Justin Baldoni was honored earlier this month by Very important Voices, a non-profit working with feminine enterprise leaders, for his “very important position as a male [ally]” to ladies and utilizing “his platform to encourage significant societal change.” The group rescinded the Voices of Solidarity Award on Monday after Blake Vigorous filed a sexual harassment grievance in opposition to the “It Ends With Us” director.
“The Voices of Solidarity Award honors exceptional males who’ve proven braveness and compassion in advocating on behalf of girls and women. On Dec. 9, 2024, we acknowledged Justin Baldoni with this award. On Saturday, Dec. 21, we discovered by way of information stories a couple of lawsuit introduced by Blake Vigorous in opposition to Mr. Baldoni, his publicists, and others that’s disturbing and alleges abhorrent conduct,” Very important Voices mentioned in an announcement on its web site. “The communications amongst Mr. Baldoni and his publicists included within the lawsuit — and the PR effort they point out — are, alone, opposite to the values of Very important Voices and the spirit of the Award. We now have notified Mr. Baldoni that we’ve rescinded this award.”
On Saturday, the New York Instances reported that Vigorous filed a grievance that accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, fostering a poisonous work surroundings and attempting to tarnish her repute with a focused smear marketing campaign on social media. Vigorous alleges that Baldoni’s conduct brought on her and her household “extreme emotional hurt.” Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman known as Vigorous’s grievance “shameful” and filled with “categorically false accusations.”
In the course of the “It Ends With Us” press tour, rumors had been rampant that Vigorous and Baldoni didn’t get alongside on set as the 2 leads of the movie didn’t do press collectively and steered away from one another on the New York Metropolis premiere. Vigorous confronted a wave of on-line criticism forward of the film’s theatrical launch for downplaying the home violence storyline (she performs a florist who finds herself in an abusive relationship) and utilizing the media protection to advertise her new haircare line. “It Ends With Us” turned an enormous field workplace hit for Sony, incomes $350 million on the worldwide field workplace in opposition to a $25 million price range.
In wake of the lawsuit, well-known faces comparable to Amy Schumer and Vigorous’s “Sisterhood of the Touring Pants” co-stars America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn and Alexis Bledel have spoken out in help of Vigorous. Colleen Hoover, the creator of “It Ends With us,” additionally praised Vigorous for going public with allegations in opposition to Baldoni. “You have got been nothing however sincere, variety, supportive and affected person for the reason that day we met,” Hoover wrote on Instagram. “Thanks for being precisely the human that you’re. By no means change. By no means wilt.”
