New York judge throws out Justin Baldoni’s $400m (£295m) defamation claim against former co-star Blake Lively
The two actors, who appeared in the 2024 movie It Ends with Us, have been involved in a court dispute for a few months, with a trial scheduled for next year.
On Monday, Judge Lewis Liman threw out Baldoni’s countersuit, which claimed extortion, defamation and other claims.
Allegations and Initial Lawsuit by Blake Lively
Baldoni sued following Lively’s complaint last year against her co-star, alleging sexual harassment and launch of a smear campaign against her.
In December 2024, Lively sued Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios, alleging that Baldoni sexually harassed her on set and retaliated against her for reporting the grievances, among other claims.
Lively also provided information about the charges in a pre-lawsuit New York Times article.
Baldoni’s Countersuit and Accusations
Baldoni then sued Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, their publicist, claiming they were trying to destroy his career and reputation with the charges, and the New York Times.
Baldoni’s complaint focused on two allegations: that Lively “stole the film” from him and his production company Wayfarer by threatening not to promote it, and that she and others advanced a false narrative that Baldoni had sexually assaulted her and initiated a smear campaign against her, Judge Liman detailed in his ruling.
But Baldoni and his production company “have not adequately alleged that Lively’s threats were wrongful extortion rather than legally permissible hard bargaining or renegotiation of working conditions”, he wrote.
Additionally, the judge wrote, Baldoni and his company had not proved defamation because the “Wayfarer Parties have not alleged that Lively is responsible for any statements other than the statements” in her lawsuit, which are privileged.
Judge Allows Limited Option for Refiling
Judge Liman told Baldoni that he could amend and refile his contract interference claims by 23 June.
“The alleged facts indicate that the Times reviewed the available evidence and reported, perhaps in a dramatized manner, what it believed to have happened,” he wrote. “The Times had no obvious motive to favor Lively’s version of events.”
Response and Statement of Blake Lively
In a statement shared with US media, Lively’s lawyers called the opinion “a total victory and a complete vindication for Blake Lively, along with those that Justin Baldoni and the Wayfarer Parties dragged into their retaliatory lawsuit, including Ryan Reynolds, Leslie Sloane and The New York Times”.
In a post on her Instagram, Lively said that “Like so many others, I’ve felt the pain of a retaliatory lawsuit, including the manufactured shame that tries to break us”.
“While the suit against me was defeated, so many don’t have the resources to fight back,” she said, adding that she was “more resolved than ever to continue to stand for every woman’s right to have a voice in protecting themselves”.
Lively Drops Two Claims From Her Original Lawsuit
Judge Liman’s dismissal follows a week after Lively requested to drop two of the claims in her lawsuit against Baldoni intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
She claimed in the original suit that she suffered from “severe emotional distress” upon learning of the supposed sexual harassment and smear campaign.
It Ends With Us is a film adaptation of a best-selling book by Colleen Hoover, starring Blake Lively as protagonist Lily Bloom, a young woman who grew up seeing her parents subject to domestic abuse and finds herself in the same situation years later.
