Meet Blake Lively’s publicist Leslie Sloane: from representing Megan Fox, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, to accusations of fuelling the It Ends with Us feud between her client and Justin Baldoni

Dec 31, 2024

It Ends with Us director Justin Baldoni’s lawyer claims Blake Lively’s publicist, Leslie Sloane (centre), carried out a smear campaign against his client. Photos: Invision/AP; Getty Images; TNS

Sloane, whose clients have also included Zoe Saldaña and Shannen Doherty, finds herself at the centre of the legal battle between Lively and Baldoni … but why does she have ties to Harvey Weinstein?

It Ends with Us actors Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively’s long-running feud has taken a legal turn. On December 21, Lively sued the Man Enough Podcast host for sexual harassment, per TMZ, citing “severe emotional distress”. A day later, The New York Times revealed that a smear campaign devised by Baldoni and his PR team may have been behind the recent social media takedown of the Gossip Girl star.

Blake Lively has filed a sexual harassment complaint against her It Ends with Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni. Photo: AFP

Not long after, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, shared plans of counter-suing, guaranteeing revelations that will “shock everyone”, including claims that it was Lively’s publicist, Leslie Sloane, who was feeding negative narratives to the press about his client, reports the Daily Mail. However, Sloane was not one to back down either. “It’s clear that Mr Baldoni and his Wayfarer Associates are suggesting that I originated press stories about HR complaints on set, which is false,” she asserted to People.