Judge ends Justin Baldoni’s $400M countersuit against Blake Lively  

MANHATTAN (CN) — A federal judge on Monday dismissed actor Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit against his co-star, Blake Lively, ending, for now, a legal battle over allegations of filmmaker misconduct.

Lively sued Baldoni in December 2024, accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of “It Ends With Us,” a film released earlier that year, based on the 2016 book by the same name, which was directed by Baldoni and produced by Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios.

Baldoni and Wayfarer followed up in January with a lawsuit of their own, accusing Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, of extortion, attempting to “destroy” him and “hijack” the film’s premiere, and seeking $400 million from the couple.

He also named their publicist, Leslie Sloane, and Baldoni later added a defamation count against The New York Times, which first published Lively’s allegations, in an amended complaint.

In a 132-page ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman found that Baldoni and his production company failed to state a viable claim but allowed Wayfarer to revise and refile their contract interference and implied covenant claims.

Baldoni’s lawsuit claims that Lively “stole” the film by threatening not to promote it while airing a false narrative that Baldoni sexually assaulted her, then launched a smear campaign after she went public.

“Regardless of the propriety of these actions, they do not constitute civil extortion under California law,” wrote Liman, a Donald Trump appointee, finding that Wayfarer “cannot recover for Lively’s alleged actions to steal creative control of the film.”

Lively’s attorneys, Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb, celebrated the ruling in a statement provided to The Los Angeles Times.

“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,” they said.

Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman called the ruling a “false” victory in a statement Tuesday, noting that his client has leave to amend four out of his seven claims against Lively.

In his now-dismissed suit, Baldoni denied that he was ever inappropriate on or off the film set, and said it was Lively who had engaged in much of the behavior she called problematic.

In one instance, Baldoni claims that Lively initiated improvised kisses on the set — behavior with which Lively took issue in her complaint. In another, he said Lively made derogatory comments about his appearance by making fun of his nose and telling him he should get a nose job.

But Baldoni says he brushed aside these instances, motivated solely by the success of the movie, and insists that Lively was open and comfortable with him throughout filming.

“Lively was so close and comfortable with Baldoni that she freely breast-fed in front of him during meetings,” Baldoni claims in the suit — another moment that he says was reworked into harassment allegations against him.

At one point, Baldoni says Reynolds berated him after he asked Lively’s personal trainer her weight to avoid inflaming his injured back.

“‘How dare you fucking ask about my wife’s weight? What’s wrong with you?’” Reynolds said, according to Baldoni.

Baldoni said he apologized profusely for the incident, despite feeling that it was “completely unwarranted.”

Trial has been scheduled for March 2026.

Note: This story was updated with comment from Baldoni’s attorney.

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