Jenny Slate allegedly filed HR complaint while filming ‘It Ends With Us’ due to ‘uncomfortable’ interaction: report
Jenny Slate reportedly filed an HR complaint while filming “It Ends With Us” following an allegedly “uncomfortable” interaction with Wayfarer Studios President Jamey Heath.
Just days after Blake Lively claimed in an amended lawsuit that multiple women felt uncomfortable on the set, including herself, The Hollywood Reporter revealed Friday that Slate was allegedly one of them.
According to the outlet, Slate filed a complaint to the film’s distributor, Sony, following a conversation with Heath about the apartment she had rented in New York City while filming “It Ends With Us.” Per THR, Slate’s complaint was referenced in previous court documents but with her name redacted.
The stand-up comedian — who shares daughter Ida, 4, with husband Ben Shattuck — allegedly told Heath she wasn’t happy with the pad she had rented. However, she said moving wasn’t an option due to the hefty $15,000 security deposit she had just dropped.
Although Heath allegedly told Slate that Wayfarer would reimburse her so she could find a better place, he allegedly did so using language that made her uncomfortable.
According to the outlet’s sources, the lead producer of the movie focused intensely on her role as a mom and the sanctity of motherhood.
Reps for Slate, Heath and Sony did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
Earlier this week, Lively filed an amended lawsuit where she claimed she “was not alone in complaining” about her co-star and the film’s director, Justin Baldoni, while filming the August 2024 movie. She alleged that other women were willing to testify.
The court document included a May 2023 message from Lively, 37, to a mutual friend of Baldoni, 41, and Heath. There is no indication whether Slate was one of the people on the receiving end of Lively’s texts.
“It’s like HR nuts today. The both of them,” Lively wrote in one of her texts at the time, per screenshots. “I wasn’t expecting that turn. I mean it’s been present but today I came home and cried.”
In another text, Lively called Baldoni and Heath “creeps” before adding, “Like keep your hormones to yourselves. This is not mine. I don’t want it. I don’t want you [sic] gaze or words or tongue or videos of your naked wife. Yeah. It’s shocking. Clowns.”
Another female cast member, whose name was not identified in the docs, allegedly filed the complaint within three days of Lively.
At the time, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said Lively’s amended lawsuit “is filled with unsubstantial hearsay of unnamed persons who are clearly no longer willing to come forward or publicly support her claims.”
“Since documents do not lie and people do, the upcoming depositions of those who initially supported Ms. Lively’s false claims and those who are witnesses to her own behavior will be enlightening,” he said in a statement to Page Six.
“What is truly uncomfortable here is Ms. Lively’s lack of actual evidence.”
Lively’s initial lawsuit against Baldoni came in December 2024 amid rumors that the two co-stars were feuding over the movie’s direction.
In her official complaint, the “Gossip Girl” alum claimed Baldoni made her uncomfortable and sexually harassed her while they were filming — allegations which he has vehemently denied.
The “Jane the Virgin” alum then sued Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for defamation and extortion. He also took legal action against the New York Times for their coverage of Lively’s sexual harassment complaint.
Amid the legal drama, Slate was one of Lively’s co-stars who publicly supported her.
“As Blake Lively’s castmate and friend, I voice my support as she takes action against those reported to have planned and carried out an attack on her reputation,” she told Today in December 2024. “Blake is a leader, loyal friend and a trusted source of emotional support for me and so many who know and love her.”
Slate referred to “the attack on Blake” as “terribly dark, disturbing and wholly threatening,” adding, “I commend my friend, I admire her bravery and I stand by her side.”
Lively and Baldoni are set to go to trial in March 2026.
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Blake Lively Asks Judge for Stronger Protective Order After Receiving ‘Violent’ Messages amid Justin Baldoni Legal Battle
The request comes after Lively filed an amended complaint with “significant additional evidence and corroboration of her original claims,” per her lawyers
Blake Lively has requested “additional protections” in her ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni.
After both sides agreed to a protective order (PO), attorneys for the actress, 37, and her husband Ryan Reynolds submitted a letter to Judge Lewis J. Liman in the Southern District of New York on Thursday, Feb. 20, requesting a stronger PO than the court’s “model” one.
Among their requests for the proposed PO, which they also filed in a separate document, are “an Attorney’s Eyes Only (‘AEO’) category, which applies to ‘Confidential Discovery Material of such a highly confidential and personal, sensitive, or proprietary nature that the revelation of such is likely to cause a competitive, business, commercial, financial, personal or privacy injury,’ ” per the letter.
Lively and Reynolds’ attorneys went on to claim that “good cause exists for the Court to adopt the Proposed PO,” citing the actress’s recently filed amended complaint against Baldoni, 41.
“As detailed in Ms. Lively’s Amended Complaint, Ms. Lively, her family, other members of the cast, various fact witnesses, and individuals that have spoken out publicly in support of Ms. Lively have received violent, profane, sexist, and threatening communications,” the letter states.
Baldoni’s team said in a statement Feb. 21, “We do not condone dangerous rhetoric targeted toward anyone no matter the situation,” and said they, too, have faced threats during the legal dispute.
They added, “Anyone receiving violent messages by anonymous parties is abhorrent. When private parties were wrongfully accused by Lively and her paid team of wrongdoing, they received continuous death threats and visits to private homes where young children reside…. No one should have to face that, especially private parties who do not have means for security detail.”
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Lively sued her It Ends With Us director/costar Baldoni, producer Heath, Wayfarer Studios and its co-founder Steve Sarowitz, Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel, crisis PR expert Melissa Nathan and her agency, and Jed Wallace and his crisis-management firm, alleging sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign, which they deny.
In turn, Baldoni and others have sued Lively and her husband Reynolds, 48, as well their publicist Leslie Sloane and her agency plus The New York Times, alleging defamation and extortion. Lively’s lawyers have called that lawsuit “desperate” and “meritless.”
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Meanwhile, Sloane requested on Thursday to be removed from the legal battle that her attorney said she was “dragged” into as a “smoke and mirrors exercise to distract from” Lively’s accusation.
The actress’s 163-page amended complaint landed in New York federal court late on Tuesday, Feb. 18, as she updated her lawsuit (which was originally filed Dec. 31, 2024) against Baldoni.
According to her lawyers Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb, the amended version “provides significant additional evidence and corroboration of her original claims” and “includes previously undisclosed communications” involving Lively, Sony, Wayfarer Studios and “numerous other witnesses.”
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The amended complaint notably claims that two other It Ends with Us actors have agreed to testify to their own experiences with Baldoni’s alleged behavior on set.
On Wednesday, Feb. 19, Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman responded to Lively’s amended complaint in a statement in which he said her lawsuit has a “lack of actual evidence.”
“Her underwhelming amended complaint is filled with unsubstantial hearsay of unnamed persons who are clearly no longer willing to come forward or publicly support her claims,” Freedman said, adding that his clients “have been transparent in providing receipts, real time documents and video showing a completely different story than what has been manipulated and cherry picked to the media.”
“Since documents do not lie and people do, the upcoming depositions of those who initially supported Ms. Lively’s false claims and those who are witnesses to her own behavior will be enlightening,” Freedman added. “What is truly uncomfortable here is Ms. Lively’s lack of actual evidence.
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