Justin Baldoni in Los Angeles on Dec. 4, 2024. Photo:
Araya Doheny/Variety via Getty
Justin Baldoni has been spotted for the first time since filing his $400 million lawsuit against his It Ends with Us costar Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds.
On Friday, Jan. 17, the 40-year-old actor, who also directed the 2024 romantic drama, was seen at Los Angeles International Airport with his family, where he was approached by TMZ and asked how he was feeling amid the lawsuit.
“Grateful to be with the family, man,” he said, adding of how he is faring, “We have amazing friends and family. Faith … faith.”
Baldoni is suing Lively, 37, and Reynolds, 48, as well as their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s PR firm Vision PR, Inc. on claims of civil extortion, defamation, 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, and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage.
Attorneys for the It Ends with Us actor-director filed on behalf of Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath, publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan.
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds in New York City on July 22, 2024; Justin Baldoni in New York City on Aug. 6, 2024. Taylor Hill/WireImage; John Nacion/Variety via Getty
Lively previously sued Baldoni and his associates on Dec. 20, 2024, making claims of sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign orchestrated by him. In that complaint, she claimed Baldoni exhibited “disturbing” and “unprofessional” behavior on the set of the Colleen Hoover adaptation that led to a “hostile work environment.”
It further included accusations that Baldoni and Heath entered her trailer “uninvited” while she was undressed or “vulnerable” and alleged Baldoni “suddenly” pressured her to “simulate full nudity” in a birth scene and “improvised physical intimacy that had not been rehearsed, choreographed or discussed with Ms. Lively, with no intimacy coordinator involved.”
Lively’s complaint claimed that in the aftermath of the experience and the alleged smear campaign against her, the actress-producer “suffered from grief, fear, trauma, and extreme anxiety.”
In a statement about Baldoni’s new filing, his attorney Bryan Freedman said, “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.”
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in It Ends with Us (2024). Sony Pictures Entertainment (2)
It continued, “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. Blake Lively was either severely misled by her team or intentionally and knowingly misrepresented the truth.”
The statement added, “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.”
Responding to the director-star’s defamation and extortion suit filed Thursday, Lively’s legal team said in a statement, “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,” the statement continued. “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,” the statement read.
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Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni at the It Ends with Us premiere in New York City, August 2024. Gotham/WireImage (2)
Lawyers for the Gossip Girl alum say Baldoni and his associates “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 statement continued. “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,” the statement concluded. “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.”
Baldoni’s new lawsuit followed his legal team filing a $250 million suit against the New York Times for alleged libel on Dec. 31, 2024, over their article covering Lively’s complaint. It alleges the publication used “‘cherry-picked’ and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead.”
In that article, Lively provided a statement: “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”
