Lively accuses Baldoni of sexual harassment

It Ends With Us actress has accused the film's director and co-star of misconduct on the set and smear campaign

Blake Lively accuses It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of the movie and a subsequent effort to "destroy" her reputation in a legal complaint.

The complaint obtained by The Associated Press, which The New York Times reported was filed Friday with the California Civil Rights Department, precedes a lawsuit. It names Baldoni, the studio behind the romantic drama It Ends With Us and Baldoni's publicists among the defendants. In the complaint, Lively accuses Baldoni and the studio of embarking on a "multi-tiered plan" to damage her reputation following a meeting in which she and her husband Ryan Reynolds addressed "repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior" by Baldoni and a producer on the movie. The plan, the complaint said, included a proposal to plant theories on online message boards, engineer a social media campaign and place news stories critical of Lively.