Hollywood’s secret smear machine has sparked further legal fallout. Paige Jimenez, an influencer and model, is suing the same alleged industry perpetrators — lawyer Bryan Freedman, publicist Melissa Nathan and fixer Jed Wallace — who were already implicated in related court claims contending the three were behind anonymous defamatory campaigns which targeted actress Blake Lively, producer Amanda Ghost, publicist Stephanie Jones and activist Alexa Nikolas.
The Los Angeles Superior Court filing, seeking damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress, explains that Jimenez was the subject of a smear site, created in September 2024, which falsely asserted she was connected to and bore responsibility for actor Matthew Perry’s 2023 death, even labeling her the “Ketamine Queen” — a label which the media applied to Jasveen Sangha, the convicted drug dealer in Perry’s fatal overdose.
The filing asserts that the site, which has since been taken down, discussed her past personal relationships, including a divorce from David Ronson (sibling of DJ Mark Ronson and fashion designer Charlotte Ronson). It also disclosed her real residential address, “making her fear for her safety.” Jimenez’s lawyers note: “She was traumatized, devastated and scared, leading to negative changes in her mental state and a psychiatric hospitalization after the website was sent to her.”
Jimenez says she first learned of the site from Freedman, who sent it to her in a text message the same day he initially contacted her in October 2024 and identified himself as a lawyer hired by her new boyfriend’s wealthy parents, who had not been supportive of their relationship. “They hated me,” Jimenez told The Hollywood Reporter in February. “They didn’t want me dating their son,” adding, “I think they were upset we went to a music festival and did drugs together.” By her accounting, Freedman had told her to immediately end the romance.
The litigation explains that it wasn’t until more than a year later that she realized the apparent effort against her was tied to a broader pattern, which has since seemingly been substantiated by legal discovery in ongoing cases pursued by other women, as well as investigative reporting in the media, including THR. The filing highlights how Jimenez’s site was live at the same time another smear site — tied to the same apparent operation — attacked the soap opera star Jessica Serfaty: “Both websites accuse women, dating men from wealthy families, of being ‘escorts’ and include an option for others to share their experiences with the women with whomever is behind the websites.” Jimenez and Serfaty’s sites were quietly linked along the Internet’s backend to another damaging site, which claimed that a lawyer, who’d himself faced off against Freedman as opposing counsel in court, “was also involved in claims involving prostitution.”
In a statement, Freedman asserted innocence on his behalf as well as that of Nathan and Wallace, criticizing the forensics evidence which the varied litigants have drawn on for their cases, and contending, “there was no orchestrated digital smear campaign whatsoever.” Nathan’s crisis management firm TAG PR has separately insisted that it “has never had any contact with Paige Jimenez or provided services to anyone relating to her.”