Justin Baldoni's $400M lawsuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds dismissed by federal judge. How we got here.

Yahoo

19 hours ago

The Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni drama is the he-said-she-said case heard around Hollywood, with accusations flying on both sides.
Lively and Baldoni are entangled in a legal battle over what may or may not have happened on the set of their Colleen Hoover adaptation, It Ends With Us, with Lively accusing her director and costar on the film of sexual harassment and a subsequent retaliatory campaign against her. Since then, the two have communicated through warring legal teams and the press as they head toward their March 2026 court case.
Baldoni has denied all allegations and said that Lively's claims were false and designed to help Lively gain creative control of It Ends With Us. In response to Lively's allegations, which were reported by the New York Times and included texts between Baldoni and members of his team, he filed a $400 million countersuit against the actress, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloane. The lawsuit alleges defamation and extortion, as well as a separate $250 million defamation suit against the New York Times.
But on June 9, Judge Lewis J. Liman threw out Baldoni's lawsuit, ruling that the statements at the center of the suits were either privileged or lacked the necessary legal basis for defamation. Baldoni's team may amend certain claims and refile by June 23.
In a statement to Deadline, Lively's lawyers Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb called the ruling "a total victory and a complete vindication" for Lively, as well as Reynolds, Sloane and the New York Times.
'As we have said from day one, this '$400 million' lawsuit was a sham, and the Court saw right through it," they said. "We look forward to the next round, which is seeking attorneys' fees, treble damages and punitive damages against Baldoni, Sarowitz, Nathan, and the other Wayfarer Parties who perpetrated this abusive litigation."
It's all very messy — and with the case headed to court in March 2026, there is almost certainly going to be more that will unfold. But how did It Ends With Us go from being a highly anticipated adaptation of a popular BookTok novel to being one of the entertainment industry's biggest rifts to date? Here's what to know.
Skip ahead:
How it all began
Blake Lively speaks out
Justin Baldoni pushes back
How Taylor Swift got involved
Where Deadpool comes in
Blake Lively breaks her silence in 2025
Lively drops her emotional distress claim
Lively and Baldoni starred together in 2024's It Ends With Us, based on Hoover's 2016 romance novel about a woman breaking out of the cycle of domestic violence. Baldoni, who initially got the rights to the book through his production company, Wayfarer Studios, also directed the film, while Lively was also an executive producer on the project.
When the movie came out in August 2024, fans noticed that Lively and Baldoni — who played a couple in the film — did not do interviews together or pose for photos at the movie's premiere, fueling speculation that there was a rift between the two.
During the film's press tour, Lively faced backlash for downplaying the story's central theme of domestic violence, instead emphasizing female empowerment and the film's floral aesthetic and even weaving in promotion for her newly launched hair care line. Social media buzz turned critical against the star as old interviews resurfaced that portrayed the actress as catty or rude. Meanwhile, Baldoni — whose brand and podcast Man Enough is centered on untangling himself from toxic masculinity — received praise for including domestic violence as part of the larger conversation about the film.
Lively had stayed quiet about her time on the It Ends With Us set and work with Baldoni — until December 2024, when she filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department. In her complaint, she claimed Baldoni engaged in sexual harassment and created a hostile work environment during the film's production.
Her complaint coincided with a New York Times exposé titled ''We Can Bury Anyone': Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,' which detailed Lively's allegations — along with her legal complaint — and highlighted the alleged retaliatory actions by Baldoni's team. That included Baldoni encouraging publicists to drum up a smear campaign against the star, which Lively said was the driving force behind the sudden onslaught of negative social media comments about her.
Lively was initially met with some public support following the New York Times piece — people like her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants costars and her Another Simple Favor director Paul Feig spoke out in her favor — but in the weeks after the article, social media sentiment toward the actress remained negative.
On Dec. 31, 2024, Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times. The actor claimed that the article crafted a misleading narrative that damaged his reputation using cherry-picked communications — like, say, a quoted text message that omitted an emoji indicating sarcasm. The New York Times stood by its reporting and in February 2025 filed to dismiss the lawsuit.
On Jan. 16, 2025, Baldoni and his team — including Wayfarer Studios, producer Jamey Heath and PR reps Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel — filed a lawsuit in New York federal court. They accused Lively, her husband Reynolds and her publicist Sloane of defamation and other contract violations, while seeking a whopping $400 million in damages. In Baldoni's version of events, Lively and Reynolds wanted to gain control over the making of It Ends With Us, and, when met with resistance, attempted to damage Baldoni's reputation with a harassment claim.
In the days after his lawsuit filing, Baldoni's team released footage from the It Ends With Us set in order to contradict some of Lively's complaints about harassment. Later, in March, he launched a website with information about the situation for the public to view.
Also in March, Lively sought to have Baldoni's lawsuit dismissed, citing California law on misconduct claims.
In May, pop superstar Taylor Swift was officially dragged into the mess, with a subpoena for the artist to appear in court. Swift is a longtime friend of Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and is also godmother to their four children.
The artist entered the conversation when messages between Baldoni and Lively came to light in Baldoni's filing. In the lawsuit, she is referred to as Lively's 'megacelebrity friend,' and Baldoni claimed that Lively used her connection to Swift — whose song 'My Tears Ricochet' is in the film — as leverage to take control of the set. That is the reason Swift was subpoenaed.
According to text messages between Baldoni and Lively, Swift was allegedly with Lively when she and Baldoni were discussing a scene from It Ends With Us that Lively wanted to change.
In one text exchange between her and Baldoni, Lively wrote of Swift and husband Reynolds, 'If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you'll appreciate that I'm Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you.'
Swift's reps, however, say that the singer's only involvement in the film was allowing her song to be used in the movie.
'Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, she did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history,' her reps said in a statement to the press, stating that the subpoena was 'designed to use Taylor Swift's name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.'
Though Swift's team said her only role in the film was providing a song for it, as other artists who were not subpoenaed had done, Baldoni previously stated that she had a larger impact. He told reporters that Swift had watched a video of Isabela Ferrer, who plays a younger version of Lively's character, and encouraged the casting decision — something that Ferrer also shared with the press.
In addition to Swift, her longtime law firm Venable was also subpoenaed. The subpoena, initially served April 29, demanded all communications between Venable and Lively, Reynolds and their attorney Michael Gottlieb. It specifically named Douglas Baldridge, a Venable partner who has represented Swift since 2013.
On May 12, Venable filed a motion to dismiss it, according to documents obtained by Billboard, calling it a 'fishing expedition.' The firm stated that Venable is in no way involved in the lawsuit, and that any information Baldoni seeks should be sourced from Lively and Reynolds themselves.
'Venable had nothing to do with the film at issue or any of the claims or defenses asserted in the underlying lawsuit,' the firm wrote, arguing the subpoena was designed 'to distract from the facts of the case and impose undue burden and expense on a non-party.'
In a May 13 court filing, Reynolds and Lively supported Venable's motion, calling it an 'abuse of the discovery process.'
On May 14, however, Baldoni's lawyer Bryan Freedman came back with a letter to the judge in the case, per People, stating that the decision to subpoena Swift was necessary under the circumstances. Freedman wrote that the team received a tip from what he believes to be a highly credible source that claimed that Lively urged Swift to delete text messages between the two of them.
The letter also alleged that Lively's lawyer demanded that Swift release a statement of support for Lively over the Baldoni situation, suggesting that if the singer refused, 'private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively's possession would be released,' the letter from Baldoni's attorney read.
In a statement to People on May 14, Lively's attorney Gottlieb denied the allegations, which he called 'categorically false' and 'cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality.'
'This is what we have come to expect from the Wayfarer parties' lawyers, who appear to love nothing more than shooting first, without any evidence, and with no care for the people they are harming in the process,' he continued. 'We will imminently file motions with the court to hold these attorneys accountable for their misconduct here.'
On May 18, Lively's team filed a motion in New York's Southern District Court that alleged Baldoni's lawyer made the claim that she extorted Swift as a way "to seed harassing media narratives" against the actress.
'These public attacks, combined with the Rule 11 Plaintiffs filing numerous claims against Ms. Lively without any basis in law or fact, is willfully improper and warrants sanctions,' the legal document read, per the Wrap.
Lively's team also filed a second motion to compel Wayfarer Studios to hand over documents and recordings from what they call a "disingenuous charade" of an investigation into her sexual harassment on the It Ends With Us set. The filing accuses Wayfarer of failing to properly investigate her allegations, which include Baldoni allegedly discussing his sex life and staging improvised intimacy scenes without her consent. Her team argues that if a real investigation had taken place in 2023, it would have validated her claims — and that Lively would have been "spared the retaliatory smear campaign" she alleges Baldoni incited in its wake.
However, on May 22, the subpoena against Swift was dropped.
A spokesperson for Lively confirmed that Baldoni's legal team has withdrawn subpoenas issued to Swift and her legal counsel — a move the spokesperson says they are pleased with.
"We supported the efforts of Taylor's team to quash these inappropriate subpoenas directed to her counsel, and we will continue to stand up for any third party who is unjustly harassed or threatened in the process," the spokesperson said in a statement obtained by People.
The statement also criticized the Baldoni and Wayfarer team's handling of the case, suggesting they had attempted to use Swift's fame for strategic advantage. "The Baldoni and Wayfarer team have tried to put Taylor Swift, a woman who has been an inspiration for tens of millions across the globe, at the center of this case since day one," the spokesperson said. "Exploiting Taylor Swift's celebrity was the original plan in Melissa Nathan's scenario planning document, and it continues to this day. Faced with having to justify themselves in federal court, they folded. At some point they will run out of distractions from the actual claims of sexual harassment and retaliation they are facing."
Baldoni also called out Reynolds's Marvel movie for allegedly attempting to damage his reputation — specifically with the character of Nicepool, portrayed by Reynolds but credited under the name 'Gordon Reynolds.' In the film Deadpool & Wolverine, Nicepool is an alternative version of Reynolds's sarcastic superhero Deadpool who sports long hair and a bun similar to a style worn by Baldoni in the past. Nicepool also calls himself a feminist and remarks on Lively's character Ladypool's postpartum body.
'Reynolds portrayed Nicepool as a vicious caricature of a 'woke' feminist before concluding the character's arc with his violent shooting death at the hands of 'Ladypool,' a character voiced by Blake Lively,' the suit states. It calls the character a 'transparent and mocking portrayal of Reynolds' warped perception of Baldoni.'
The It Ends With Us credits also thank 'Gordon Reynolds.'
Lively and Reynolds kept a relatively low profile in the immediate wake of the lawsuit. However, the two have recently hinted at the drama at public events, one of which includes Lively and Reynolds's February appearance at the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary on Feb. 16 — their first public appearance together since the lawsuit broke. When asked how things were going by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Reynolds jokingly responded with 'Why? What have you heard?'
Baldoni's lawyer Freedman addressed the moment on Billy Bush's podcast, calling it 'surprising' that they would joke about such serious matters.
At the 2025 Time100 Gala on April 24, where Lively was an honored guest after making its list of most influential people, she spoke about using her voice for good, saying, 'Who and what we stand up for, and what we stay silent about, what we monetize versus what we actually live, matters.'
She also hinted at her legal battle, stating, 'I have so much to say about the last two years of my life, but tonight is not the forum.'
In a May appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers to promote Another Simple Favor, Lively also spoke about using her voice for change.
'What I can say without getting too much into it is that this year has been full of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life,' Lively told Meyers. 'And I see so many women around, afraid to speak — especially right now — afraid to share their experiences. And fear is by design. It's what keeps us silent. But I also acknowledge that many people don't have the opportunity to speak. So I do feel fortunate that I've been able to. It's the women who have had the ability to use their voice that's kept me strong and helped me in my belief and my fight for the world to be safer for women and girls.'
According to court documents, on June 2, Lively chose to withdraw her emotional distress claims against Baldoni, which came after the director's legal team requested access to Lively's medical records. They argued the records were central to her allegations of emotional distress.
Baldoni's team stated that rather than hand over her records, Lively is withdrawing her emotional distress claim, court papers cited by Variety stated. However, Lively wants to withdraw the claims without prejudice, meaning she could refile them later should she change her mind — something that Baldoni's team has pushed back against.
Baldoni's team argued that Lively is both refusing to disclose the documents needed to disprove that she suffered emotional distress, and/or that Baldoni and his production company were the cause. However, at the same time, she is maintaining the right to refile the claim "at an unknown time in this or some other court after the discovery window has closed.' As of now, they have reached an impasse.
Lively's lawyers refuted that, stating that Baldoni's lawyers are not accurate in Lively refusing to hand over these documents. Instead, they said the team is "intentionally misleading to the Court" and that their "intended audience" for this "false record" was the public, alleging that Baldoni's lawyers are using this as a way to spin negative press about the actress. They stated that they are dropping the emotional distress claim to focus on other charges in court.
'Once again, this is a routine part of the litigation process that is being used as a press stunt. We are doing what trial lawyers do: preparing our case for trial by streamlining and focusing it; they are doing what they do: desperately seeking another tired round of tabloid coverage,' they said, according to TMZ.
Lively's team stated that Lively still 'alleged emotional distress, as part of numerous other claims in her lawsuit, such as sexual harassment and retaliation, and massive additional compensatory damages on all of her claims.'