High School Musical star Bart Johnson slams 'fraud' Justin Baldoni while supporting sister-in-law Blake Lively

Bart Johnson isn't holding his tongue as he criticizes Justin Baldoni.

The High School Musical actor — who is married to Blake Lively's sister, Robyn Lively — called out the Jane the Virgin star on social media, questioning Baldoni's values and character after the Gossip Girl actress accused him of inappropriate behavior on the set of It Ends With Us.

Following Lively's allegations that Baldoni sexually harassed her, buried her HR complaints about his behavior, and coordinated an online smear campaign to damage her reputation — all of which were denied by Baldoni's attorney — Johnson accused the actor-director of hypocrisy and manipulation. "He’s a fraud," he wrote on X Monday. "He puts on the 'costume' of a hero, man bun and all. Used all of the trendy catchphrases & buzz words for his podcasts. None of it’s genuine."

A representative for Baldoni did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly's request for comment.

Johnson, who played Zac Efron's on-screen dad in the High School Musical trilogy, was presumably referencing Baldoni's reputation as a feminist ally, in part cultivated by the actor's podcast Man Enough, his TED Talk about redefining masculinity, and his repeated discussions of domestic violence on the It Ends With Us press circuit. "It’s all theater," Johnson claimed. "And everyone fell for it. For years. Rewatch his videos with a more critical eye and watch him compliment and praise himself with faux humility and self deprecation. What a performance."

Lively's attorneys made a similar argument in the actress' 80-page complaint against the It Ends With Us director, which EW has reviewed. "Mr. Baldoni was desperate to suppress any suggestion that he engaged [in] inappropriate conduct, much less sexually harassing conduct, because it would entirely undermine his carefully curated public image as a feminist ally," the complaint reads. "Mr. Baldoni has crafted a public image of himself as not just an ally, but also a fierce advocate for women. Contrary to this image, as set forth in detail above, Mr. Baldoni has spent the last several months and significant resources on his goal of wanting to 'bury' and 'destroy' Ms. Lively for raising concerns about his and his CEO's harassing behavior and other disturbing conduct."

Baldoni's attorney Bryan Freedman denied all allegations of wrongdoing when Lively's complaint was made public. "These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media," Freedman told EW in a statement at the time, calling Lively's allegations as "yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film."

Johnson also shot back at Lively's critics in the comment section of a New York Times' Instagram post on Friday. "Her complaints were filed during the filming. On record. Long before the public conflict," Johnson claimed. "Read this article before [spitting] ignorance. 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 with out faults. But the public got played."

That comment echoed Lively's allegations that Baldoni hired a crisis PR firm to defend him against potential public backlash and drum up negative online sentiment toward his costar. "They manipulated the social conversation to discredit and 'bury' Ms. Lively in retaliation for reporting her concerns about harassing and unsafe conduct during the production of the Film, and in the hopes of deterring Ms. Lively from potentially taking those same concerns public," the complaint reads. "This campaign has been [devastating] to Ms. Lively, including by causing substantial harm to Ms. Lively, her family, as well as her businesses and all the people who work at each of them."

Freedman slammed the complaint's inclusion of private messages between PR reps who worked for Baldoni, claiming that Baldoni and his colleagues at Wayfarer Studios "did nothing proactive nor retaliated, and only responded to incoming media inquiries to ensure balanced and factual reporting and monitored social activity." He continued, "What is pointedly missing from the cherry-picked correspondence [in Lively's complaint] is the evidence that there were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise; just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize, which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals."

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In the days since making her complaint public, Lively has received an outpouring of support from past and present collaborators, including her Sisterhood of Traveling Pants costars America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, and Alexis Bledel; A Simple Favor filmmaker Paul Feig; and It Ends With Us author Colleen Hoover.