3 days before Justin Baldoni sued The New York Times, someone paid $120 to boost content about an emoji integral to the suit

Kristina Bumphrey; Nathan Congleton/Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI

As the legal battle between "It Ends With Us" costars Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively continues, one case could hinge, in part, on an emoji. A December 31 lawsuit against The New York Times by Baldoni, his business partners, and his publicists claimed that the Times' omission of an upside-down smiley face emoji in a quote it published made it look as though his PR team was intentionally smearing Lively.