Is the Alleged Smear Campaign Against Blake Lively Tied to Rebel Wilson’s Legal Battle Over ‘The Deb’?

Were the alleged smear campaigns against Blake Lively and against the producers of Rebel Wilson’s directorial debut “The Deb” intertwined? Lawyers for the latter say yes, according to a cross complaint filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court that names a new defendant familiar to those following Lively’s legal battle against Justin Baldoni‘s crisis publicist Melissa Nathan.

According to the new filing, the “Pitch Perfect” star expressed interest in “one of those sites,” in an apparent reference to a series of anonymous websites that appeared a month later targeting “The Deb” producer Amanda Ghost last summer with “grotesque” lies.

Last year, Ghost and fellow “Deb” producers Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden sued Wilson for defamation over a series of social media posts in which Wilson accused them of “inappropriate behavior towards the lead actress of the film [and] embezzling funds from the film’s budget.” In Thursday’s filing,…