Mark Hamill, other celebs evacuate homes amid raging LA fires
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Star Wars legend Mark Hamill is among the Malibu residents who have had to evacuate the raging Los Angeles wildfires.
The actor revealed on Instagram Tuesday that he and his family fled their home.
“7pm-Evacuated Malibu so last-minute there [were] small fires on both sides of the road as we approached PCH [Pacific Coast Highway],” Hamill posted.
He added that he, his wife and their dog later arrived safely at their daughter’s house. “Most horrific fire since ‘93,” he wrote. “STAY SAFE!”
Actor James Woods documented the spread of the Palisades Fire into homes in the hills around Los Angeles on Tuesday, writing in posts to social platform X that “all the smoke detectors are going off in our house” as the blaze approached.
“It tests your soul, losing everything at once, I must say,” he wrote.
Other celebrities gave updates on the fires as well, including Mandy Moore, who evacuated her home, and The Hills stars Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, who shared on social media that their house had burned down.
More than 30,000 people were told to evacuate in Southern California on Tuesday after a fast-moving brush fire erupted in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood near Los Angeles. The fire has burned more than 2,900 acres.
By early Wednesday morning, the Eaton Fire — which broke out miles away from the Palisades Fire, in Altadena, California, prompting immediate evacuations — had spread 1,000 acres.
The Hurst Fire, meanwhile, erupted and spread northeast of San Fernando, California, burning at least 500 acres.
Extreme winds have made the fires difficult to contain, fire officials said.
Julia Stiles makes her feature directorial debut with Wish You Were Here, now playing in movie theaters.
The journey to making her first film was long, but the actress-turned-director told ABC Audio it was something she always dreamed of.
“It’s been a career-long dream of mine to direct a movie,” Stiles said. “I spent so long looking for the right story. And then I was sent this book, Wish You Were Here, five years ago, and it just totally hit me as something that needed to be a movie.”
After she found the story she wanted to develop for the big screen, it took Stiles half a decade to get the project made.
“In the five years since we set out to make it, I feel like the story has only gotten deeper and more meaningful for me,” Stiles said. “I feel like we need a movie like this right now that’s full of hope and is about love and taking care of another person.”
Stiles, known for her roles in iconic romance films like 10 Things I Hate About You and Save the Last Dance, said the genre has always spoken to her.
“I’m a romantic at heart. I love the idea that people can find their soulmate,” Stiles said. “One of the things that I love about the way that … we approached the love story, and it comes from the book, is that it’s much more mature than the age of the characters.”
As for the differences between acting and directing, Stiles said she definitely got to flex different muscles.
“Being an actor or a performer, a lot of times you’re just being told what to do or be,” Stiles said. “But being a director, you really have to be a good manager. You have to be good with multitasking, thinking 10 steps ahead, but also being present. And there’s a logical part of my brain that got put to work that was really enjoyable for me.”
Blake Lively‘s lawyers have issued a statement amid the ongoing legal feud between her and Justin Baldoni.
In the new statement, released Jan. 7, Lively’s lawyers said, “Ms. Lively’s federal litigation before the Southern District of New York involves serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation, backed by concrete facts. This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation. As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set.”
The statement, issued on Lively’s behalf, also claimed that Baldoni’s response — his lawsuit filed Dec. 31 against The New York Times — was allegedly meant to “launch more attacks against Ms. Lively since her filing.”
The statement continued, “While we go through the legal process, we urge everyone to remember that sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and in every industry. A classic tactic to distract from allegations of this type of misconduct is to ‘blame the victim’ by suggesting that they invited the conduct, brought it on themselves, misunderstood the intentions, or even lied. Another classic tactic is to reverse the victim and offender, and suggest that the offender is actually the victim.”
“These concepts normalize and trivialize allegations of serious misconduct,” the statement concluded. “Most importantly, media statements are not a defense to Ms. Lively’s legal claims. We will continue to prosecute her claims in federal court, where the rule of law determines who prevails, not hyperbole and threats.”
The statement from Lively’s camp comes after Baldoni sued the New York Times for libel and false light invasion of privacy for publishing a story detailing Lively’s initial claims against him, including sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign against Lively during the production of the film It Ends with Us, which Baldoni also directed and starred in with Lively. The lawsuit came after Lively’s initial complaint, filed Dec. 20, and subsequent lawsuit, filed Dec. 31, against Baldoni.
In a statement to Good Morning America addressing Lively’s latest comments, Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, said, “It is painfully ironic that Blake Lively is accusing Justin Baldoni of weaponizing the media when her own team orchestrated this vicious attack by sending the New York Times grossly edited documents prior to even filing the complaint. We are releasing all of the evidence which will show a pattern of bullying and threats to take over the movie. None of this will come as a surprise because consistent with her past behavior Blake Lively used other people to communicate those threats and bully her way to get whatever she wanted. We have all the receipts and more.”
Read more about the legal battle between Lively and Baldoni below.
Lively’s initial complaint
Lively first filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department in late December, alleging “severe emotional distress” after she said Baldoni and key stakeholders in the film sexually harassed her and attempted, along with Baldoni’s production company, to orchestrate a smear campaign against her.
The complaint was detailed in a New York Times article titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.” Included in the report were details surrounding a January 2024 “all hands” meeting — held “prior to resuming filming of It Ends With Us,” according to the complaint — that was held to address Lively’s workplace concerns, adding that it was attended by key stakeholders in the film and Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds.
According to the complaint, Lively said she laid out specific demands at that meeting to ensure a safe and professional working environment.
Lively claimed Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios, which produced It Ends With Us, then engaged in a “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” Lively’s reputation, according to the complaint. The complaint included alleged texts from Baldoni’s publicist to a Wayfarer publicist, who allegedly wrote that Baldoni “wants to feel like [Ms. Lively] can be buried,” and “We can’t write we will destroy her.”
Freedman, the attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, denied the allegations.
“These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media,” Freedman said in a statement to ABC News at the time, in response to Lively’s initial complaint. He claimed Lively’s complaint was “yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film […].”
Lively was criticized during the It Ends with Us tour for her conduct during press interviews and from some who felt she did not highlight the film’s focus of domestic violence enough.
Baldoni’s lawsuit against The New York Times
On Dec. 31, Baldoni filed a lawsuit against the Times for libel and false light invasion of privacy, after it published the article about Lively’s complaint.
The lawsuit claimed the Times, which included the alleged text messages and email exchanges between Baldoni’s publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, had relied on “cherry-picked” and altered communications, with details “stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced” to “mislead.”
Baldoni is seeking $250 million in damages in his suit against the Times and also listed nine other co-plaintiffs, including Wayfarer Studios LLC and his publicists, Abel and Nathan.
Freedman claimed in a statement to GMA that the Times “cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting of the revered publication by using doctored and manipulated texts and intentionally omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative.”
A Times spokesperson told GMA that they “plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
“The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported,” the spokesperson continued. “It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”
“To date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the other subjects of the article and their representatives have not pointed to a single error,” the spokesperson claimed. “We published their full statement in response to the allegations in the article as well.”
Lively files lawsuit against Baldoni and other defendants for sexual harassment
Also on Dec. 31, Lively formalized her initial California Civil Rights Department complaint into a lawsuit, which reiterated details she previously presented in her complaint.
Attorneys for Lively said in a statement that the actress’s “decision to speak out has resulted in further retaliation and attacks.”
“As alleged in Ms. Lively’s federal Complaint, Wayfarer and its associates have violated federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns,” Lively’s attorneys claimed. “Now, the defendants will answer for their conduct in federal court. Ms. Lively has brought this litigation in New York, where much of the relevant activities described in the Complaint took place, but we reserve the right to pursue further action in other venues and jurisdictions as appropriate under the law.”
Both Baldoni and Lively are seeking a jury trial.
GMA has reached out to Baldoni’s rep for comment about Lively’s lawsuit.
Judge Arun Subramanian ruled to deny bail for Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday.
Both federal prosecutors and Combs’ attorneys submitted their final letters about whether the music mogul should be allowed out on bail on Monday.
Prosecutors argued that Combs’ attempt to influence witnesses while in jail “constitutes obstruction” of his criminal case. They also called out Combs’ “recent efforts to influence the jury pool” through a social media campaign organized by his children.
Defense attorneys said that their client’s conduct was protected free speech, meant to combat “outrageous claims about Mr. Combs” by “government agents, plaintiffs’ attorneys, and others with questionable motives.”
Subramanian had asked the parties to submit these final arguments in writing and said he would issue a written decision on bail.
Combs, who pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and prostitution charges, has offered to remain on home confinement in a three-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with 24/7 security guards and restrictions on visitors and communications.
Last Friday, the defense called the proposed conditions “far more restrictive” than Combs faces in jail.
They included limiting phone calls to lawyers, restricting visitors other than lawyers and specific family members, keeping a visitation log, and avoiding contact with witnesses or potential witnesses.
However, federal prosecutors have said there are no conditions that can reduce Combs’ risk of tampering with witnesses or shaping the opinions of potential jurors.
They also brought up a 2016 video of Combs attacking then-girlfriend and protégé Cassie Ventura in a hotel hallway, saying that it showed the danger he could pose to women if allowed out on bail.
In court last Friday, prosecutors summarily said that Combs “cannot be trusted” to follow the rules of a pretrial release.
