The legal drama between It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively is nowhere near done, despite what her team wants everyone to believe.
One day after a judge dismissed Baldoni’s $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and her longtime publicist Leslie Sloane, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman isn’t backing down. In fact, he’s saying loud and clear: Blake Lively’s “victory” is a total illusion.
“Ms. Lively and her team’s predictable declaration of victory is false,” Freedman told E! News on June 10. “So let us be clear about the latest ruling.” He insists that while parts of the suit were tossed, this legal fight is far from over.
Let’s break it down. Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled that Baldoni and his team failed to prove their defamation claims. According to the court, they also didn’t prove that Lively’s alleged threats were anything more than legal hardball. The judge called it “legally permissible hard bargaining or renegotiation of working conditions”, not extortion. As a result, the defamation claims were dismissed. And so was Baldoni’s separate $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times.
But that’s not the end of it. The judge allowed Baldoni to refile parts of his suit, specifically the claims of tortious interference with contract (against Reynolds and Lively) and breach of implied covenant (against Lively). He’s got until June 23 to file the amended complaint.
Freedman says this is about more than what the headlines show. “This case is about false accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation and a nonexistent smear campaign,” he said. “Ms. Lively’s own team conveniently describes [the smear campaign] as ‘untraceable’ because they cannot prove what never happened.”
What’s more, Freedman said they’re gearing up for Lively’s deposition, and he’s the one who will be asking the questions. “With the facts on our side, we march forward with the same confidence that we had when Ms. Lively and her cohorts initiated this battle,” he added.
On the flip side, Lively’s lawyers, Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb, didn’t mince words. “No amount of spin, bluster, or creative accounting from Baldoni’s legal team will change the embarrassing reality staring them in the face,” they fired back. “The plan to sue Blake Lively and her family into oblivion has been a complete and total failure.”
Blake Lively herself took to Instagram Stories after the ruling and opened up about the emotional impact of it all. “Like so many others, I’ve felt the pain of a retaliatory lawsuit, including the manufactured shame that tries to break us,” she wrote on June 9. “While the suit against me was defeated, so many don’t have the resources to fight back.”
She didn’t just stop at expressing gratitude, Lively went on to share resources for others caught in similar legal traps. She ended her message with a note to everyone who supported her: “I will never stop appreciating or advocating for you.” She also made it clear she’s more “resolved than ever” to stand up for women’s rights and against retaliatory lawsuits.
This all started when Lively sued Baldoni in January, claiming emotional distress and loss of wages during the filming of It Ends With Us. After that, Baldoni hit back with his countersuit, alleging defamation and interference, pulling Reynolds and Sloane into the chaos too.
Now, while part of his lawsuit has been tossed out, Baldoni and his legal team are nowhere near done. They’re regrouping, rewriting, and ready to take another legal swing, and this time, with Blake Lively potentially sitting in the deposition chair.
So yeah, this battle is still heating up. The Blake-Justin feud is shaping up to be one of the messiest Hollywood legal sagas of the year. With two powerhouse legal teams and reputations on the line, you can bet this isn’t the last headline you’ll read about it.
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