Justin Baldoni's wife breaks silence for first time since Blake Lively filed lawsuit

Emily Baldoni has taken to Instagram to offer sweet words to her husband as he is embroiled in a legal battle with Blake Lively.

In December last year, Blake Lively filed a legal complaint against actor and director Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment as well as for allegedly taking part in a smear campaign against her.

She claimed that he and his PR team made an effort to ruin her reputation after she made complaints about the alleged harassment on the set of It Ends with Us.

Baldoni has denied these claims and launched his own lawsuit against her as well as her husband Ryan Reynolds.

Baldoni is suing on on claims of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, as well as prospective economic advantage, negligent interference with prospective economic advantage and intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. Lively denies all the claims.

Since the legal battle between the two, Justin’s wife, Emily Baldoni, has remained silent but has now spoken out as she issued a tribute to her husband on Instagram for his birthday.

Emily shared a photo of the couple kissing in front of a beach backdrop.

Emily also shared a brief message of support and celebration for her husband.

She wrote: “Happy birthday my love. Celebrating the man, husband, and father that you are. I’d choose you again and again.”

This comes as the tension between Baldoni and Lively has increased following a video the director’s legal team released online.

Lively’s lawsuit points to a particular scene from the film where Baldoni allegedly conducted himself inappropriately. Lively’s character and Baldoni’s are performing a slow dance in the scene.

Lively alleges Baldoni 'leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, 'It smells so good'', and that Baldoni was 'caressing Lively with his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with their roles'.

The video released by Baldoni shows the three takes from the scene which they claim is the entirety of the footage shot for the scene.

In the footage, Lively and Baldoni can be seen slow-dancing and speaking to one another - the audio seemingly not being required for the filming of the scene with the pair discussing whether or not to 'talk' in the scene or get 'lost' in the moment.

Baldoni's team stated alongside the footage: "Both actors are clearly behaving well within the scope of the scene and with mutual respect and professionalism."

However, Lively's team slammed the footage as 'damning' and 'an unethical attempt to manipulate the public'.