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The gloves are officially off. Justin Baldoni has filed a lawsuit against Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and more. The 179 page complaint was filed in the Southern District of New York and accused Lively and Reynolds of “civil extortion.” Baldoni is seeking at least $400 million in damages.
In the documents filed on Wednesday, January 16, and viewed by In Touch, Baldoni, 40, stated that this wasn’t a “story he ever wished to tell,” but Lively, 37, “unequivocally left them with no choice.”
“Had Lively chosen to merely ride out the self-inflicted press catastrophe she faced in August 2024, the public would likely have moved on and never known the truth about her,” the lawsuit continued.
Baldoni claimed that Lively “deliberately and systematically robbed” him and Wayfarer Studios of their film, It Ends With Us, and that “no one except the parties involved would have known that she used threats and extortion to relegate the colleagues she once highly praised to a basement to sit out their own premiere, while she enjoyed the spotlight of a premiere and afterparty that was ultimately co-financed by both Wayfarer and Sony.”
The Five Feet Apart director stated that he would have “held his tongue” regarding the allegations lobbed at Lively and accused the Gossip Girl alum of not being able to “tolerate her publicly tainted image” and “could not accept that it was entirely of her own making.”
When Lively and Baldoni promoted It Ends With Us, the Simple Favor star was criticized for promoting her hair care line when the movie focused on domestic abuse.
“It was portrayed more so as a chick flick, like, ‘Grab your friends, wear your nice prints and come over here and watch this movie.’ And that’s not what it was about,” one woman told NBC News at the time. “A lot of us that read the book and that relate to Lily are not going there because of the floral prints or the hair or the clothes. We’re going there because we want to see ourselves on the big screen.”
In Baldoni’s lawsuit, he accused Lively of choosing “to callously promote her hair care and alcoholic beverage products rather than bring attention to survivors of domestic violence” and alleged that she “eventually leveraged her power as a wealthy celebrity to wrest the reins” from him. Baldoni also included a text message from him to Wayfarer Studios’ Jamey Heath that claimed Lively had not “wanted” to read the book and that her “creative decisions reflected” her “fundamental lack of understanding of the book the film was based on.”
The Jane the Virgin alum’s lawsuit added, “At bottom, this is not a case about celebrities sniping at each other in the press. 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. Then, when Lively and Reynolds’ efforts failed to win them the acclaim they believed they so richly deserved, they turned their fury on their chosen scapegoat. Tolerating a year and a half of their behavior while remaining polite and professional at every turn offered Badoni and Wayfarer no protection.”
The documents continued, “When Plaintiffs have their day in court, the jury will recognize that even the most powerful celebrity cannot bend the truth to her will.”
In December 2024, Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni and accused him of inappropriate behavior on the set of It Ends With Us. Lively claimed that an all-hands staff meeting was held to address some of Baldoni’s behavior, and he was given a list of rules he was to abide by for their remaining time on set. These conditions included prohibiting Baldoni from asking about Lively’s weight, prohibiting him from showing her nude photos of women, no more discussion of genitalia and more.
The documents also demanded “no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex or on camera climaxing by BL outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project,” and Lively claimed that the studio agreed to the conditions set in the meeting.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants actress accused Baldoni of trying to “destroy” her reputation with a “social manipulation” campaign and she included a screenshot of a text message that said that Baldoni “wants to feel like [Ms. Lively] can be buried.”
Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, adamantly denied the claims against his client and stated that the accusations were “false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt” and were created to “fix her negative reputation.”
In Touch has reached out to Lively for comment but has not heard back at this time.
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