The “ride-or-die” CEO of talent agency William Morris Endeavor is mocking Justin Baldoni, who he says he promptly fired after fellow client Blake Lively accused her “It Ends With Us” director and co-star of sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign.
Ari Emanuel, who heads up WME’s parent company Endeavor, insisted during Thursday’s live taping of the “Freakonomics” podcast that Lively, 37, and husband Ryan Reynolds are “incredible” and have “never … treated people badly.”
“It is a f–ked up, bad situation with what Bologna … Baldoni … whatever his name is … is doing,” said Emanuel, who confirmed Baldoni was once a WME client until he “fired him.”
According to Emanuel, Baldoni was dropped as a client one day after The New York Times published a deep dive into his alleged smear campaign against Lively. In a subsequent libel lawsuit against the Times, Baldoni claimed Lively and Reynolds pressured the agency to give him the boot, which WME has fiercely denied.
Baldoni followed that complaint with a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds and publicist Leslie Sloane, accusing the trio of defamation and civil extortion. The “Jane the Virgin” alum also accused the A-list couple of trying to intimidate him into ceding creative control of “It Ends With Us.”
Emanuel, whose agency also represents Reynolds, bemoaned the dispute in which his current clients are embroiled.
“They are good people that have been in the business for decades, and have never had any bad press about them, and all the people they work with like them,” Emanuel said, adding that if Lively’s allegations are true, then Baldoni and his associates are “really bad people.”
As for the onslaught of information and alleged evidence that Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, has been releasing to the public, Emanuel said that “should just stop … let the process play itself out.”
Freedman on Friday responded to Emanuel’s comments, seemingly calling them childish and immature.
“As I understand it, Justin hasn’t been called ‘Bologna’ since the fifth grade,” Freedman told TMZ. “Perhaps Ari’s perspective would be different if they had ever met in the half decade they were clients of his agency.”
Baldoni and Lively’s dueling lawsuits are currently slated to head to trial in March 2026.
