The legal teams for both stars have rejected the accusations leveled against their clients in each legal action. Of the new subpoena, a spokesperson for Blake’s legal team said the action could “provide critical and irrefutable evidence” regarding her retaliation claims, while a lawyer for Justin slammed the broadness of the request, calling it “extraordinary.”