Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have finally agreed to end their It Ends With Us lawsuit, just two weeks before the case was due to go to trial in New York
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have ended their lawsuit. It came just weeks before the pair were due to face a trial, which would threaten their reputations.
The costars turned courtroom adversaries settled the civil case two weeks before they were to go to trial in New York on Lively’s claims that Baldoni conspired with publicists to preemptively destroy her reputation after she privately accused him of sexually harassing her on the movie set. The news came as Blake attended the Met Gala alone, while her husband Ryan Reynolds stayed home. The actress dazzled in a Versace gown from the 2006 archive. The dress featured a 13-foot train, marking her first appearance since 2022.
In a rare move, the pair issued a joint statement via their lawyers. They said: “Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors — and all survivors — is a goal that we stand behind.
“It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.” The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Lively, 38, sued Baldoni, 42, and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, at the end of 2024. Weeks later, Baldoni sued Lively, accusing her, her husband, Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist of defamation and extortion.
Baldoni, who directed the dark romantic drama and starred in it with Lively, had denied harassing her or orchestrating a smear campaign. He’d claimed the complaints about his behaviour were made up by Lively as part of an effort to seize creative control of the movie.
Monday’s settlement followed a federal judge in Manhattan tossing out some of each actor’s claims. Last June, Judge Lewis J. Liman dismissed Baldoni’s defamation and extortion lawsuit. In April, he threw out Lively’s sexual harassment claims, ruling that she couldn’t pursue them under federal law because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee on the movie set.
In their joint statement, the parties said they recognise that Lively’s concerns “deserved to be heard” and that they “remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments.”
The trial, now no longer necessary, had been scheduled to begin with jury selection on May 18. It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel about a relationship devolving into domestic violence, was released in August 2024 and exceeded box office expectations despite criticism that it glorified abuse. Lively and Baldoni’s fractious falling-out drew attention away from the film, overshadowing its message and success.
“The end product — the movie It Ends With Us — is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life,” Lively and Baldoni said in their statement.
Lively said in her lawsuit that during filming, Baldoni made inappropriate comments about her appearance, violated physical boundaries while filming a love scene, and pushed for nudity — against Lively’s wishes — during a scene in which her character was giving birth.
Baldoni denied doing anything outside the normal creative process of making a movie. The judge, in the decision tossing out the sexual harassment claims, acknowledged the complexity of the matter, noting that creative artists “must have some amount of space to experiment within the bounds of an agreed script without fear of being held liable for sexual harassment.”
The trial was to focus on Lively’s claim that Baldoni and the studio retaliated against her sexual harassment complaints by hiring publicists to turn the public against her. Her lawyers said that the campaign included hiring a “digital army” to post bogus negative content about Lively on social media platforms, and feeding “manufactured content to unwitting reporters.”
The lawsuit said the purpose was to “retaliate against Ms. Lively by battering her image, harming her businesses, and causing her family severe emotional harm.”
Baldoni’s lawyers have claimed it was Lively who was strategically manipulating Baldoni’s public image, partly by leveraging help from her famous friends.
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