Blake Lively isn't the first person to sue Justin Baldoni.

Every day, the legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni seems to grow more complex. What began as a lawsuit involving personal disputes and professional clashes on the set of It Ends With Us has taken a turn, shining new light on previous allegations made against Baldoni.

Livejournal gossip community OhNoTheyDidn't! has unearthed court documents from 2021 that indicate that Blake Lively is not the first person to file a legal complaint against Justin Baldoni.

Listen to The Spill hosts dissect the lawsuit here. Post continues after podcast.

In 2021, Baldoni, his production company Wayfarer Studios, and Wayfarer investor Steve Sarowitz were sued by a former employee, although the case was ultimately dismissed. The legal battle involved allegations of wrongful termination, breach of contract, and retaliation.

The lawsuit filed in 2021 involved a former employee — referred to here as the Plaintiff — who accused Baldoni and his company of discriminatory behaviour and retaliation related to their race. According to the lawsuit, the Plaintiff was subjected to racial bias, exclusion, and unfair treatment while working on the production of Man Enough, a podcast produced by Baldoni's Wayfarer Studios.

Image: Getty.

According to legal documents, one of the most striking allegations comes from the Plaintiff's account of an interaction with the company's CFO, Brian Singer. The Plaintiff states that Singer remarked, "It was very clear how 'white' WEL was, and how different Plaintiff was from everyone else."

This, the Plaintiff claims, was an indication of the racial discrimination they faced at the company. In the same vein, the Plaintiff was allegedly treated differently by Singer and his colleagues due to their race, with some coworkers even labelling the Plaintiff an "angry black man" when they raised concerns about racial inequalities in the workplace.

Another concerning episode involved Sarah Politis, a manager at Wayfarer Studios, who allegedly took a screenshot of a post from the Plaintiff's personal Instagram page. The post, which urged self-reflection on racism, was shared with Mr. Singer, seemingly insinuating that the Plaintiff viewed Singer as racist.

Image: Getty.

The alleged discrimination extended beyond these interactions, with the Plaintiff claiming that during a team meeting, Politis suggested branding the show with rainbow symbolism and casting a black gay man to discuss racial issues — despite the fact that this was not the project's original focus. The Plaintiff protested, feeling it was exploitative to force the conversation about racial issues simply because of their identity. This led to a chain of retaliatory actions, with Politis filing a complaint against the Plaintiff for alleged bullying.

The Plaintiff's allegations continued, painting a troubling picture of how their career and well-being were impacted by the company's discriminatory practices. They claim that decisions to demote them, cut their pay, and offer less severance than other employees were motivated by racial prejudice. The Plaintiff was also allegedly excluded from key meetings for Man Enough and replaced with a non-African American colleague. Additionally, the Plaintiff's producer credit was reportedly removed from the show's website.

Image: Getty.

The culmination of these grievances came when the Plaintiff was terminated under the guise of "performance reasons". However, the Plaintiff argued that this was merely a pretext to cover up the true motivation behind the firing — retaliation for speaking out about the racial insensitivity and discrimination they experienced. The Plaintiff asserted that their job performance had been praised prior to the termination and that the employer's claims of poor performance were fabricated.

The lawsuit alleged that Baldoni and Sarowitz were directly responsible for these actions, asserting that the conduct was not only authorised by them but ratified by them as well.

Although the case was ultimately dismissed, the Man Enough podcast has also been swept up into the current legal war between Baldoni and Lively. After Lively filed her lawsuit against Baldoni in December, his Man Enough co-host Liz Plank announced her resignation from the podcast.

"I'm writing to you today to let you know that I have had my representatives inform Wayfarer that I will no longer be co-hosting 'The Man Enough' podcast," Plank wrote on Instagram. "Thank you for trusting me with your hearts and stories, for holding space for mine, and for making this show what it was. I will miss you, the listeners, so much. I love what this community created together with every fiber of my being, and that's because of you."

Feature Image: Getty.