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Justin Baldoni has sued Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, claiming that the couple hijacked the production of It Ends With Us, the hit summer 2024 film he directed and sought to “destroy” him with false allegations of sexual harassment.
In the suit, filed in the southern district of New York, Baldoni and his publicists accuse the couple of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy, to the tune of $400m in damages.
The 179-page complaint is the latest volley in a bitter legal battle between the co-stars over the production and marketing of the film, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling book, that began when Lively filed a complaint with the California civil rights commission detailing alleged sexual harassment by Baldoni during production and retaliatory efforts to smear Lively’s reputation afterward via artificial social media activity and planted stories.
That complaint, and a subsequent New York Times report quoting numerous text messages between Baldoni and his team, sent shockwaves through Hollywood and prompted vigorous denials from Baldoni and his producing partner, Jamey Heath.
On 31 December, Lively filed her own lawsuit against Baldoni, Heath and publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, alleging that the group orchestrated a clandestine smear campaign to “bury” her reputation. Baldoni followed a day later with a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, accusing the paper of working with Lively’s team and “cherry-picking” text messages out of context to defame him. His lawyer, Bryan Freedman, promised more lawsuits to follow.
“At bottom, this is not a case about celebrities sniping at each other in the press,” Baldoni’s suit against Lively reads. “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 further claims that “when Plaintiffs have their day in court, the jury will recognize that even the most powerful celebrity cannot bend the truth to her will”.
The new suit largely echoes the defamation suit against the New York Times, arguing that the full record of text messages and other communications would show how Lively and her team took messages out of context for a skewed version of events.
“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,” Freedman said in a statement. “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.”
This week Baldoni’s lawyer also demanded that Disney and Marvel retain any documents pertaining to what they see as a joke aimed at Baldoni in last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine. A letter called that any information relating to an effort to “mock, harass, ridicule, intimidate, or bully Baldoni” should be preserved.
Lively, Reynolds and their legal team have yet to respond.
