Justin Baldoni’s Crisis PR Has Links To Other Controversial Celebrities

The crisis management team that represented actor-director Justin Baldoni amid his alleged smear campaign against co-star Blake Lively appears to have links to several other celebrities at the center of major scandals in recent years.

Baldoni’s relationship with Melissa Nathan, a publicist who specializes in crisis management, has come under scrutiny after Lively filed a legal complaint accusing Baldoni and associates of engaging in a “retaliatory social manipulation campaign” against his “It Ends With Us” castmate.

Nathan and her public relations firm, The Agency Group PR, are known for specializing in messy situations, including crisis and reputation management.

Nathan worked with Johnny Depp during his 2022 defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard.

Before, during and after the trial, Heard faced a deluge of online harassment from Depp fans, who banded together under the hashtag #JusticeForJohnnyDepp. In the end, the jury determined that Heard had defamed Depp and awarded him $15 million in damages.

According to The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter, The Agency Group PR has also represented a number of celebrities who have been at the center of legal battles and public controversies.

On its website, the agency boasts that its work “redefines the rules of reputation management,” with “years of success behind some of the most noteworthy, high-profile crisis and litigation events in recent history.”

The company’s roster of clients is said to include rappers Drake and Travis Scott, in addition to YouTuber-turned-pro fighter Logan Paul.

This year, rival rapper Kendrick Lamar accused Drake of having sex with minors in a series of diss tracks. In a November legal complaint, Drake accused recording giant Universal Music Group of helping Lamar defame the “Certified Lover Boy” rapper by releasing the allegedly libelous tracks.

Scott and concert colossus Live Nation are still stuck in civil litigation over the 2021 AstroWorld Festival tragedy in Houston, where a crowd crush resulted in 10 concertgoers’ deaths and hundreds of injuries.

Paul is facing a number of legal issues. His beverage company, Prime Hydration, is the target of multiple lawsuits, including allegations of trademark infringement and a multimillion-dollar breach-of-contract dispute.

Nathan even has a Donald Trump connection, previously fielding press inquiries for the president-elect’s youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump, during his first run for office, in the 2016 presidential race, according to Politico.

Representatives of Nathan and The Agency Group PR did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request Monday for comment regarding their client list.

Baldoni seemed to be seeking out someone with a knack for reputation rehabilitation when he hired Nathan and her agency in August. At the time, he was contending with an array of negative rumors about his behavior during the making of “It Ends With Us.”

After hiring Nathan, a PR proxy battle between Baldoni and Lively appeared to ensue. Lively began to face a slew of negative press, with many of the reports drawing from years-old press appearances that had painted the actor as rude and out of touch. Others criticized the star for having an overly cheery approach to promoting a film whose subject is domestic abuse.

Lively’s suit against Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, alleges that the negative media attention was the result of a coordinated smear campaign which was orchestrated by Nathan.

As evidence, the filing includes text messages alleged to be between Baldoni, Nathan and his personal publicist, Jennifer Abel. In one of the alleged exchanges included in the filing, a sender said to be Nathan tells her client, “You know we can bury anyone.”