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Blake Lively’s brother-in-law, Bart Johnson, has hit out at “fraud” Justin Baldoni.
The High School Musical actor, who is married to Lively’s sister, Robyn Lively, took to X on Monday, December 23, to share his candid thoughts on Baldoni amid Blake’s sexual harassment lawsuit against her It Ends With Us director and costar.
“He’s a fraud. He puts on the ‘costume’ of a hero, man bun and all,” Johnson, 54, shared.
“Used all of the trendy catchphrases & buzz words for his podcasts,” he continued, referring to Baldoni’s podcast, “Man Enough,” on which the actor and director tackles themes such as toxic masculinity, mental health and gender disparity.
According to Johnson, “None of it’s genuine. It’s all theater. And everyone fell for it. For years. Rewatch his videos with a more critical eye and watch him compliment and praise himself with faux humility and self-deprecation. What a performance.”
Blake, 37, filed a complaint against Baldoni, 40, with the California Civil Complaints Department on Friday, December 20, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of their recent Colleen Hoover adaptation. She also claimed Baldoni was behind a digital smear campaign to tarnish her reputation.
In a statement to Us Weekly on Saturday, December 21, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said Blake’s accusations were “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.” Freedman claimed that Blake sued to “fix her negative reputation” and “rehash a narrative” regarding the film’s production. Freedman further alleged that Blake made “multiple demands and threats” while filming It Ends With Us, including “threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met.”
Johnson — best known as Coach Bolton in the High School Musical films — previously supported his sister-in-law on Saturday after news of the lawsuit went public.
“Her complaints were filed during the filming. On record. Long before the public conflict. The cast unfollowed him for a reason,” Johnson alleged in the comments section of The New York Times’ Instagram post about Blake’s lawsuit “Read this article before spiting [sic] ignorance.”
“His PR team was stellar. Gross and disgusting but highly effective,” Johnson continued. “Read the article, their text message exchanges and his PR campaign strategy to bury her by any means necessary. No one is with out [sic] faults. But the public got played.”
Johnson claimed that “of course mistakes were made” and pointed to Blake’s many responsibilities, including being a mom of four to her and husband Ryan Reynolds’ children.
“But just IMAGINE being a stay at home mom raising 4 kids, married to the busiest man in Hollywood and at the same time being a girl boss running multiple companies while writing, producing, running non profits and working 16+ hour days from home so you can be with your kids,” he wrote. “Launching 2 new businesses you been working on / developing for many years (launch scheduled by distributors, not you, btw) all while getting attacked by a VERY expensive PR smear campaign because you filed a sexual harassment claim for the very film you have to go out and promote with just the right tone or you get cooked!?”
Johnson noted that it looks like Blake is “doing a hell of a job to me and trying to do good things for the right reasons.”
“But yeah let’s post from our couch how much we hate her for making mistakes,” he continued. “That makes sense. I mean, she’s been rude in these interviews that magically played on repeat. I saw it. None of us have ever been wrong or mean. Never. We should discount decades of good for those few bad moments. Glad the microscope isn’t on me every day of my life.”
Johnson’s wife, Robyn, supported her sister via social media on Saturday. “FINALLY justice for my sister @blakelively,” Robyn, 52, wrote via her Instagram Story, sharing screenshots of a New York Times article about the lawsuit.
