Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios have sued Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and a publicist for £320 million.
The legal battle between the It Ends with Us co-stars continues, as Baldoni has filed a lawsuit worth $400 million against the Hollywood co-stars.
Lively first filed a lawsuit against Baldoni back in December 2024, as she alleged sexual harassment and a campaign of ‘social manipulation’ against her.
The actress’ legal team anticipated that her co-star was already in the process of filing a lawsuit, after Baldoni was among the plaintiffs of a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times.
The news publication made Lively’s lawsuit public, which alleged a false-light invasion of privacy and libel.
On New Year’s day, she filed a second lawsuit against Baldoni’s team, at a federal court in New York.
Now, Baldoni has hit Lively, Reynolds and their publicist, Leslie Sloane and her PR firm Vision PR, with a suit.
Baldoni’s attorneys filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York today (16 January) on behalf of the 40-year-old actor, producer jamey Heath, publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan.
They claim that Lively took measures to gain control of the 2024 film.
Baldoni is suing 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.
According to documents obtained by TMZ, the actress was ‘determined to make Baldoni the real-life villain in her story’ after being labelled as ‘tone-deaf’ during the film’s media tour.
Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s lawyer, said to LADbible group: “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.”
He 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. 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.”
In the suit, Baldoni claims that the struggle with Lively started in the summer of 2023, as they fought over creative control, blaming the likes of Reynolds and Lively’s close friend, Taylor Swift, for getting involved in re-writing the script.
LADbible group has reached out to Lively and Reynolds’ representatives, and Wayfarer Studios for comment.
