Judge dismisses Justin Baldoni's $400m defamation lawsuit against former co-star Blake Lively
9 June 2025, 19:06 | Updated: 9 June 2025, 22:53
A judge has dismissed the lawsuit filed by actor and director Justin Baldoni against his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively after she sued him for sexual harassment and retaliation.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
US District Court Judge Lewis Liman's decision is the latest development in the bitter legal battle surrounding the dark romantic drama that includes Lively suing Baldoni in late December.
Baldoni and production company Wayfarer Studios countersued in January for 400 million dollars (£294.9 million), accusing Lively and her husband, Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds, of defamation and extortion.
The judge ruled that Baldoni cannot sue Lively for defamation over claims she made in her lawsuit, because allegations made in a lawsuit are exempt from libel claims.
Judge Liman also ruled that Baldoni's claims that Lively stole creative control of the film did not count as extortion under California law.
While Lively was accused in the lawsuit of threatening to refuse to promote the film, Wayfarer does "not allege facts showing that Lively had an obligation to promote the film or to approve marketing materials", Judge Liman wrote.
Baldoni's legal team can revise the lawsuit if it wants to pursue different claims related to whether Lively breached a contract, the judge said.
It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling 2016 novel that begins as a romance but takes a dark turn into domestic violence, was released in August, exceeding box office expectations with a 50 million dollar (£36.8 million) debut.
But the film's release was shrouded by speculation over discord between Lively and Baldoni.
The judge also dismissed Baldoni's defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, which had reported on Lively's sexual harassment allegations.
'Total victory'
"Today's opinion is 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, (publicist) Leslie Sloane and The New York Times," Lively's lawyers, Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb, said in a prepared statement.
The lawyers said they "look forward to the next round" of seeking lawyers' fees, treble damages and punitive damages.
A spokesperson for The New York Times said they were "grateful to the court for seeing the lawsuit for what it was: a meritless attempt to stifle honest reporting".
Read more: Samurai sword killer of boy, 14, ‘was ‘flat Earth’ conspiracy theorist and fan of Elon Musk’
"Our journalists went out and covered carefully and fairly a story of public importance, and the court recognized that the law is designed to protect just that sort of journalism," Charlie Stadtlander said in a statement.
Lively appeared in the 2005 film The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants and the TV series Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2012 before starring in films including The Town, The Shallows and The Age of Adaline.
Baldoni starred in the TV comedy Jane The Virgin, directed the 2019 film Five Feet Apart and wrote Man Enough, a book challenging traditional notions of masculinity.
