It started with friendship.
A Hollywood intimacy coordinator believes Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni had “genuine affection” for each other before their feud that turned legal.
Mia Schachter, who has worked on the shows “Lessons in Chemistry,” “Perry Mason” and “American Crime Story,” but didn’t work on “It Ends With Us,” shared her take in the new documentary “He Said, She Said: Blake Lively vs Justin Baldoni” that aired on Channel 5 in the UK on Monday.
“From reading their text messages, I do get the sense that, at one point, there was genuine affection between them and what felt like a friendship,” Schachter said about the “It Ends With Us” co-stars.
Schachter also brought up that Lively, 37, allegedly refused to meet the film’s intimacy coordinator before production (a claim made by Baldoni in his $400 million January countersuit), which she claimed indicated that the star trusted Baldoni, 41, at the time.
“And those texts made me think that at one point, she did feel a lot of trust with him,” Schachter said.
Lively sued Baldoni in December for sexual harassment. Baldoni later countersued her and released text messages between the pair that he claims proves his innocence.
In Lively’s lawsuit, she alleged Baldoni improvised kissing scenes and wanted to add sex scenes to the film. In his countersuit, Baldoni alleged that Lively agreed to shoot their intimate scenes without meeting with an intimacy coordinator beforehand.
The “Jane the Virgin” actor also released raw footage of a dancing scene wherein Lively claimed that Baldoni made her feel uncomfortable. Baldoni denied Lively’s claims and accused the “Gossip Girl” alum of trying to take over the direction of the scene.
“His team seemed to be accusing Blake of trying to direct that scene and undermine his creative vision. I don’t see that,” Schachter said.
“I see an actress trying not to kiss her coworker and instead of saying, ‘I don’t want to do that,’ she’s making other suggestions, which is actually pretty considerate because I think it could be humiliating for everyone there to see Blake Lively tell Justin Baldoni, ‘Stop trying to kiss me,’” added Schachter.
The Post has reached out to Lively and Baldoni’s reps for comment.
The 90-minute documentary examines Lively and Baldoni’s ongoing legal battle, which is heading to trial in March 2026. ITN Productions produced the series.
According to Variety, a shorter 60-minute version, acquired by Investigation Discovery in the US, will air on March 31 and will stream on Max and Discovery+.
Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni also included claims that he orchestrated a public smear campaign against her.
Baldoni’s countersuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of defamation, extortion and more. Both stars have denied the other’s claims.
