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Justin Baldoni’s 27-minute proposal video for his now-wife, Emily Baldoni, has resurfaced after his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively sued him for sexual harassment.
Earlier this month, Lively first issued a lawsuit against Baldoni, alleging he exhibited behavior on the set of their movie that caused her “severe emotional distress” and that he orchestrated a “smear campaign” against her after she asked for complaints to be addressed.
Now, Baldoni’s 2012 proposal video to his wife — which was posted on YouTube by Baldoni’s company, Wayfarer Studios — has been resurfaced by fans. The 27-minute footage started with the Jane the Virgin alum at a restaurant, Blu Jam Cafe, that he’d rented out to pop the question. The restaurant was also where he and Emily went on their first date.
Once Emily sat down at her table, after Baldoni initially told her he was running late to their date, she was surprised by a recorded video of him. While Baldoni told his partner that he was on his way, the video cut to him on a fake radio show, where he started to propose to her, before learning that segment wasn’t on the air.
He then said he’d figure out another way to pop the question, and the video continued with him and his friend lip-syncing to three different songs: NSYNC’s “God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You”, Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You,” and ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”
Baldoni’s video for Emily didn’t stop there, as the footage then went into a flash mob he did at the mall to Bruno Mars’s hit song, “Marry Me.” The moment was then followed by a fake crime drama scene, showing him running around with a briefcase before finding his engagement ring.
After showing a montage of sweet moments of him and Emily, Baldoni’s video continued with him running toward the restaurant and greeting his family. That video officially came to an end when Baldoni himself stepped into the restaurant and greeted his partner at her table.
“I have a whole bunch I want to say but, baby, all that stuff, that’s for me. You don’t care about that stuff. You care about this,” Baldoni told his then-girlfriend, who he now shares two daughters with. “You’re the woman that has changed my life. I’ve never been happier, never been sadder. I’ve never been more angry, life has never been more beautiful.”
After Baldoni’s parents stepped in for the rest of the proposal, Emily’s mother joined them for the emotional moment. He concluded by paying tribute to Emily’s father and sharing a video of himself at his grave, where he asked for Emily’s hand in marriage.
Now, many fans on social media have reacted to Lively’s lawsuit by mentioning and criticizing Baldoni’s 2012 proposal.
“Feeling vindicated because I have ALWAYS thought Justin Baldoni was sketchy ever since he released that one-hour long dance mob cringe fest proposal video on YouTube in 2013,” one person wrote on X.
“The Justin Baldoni situation makes way more sense if you remember that he was the guy who did that viral flash mob engagement video that was 27 minutes long,” another person tweeted.
Meanwhile, one TikTok user who goes by the username @cuntychanel posted a now-viral video about Baldoni’s proposal, claiming: “You can tell everything about a man by the way he proposes.”
“This should be all about his future wife, he makes it all about himself. It’s a very bad sign,” she said in the clip, which has more than 1m views.
She went on to play snippets of the proposal video, adding: “If your boyfriend makes you watch a 30-minute video of himself, as a proposal to you, you need to run girl. Like this is not normal.”
In her lawsuit against Baldoni, it was revealed that Lively asked the studio for several requirements after concerns about Balidoni’s behavior on the set of It Ends With Us, which he also directed.
Her requirements included “no more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake, no more mention of Baldoni’s alleged previous ‘pornography addiction,’ no more discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others, no further mentions of cast and crew’s genitalia, and no more inquiries about Blake’s weight.”
Blake also asked for Baldoni to no longer say he had communicated with Blake’s father, who has passed away several years earlier.
The lawsuit says that the distributors of the film, Sony Pictures, approved Lively’s requests. However, the Age of Adaline star claims in the filing that Baldoni then began a campaign to “destroy” her reputation in response. She cited texts from Baldoni’s crisis PR representative as evidence.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, has called Lively’s allegations “false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt.” Freedman alleged that Lively had caused issues on the film set by “threatening to not [show] up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release.”
Hours after Lively’s lawsuit was made public, Baldoni was reportedly dropped by his management, the WME agency.
During the press tour for It Ends With Us, based on the Colleen Hoover book of the same name, Lively was criticized for her “tone-deaf” approach to promoting the work, which focuses on domestic violence and abuse, which now seems to have been part of Baldoni’s PR camapaign against her.
Now, Lively’s close friends and former colleagues have spoken out, showing their support for her decision to file the lawsuit, including her co-stars from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel, and Amber Tamblyn.
“As Blake’s friends and sisters for over 20 years, we stand with her in solidarity as she fights back against the reported campaign waged to destroy her reputation,” they wrote. “Throughout the filming of It Ends With Us, we saw her summon the courage to ask for a safe workplace for herself and colleagues on set, and we are appalled to read the evidence of a premeditated and vindictive effort that ensued to discredit her voice.”