Justin Baldoni drops amended claims vs Blake Lively after dismissal of lawsuit
Justin Baldoni is exploring other legal options after a judge dismissed his $400 million countersuit against Blake Lively, rather than pursuing amended claims.
"The Court’s decision on the motion to dismiss has no effect whatsoever on the truth that there was no harassment nor any smear campaign, and it does not in any way affect our vigorous defense against Ms. Lively’s claims," the actor's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement sent to People.
"Discovery is proceeding and we are confident that we will prevail against these factually baseless accusations. Instead of revising the existing claims, our clients will be pursuing additional legal options that are available to us," he added.
This came two weeks after US District Judge Lewis Liman dismissed the cases brought by Baldoni, which involved a $400 million (P22 billion) countersuit accusing Lively, Ryan Reynolds and their publicist of extortion and defamation, and a $250 million (P13.9 billion) libel lawsuit against The New York Times over its December 21, 2024 article titled 'We Can Bury Anyone': Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.
Liman said at the time that Lively's statements to a California state agency regarding Baldoni's alleged harassment during filming were protected and could not be used as the basis for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios' defamation claim.
'Total victory after all'
For her part, a representative for Lively said that her It Ends With Us co-star's recent move proved that the dismissed "sham" lawsuit was a "total victory."
“The Court dismissed the frivolous $400 million Baldoni-Wayfarer lawsuit in its entirety. In the days that followed, Baldoni’s lawyer said the judge’s decision to dismiss their case was not a big deal, as they promised to amend and refile it. As per usual, that was not true. The Court’s dismissal of Baldoni’s sham lawsuit was a total victory after all," the representative told the outlet in a statement.
Prior to this, Liman rejected Lively's request to keep her text conversations with Taylor Swift private from Baldoni, saying the messages may be "relevant" to Lively's harassment claims against Baldoni.
"Lively herself has identified Swift as someone likely to have knowledge about complaints or discussions regarding the working environment on the set of It Ends with Us," the order read.
Liman noted that these messages are protected by an order issued by the court to prevent them from being leaked to the press.
Baldoni's team's cross-motion to compel was also denied, which would have required Lively to release documents about the production.
Ongoing legal battle
The legal saga of Lively and Baldoni stemmed from the former filing a sexual harassment complaint against the latter and Jamey Heath of Wayfarer Studios, the producer of It Ends with Us, which starred Lively and Baldoni, who was also the director. Lively also accused them of running a smear campaign against her.
In her complaint, Lively accused Baldoni and Heath of telling her about their past sexual relationships and "previous porn addiction." Heath also allegedly showed Lively a video of his wife naked and giving birth. Baldoni and Heath likewise supposedly entered Lively's makeup trailer without permission, "including when she was breastfeeding her infant child." Lively also recalled Baldoni claiming he could communicate with the dead, including her father, Ernie Lively. She found it "off-putting and violative."
The New York Times later published a report titled 'We Can Bury Anyone': Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine, which used excerpts from alleged text messages and emails that Lively obtained through a subpoena and detailed the work of crisis management firm TAG PR for Baldoni, including allegedly planting negative stories in the media.
Baldoni's camp has called the accusations in the report "categorically false."
Later, his camp released a series of video takes during the production of It Ends with Us in an attempt to debunk Lively's sexual harassment allegations against him. Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, in turn, requested a gag order.
On Feb. 3, Baldoni launched a website containing two documents: his $400 million 224-page amended complaint against Lively and Reynolds and a 168-page "timeline of relevant events," which included a compilation of screenshots as an additional exhibit to his amended complaint. It came two days before their first court hearing.
The trial for the Lively v. Wayfarer Studios et al. case is slated for March 2026.
