Justin Baldoni filed a 400 million dollar lawsuit against his co-star Blake Lively, from the movie “It Ends With Us,” her husband Ryan Reynolds, as well as their publicist Leslie Sloan. Baldoni is accusing them of defamation of character, extortion, and invasion of privacy. He claims they tried to ruin his career and reputation.
This legal battle started in December of 2024 when his co-star Blake Lively filed a complaint. She told the California Civil Rights Department that Baldoni had allegedly sexually harassed her on the set they worked together on. She said there were allegedly inappropriate comments and unwanted kissing from him. Lively also said that when she brought these concerns up, Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath tried to ruin her reputation on social media.
In response to this, Baldoni denied all the allegations against him and decided to file his own lawsuit against Lively. He says that Lively and Reynolds allegedly took over the production and marketing of the media and said things on social media to publicize their allegations against him in hopes to ruin his name. Baldoni’s lawsuit also stated that Lively allegedly named a drink after the movie’s abusive character that Baldoni played, Ryle, at a premiere after party and he felt that was insensitive because of how serious the meaning of the movie was.
To try and support Baldoni, his team released unedited footage from the film’s set that showed interactions between him and Lively. One clip within this footage conveyed a discussion about a dance scene, which Lively said had involved an inappropriate comment about her smell. The clip suggests the comment may have been about her spray tan and they released it to try and debunk her allegations of this specific scene.
Baldoni also said he plans to release a website containing all things related to Lively’s allegations of sexual harassment against him. According to his attorney, the website will have evidence to debunk Lively’s allegations.
This famous battle has attracted a lot of attention in the media, emphasizing the issues of workplace behavior and harassment claims in Hollywood. Both parties have presented a lot of evidence, making the conflict gain significant amounts of public attention.
As of January 21st of 2025, the legal battle is still in process, with both sides standing strong in their positions. The result of this case may have lasting impacts on industry practices and the careers of those involved.
