Blake Lively’s brother-in-law Bart Johnson issues statement amid Justin Baldoni lawsuit

People have been rallying around Blake Lively to publicly offer her support in the wake of her lawsuit filed against her It Ends With Us co-star and director, Justin Baldoni - with her brother-in-law being the latest to speak out.

37-year-old Lively starred in the cinematic adaptation of Colleen Hoover's novel of the same name, which tells the story of a relationship destroyed by the effects of domestic violence.

Lively played Lily Bloom, the wife of Justin Baldoni's character, Ryle Kincaid.

The movie was hugely anticipated by fans of the book as well as fans of the co-stars, and the obvious tension between the two - marked by separate press appearances and Lively not following Baldoni on Instagram - sparked concern.

While it wasn't immediately obvious what had caused the rift, Lively's lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and a 'social manipulation' campaign devised to destroy her image makes things clearer.

According to the suit, the on-set behaviour of Baldoni made Lively so uncomfortable she felt compelled to call a meeting during filming.

Her demands included 'no more showing nude videos or images of women' to Blake, no more mention of Baldoni’s alleged previous ‘pornography addiction', no more 'descriptions of genitalia', no more inquiries about Blake’s weight, and no further mention of Blake’s dead father.

Alongside this, Baldoni is alleged to have asked intrusive questions about her sex life with husband Ryan Reynolds, regarding 'whether she and her husband climax simultaneously during intercourse, which Ms. Lively found invasive and refused to discuss'.

The suit states a further demand was 'no more discussion to BL and/or her employees about personal experiences with sex, including as it related to spouses or others'.

Lively filed an explosive lawsuit (Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Sony Pictures)

In the aftermath of the lawsuit becoming public knowledge, her brother-in-law Bart Johnson has spoken in her defence.

In the comment section for a post made by the New York Times, who first obtained details of the lawsuit, Johnson wrote: "Her complaints were filed during the filming. On record. Long before the public conflict. The cast unfollowed him [Baldoni] for a reason.

“His PR team was stellar. Gross and disgusting but highly effective. Read the article, their text message exchanges and his PR campaign strategy to bury her by any means necessary. No one is [without] faults. But the public got played.”

Lively and Baldoni filming It Ends With Us (Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

He continued: “Just IMAGINE being a stay at home mom raising 4 kids, married to the busiest man in Hollywood and at the same time being a girl boss running multiple companies while writing, producing, running non profits and working 16+ hour days from home so you can be with your kids,” he argued.

“Launching 2 new businesses you been working on / developing for many years (launch scheduled by distributors, not you, btw) all while getting attacked by a VERY expensive PR smear campaign because you filed a sexual harassment claim for the very film you have to go out and promote with just the right tone or you get cooked!?”

He concluded: "But yeah let’s post from our couch how much we hate her for making mistakes. That makes sense.

“I mean, she’s been rude in these interviews that magically played on repeat. I saw it. None of us have ever been wrong or mean. Never. We should discount decades of good for those few bad moments. Glad the microscope isn’t on me every day of my life.”