Meet Blake Lively’s crisis PR Nick Shapiro, who’s ex-CIA: the It Ends with Us actress just hired a former Obama staffer to advise her on her ongoing lawsuits with Justin Baldoni

Mar 4 , 2025

Ex-CIA deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro joins Blake Lively’s team amid her legal battle with her It Ends with Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni. Photos: Helena.org; @blakelively/Instagram

Nick Shapiro was deputy chief of staff at the CIA until 2015, before becoming global head of crisis management at Airbnb – now he’s helping Lively navigate her way through the It Ends with Us saga

As actress Blake Lively’s contentious legal battle with her It Ends with Us co-star Justin Baldoni continues, she has hired the CIA’s former deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro to advise her on strategy and communications, according to Variety.

Last year, The Age of Adaline star sued Baldoni for alleged sexual harassment on the set of It Ends with Us. She further alleged that the Jane the Virgin actor had orchestrated a smear campaign against her in retaliation. The latter claim found support in an explosive New York Times investigation, which revealed the apparent PR manoeuvre carried out by Baldoni’s team to vilify Lively.

A scene from It Ends with Us (2024), starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Photo: Sony Pictures

Baldoni hit back with a US$250 million lawsuit against The New York Times, claiming their article lacked context, before counter-suing Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds for US$400 million, alleging extortion and defamation, per The Independent. He also claimed Lively seized creative control of the Colleen Hoover adaptation from him, per Page Six. Their case goes to trial in March next year.

So just who is Nick Shapiro?

He’s a crisis management heavyweight

Nick Shapiro served as deputy chief of staff at the CIA from 2013 to 2015. Photo: Reuters

Shapiro has worked in crisis management for over two decades. Between 2011 and 2013, he was at the White House’s National Security Council, serving as chief of staff and senior policy adviser to John Brennan, then US president Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism. Between 2013 and 2015, Shapiro served as deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to Brennan, in the latter’s role as director of the CIA.

What did Nick Shapiro do after leaving the CIA?

Nick Shapiro was global head of crisis management at Airbnb from 2015 to 2019. Photo: Reuters

Following his stint at the CIA, Shapiro worked at credit card company Visa as vice-president of global security and communications, before moving on to Airbnb, where he acted as the company’s global head of crisis management.