Justin Baldoni’s recent $400 million lawsuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds isn’t stopping the latter from expanding his soccer empire after previously taking co-ownership of Welsh team Wrexham.
The “Deadpool & Wolverine” actor is one of the multiple celebrity investors who have acquired stake in Columbian club La Equidad. The group, led by investor Al Tylis and soccer executive Sam Porter, also includes actress Eva Longoria, retired NBA star Shawn Marion, San Francisco Giants pitcher Justin Verlander and his wife, model Kate Upton.
“We welcome Al Tylis and Sam Porter, who arrive with a clear, long-term vision to continue strengthening our club,” La Equidad said in a statement Thursday on social media. “Al Tylis and Sam Porter not only have extensive experience in the sports world but they also have the support of recognized figures such as Eva Longoria, Rob McElhenney, Ryan Reynolds, Justin Verlander, Kate Upton, Shawn Marion and Scott Galloway.”
The announcement came just as Reynolds was named as a defendant in a $400 million lawsuit filed by Baldoni, his wife’s director and co-star in “It Ends With Us.”
According to the filing obtained by TMZ, Baldoni is accusing Reynolds, Lively, and her publicist Leslie Sloane of defamation, civil extortion and interference with contractual relations in connection to allegations that they planned a campaign to smear Baldoni and organized a strategy to take over creative control of the film, among other accusations.
Baldoni claims he was ambushed by Reynolds and Lively, as well as her pal Taylor Swift, who used their celebrity status to pressure him to accept changes to the script. He also says Lively threatened to not do promotion unless she got to cut her own version of the film.
As tensions rose amid the press tour, Baldoni says the actress and her publicist embarked on a campaign to “make Baldoni the real-life villain” in order to deflect from the public’s growing negative opinion of Lively’s “tone-deaf” approach to promoting a movie about domestic violence.
The latest lawsuit follows one from Lively, who sued Baldoni in December for alleged sexual harassment and orchestrating his own smear campaign against her.
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