Justin Baldoni has sued Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, the actress’s publicist Leslie Sloane and the couple’s publicity firm Vision PR for $400 million. The move comes after his $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times and two weeks after Lively sued Baldoni for alleged sexual harassment, retaliation and more.
Attorney Bryan Freedman filed the lawsuit on Jan. 16 in New York on behalf of Baldoni, his company Wayfarer Studios, It Ends With Us co-producer Jamey Heath, publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan. All parties were named in Lively’s lawsuit, in which she accused Baldoni and Heath of misconduct on the set of the film and alleged his publicists launched a smear campaign that ruined her reputation. They have denied all allegations, and Freedman has been alluding to Thursday’s lawsuit for weeks.
Lively’s legal team fired back in a statement on Thursday evening and accused Baldoni of victim-blaming.
According to the lawsuit obtained by Yahoo Entertainment, Lively “stole” the Baldoni-directed film It Ends With Us, and if it weren’t for her “self-inflicted press catastrophe she faced in August 2024, the public would likely have moved on and never known the truth about her.”
Some of the anecdotes included in the 179-page document will likely grab headlines — including one A-list name. Baldoni alleged he felt pressured into letting Lively rewrite a scene because of Taylor Swift and Reynolds. (Swift’s rep did not return Yahoo’s request for comment.)
The lawsuit claimed that Lively never read Colleen Hoover’s bestselling book It Ends With Us and that she Googled the hair color of her character Lily. Lively allegedly would not meet with the film’s domestic violence partner organization and embarked on a “tone-deaf” press tour. The lawsuit claimed Lively served the Los Angeles-based defendants “as they evacuated their homes in the midst of devastating fires engulfing their city.”
Baldoni also responded to Lively’s claim in her complaint that he initiated “unchoreographed kissing scenes” and alleged she initiated it.
“While Lively now takes issue with any innocuous improvisation Baldoni, as Ryle, may have allegedly initiated while in character, Baldoni treated their relationship on camera as professional; each playing their part, each doing their job,” the lawsuit read. “If no one was supposed to improvise, Baldoni would have no way of knowing based on Lively’s own actions. Lively demonstrated, again and again, that this was a normal and acceptable part of filming romantic scenes.”
This appears to be something Lively’s legal team directly hit back at when they issued the following statement to Yahoo on Thursday evening:
This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook. This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.
Wayfarer has opted to use the resources of its billionaire co-founder to issue media statements, launch meritless lawsuits, and threaten litigation to overwhelm the public’s ability to understand that what they are doing is retaliation against sexual harassment allegations.
They are trying to shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni. The evidence will show that the cast and others had their own negative experiences with Mr. Baldoni and Wayfarer. The evidence will also show that Sony asked Ms. Lively to oversee Sony’s cut of the film, which they then selected for distribution and was a resounding success.
Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault. Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing. In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim. The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.
Freedman issued a statement on behalf of his clients after filing the lawsuit.
“This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media,” the attorney told Yahoo on Thursday. “It is clear based on our own all-out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret.”
Freedman continued, “Blake Lively was either severely misled by her team or intentionally and knowingly misrepresented the truth. Ms. Lively will never again be allowed to continue to exploit actual victims of real harassment solely for her personal reputation gain at the expense of those without power. Let’s not forget, Ms. Lively and her team attempted to bulldoze reputations and livelihoods for heinously selfish reasons through their own dangerous manipulation of the media before even taking any actual legal action. We know the truth, and now the public does too. Justin and his team have nothing to hide, documents do not lie.”
The group is suing Lively, Reynolds and Sloane for:
- false light invasion of privacy
- breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing
- intentional interference with contractual relations
- intentional interference with prospective economic advantage
- negligent interference with prospective economic advantage
Baldoni’s lawsuit claimed “this is not a case about celebrities sniping at each other in the press.”
“This is a case about two of the most powerful stars in the world deploying their enormous power to steal an entire film right out of the hands of its director and production studio,” the complaint read.
Text messages were provided in an effort to show that Lively and Baldoni had a “close” working relationship ahead of filming.
“Baldoni and Lively shared stories and pictures from their lives, commiserated over family illnesses and exchanged jokes and memes. Baldoni offered concern and support when Lively faced family health concerns. They texted almost daily, and a friendly banter established a comfortable dynamic that, under typical circumstances, would have made working together easy,” the lawsuit said.
Baldoni maintained Lively tried to assert creative control almost immediately and pointed to her wardrobe demands that were not included in her contract.
“At one point, Lively insisted that her character ‘had money’ and could afford $5,000 shoes — despite being a fledgling small business owner,” he alleged.
“Baldoni and the studio reluctantly ceded full control to Lively over her wardrobe. This concession quickly proved regrettable,” the document said, pointing to online criticism of paparazzi photos capturing Lively on set “wearing her hand-picked wardrobe.”
The document called out Lively’s “grossly misrepresented” version of the wardrobe conversation in her complaint. Baldoni denied her allegation he had a “lengthy outburst,” but admitted he “did briefly become emotional during the conversation, but only in response to what he believed was a genuine compliment from Lively, praising his work as a director and actor.”
The lawsuit provided detail about alleged pressure from Reynolds and a “megacelebrity friend” of the couple, presumed to be Taylor Swift. (One text included in the document mentions “Taylor.”) Baldoni said he felt he had to “comply” and accept a rewritten scene from Lively. The scene in question was the rooftop scene, which Lively later said in an interview had been written by Reynolds.
Baldoni also hit back at allegedly fat-shaming Lively. He admitted to texting his trainer, who he was introduced to via the actress, about her weight. However, he said it was for training purposes. Baldoni said he was then “summoned” to Lively and Reynolds’s NYC penthouse and that the Deadpool & Wolverine star “swore at Baldoni.”
“How dare you f***ing ask about my wife’s weight? What’s wrong with you?” Reynolds allegedly said, according to the lawsuit.
“The confrontation from Reynolds and Lively was so aggressive that Baldoni felt he had no choice but to offer repeated (and completely unwarranted) apologies for what was a good faith and reasonable question to ask of his trainer,” the lawsuit said. “Reynolds demanded Baldoni remove the scene entirely. Lively refused to perform the lift scene in the end, even after it was rehearsed with a stunt double.”
Baldoni said Lively “flat out lies about the absence of this scene” in her complaint.
“The only reason the scene wasn’t in the film is because Lively and Reynolds ensured it was taken out of the film. Accommodating Lively, Baldoni rewrote the scene with Lively, despite the fact that for creative reasons, this scene was important to him as a storyteller and director,” the lawsuit said.
“Lively had earlier expressed insecurity about her postpartum figure, and Baldoni made every attempt to genuinely reassure her,” it added. A text message of this exchange is included in the document.
The lawsuit also goes into detail about Sloane’s alleged smear attempt of Baldoni.
Updated Jan. 16, 2025: This story was originally published on Jan. 16, 2025, at 1:08 p.m. ET and has been updated to include new information from the lawsuit.
