Latest In Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively Feud: Judge Tosses Baldoni's $400 Million Lawsuit

Forbes

3 hours ago

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a pair of lawsuits in which 'It Ends With Us' director and actor Justin Baldoni accused The New York Times of working with co-star Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds in a smear campaign against him, after Lively alleged Baldoni sexually harassed her on set. (Here are in-depth explanations for Lively's claims and Baldoni's claims.)
Baldoni accused Lively and others of conspiring in a smear campaign against him.
June 9, 2025Judge Lewis Liman dismissed Baldoni's $400 million lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds and his $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times, after Baldoni alleged they each conspired in a 'vitriolic smear campaign' to end his career—Lively's attorneys Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb celebrated Liman's ruling as a 'total victory and a complete vindication.'
Liman ruled Baldoni did not allege Lively was responsible for comments made outside of her civil suit against him, which are 'privileged,' while Reynolds, Lively's publicist Leslie Sloan and the Times published or made other statements about Baldoni they believed were true 'based on the information available to them.'
June 4, 2025In a new amicus curiae brief, 14 women's rights groups, including the National Organization for Women and its New York City chapter, the National Network to End Domestic Violence and the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, supported Lively's claims of sexual harassment against Baldoni while accusing him of using the 'DARVO' tactic—deny, attack, reverse victim and offender—to smear and silence Lively.
Lively's legal team has portrayed Baldoni—who has advocated for women throughout has career, including in a viral Ted Talk in 2017—as turning his back on his feminist beliefs: 'Baldoni is now contradicting years of his own public persona,' Lively's legal team told Forbes in a statement, citing Baldoni's legal team's attempt to challenge the amicus briefs.
June 2, 2025Baldoni's lawyers said in a legal filing Lively's counsel informed them she has requested to withdraw her claim of emotional distress made in her lawsuit against Baldoni, which his lawyers say was done after his legal team requested she provide medical and mental health records to demonstrate the distress she says she suffered.
Baldoni's lawyers also said in their letter to the judge they oppose Lively's request to withdraw her emotional distress claim without prejudice, which means she can refile the claim at a later time, though Lively's lawyers dismissed Baldoni's legal team's letter as a 'a press stunt' and that they are 'streamlining and focusing' Lively's case.
June 2, 2025Lively's legal team accused Baldoni and his lawyers of trying to 'prevent women's rights groups from being heard' in a statement to Forbes, alleging they are trying to 'shred a law designed to protect all victims just to make sure they 'bury' one,' referring to the #MeToo law Lively invoked.
June 1, 2025Thomas Canestraro, who acted as Baldoni's stunt double in 'It Ends With Us,' spoke with the Daily Mail, stating the set was 'tense' and filming took longer than expected, adding Lively was more 'closed off' on set than when he previously worked with her on the 2018 film, 'A Simple Favor.'
May 29, 2025Baldoni and his lawyers sent a letter asking the judge to dismiss amicus briefs filed by women's groups, alleging they are 'irrelevant' to Lively's motion to dismiss Baldoni's lawsuit, while accusing Lively's legal team of using the briefs as a 'vehicle to renew [Liively's] public attacks' against Baldoni and as more of a 'publicity stunt for Lively than a useful aid for the Court at the pleading stage.'
May 27, 2025San Francisco-based Equal Rights Advocates and former government employee and sexual harassment survivor Elyse Dorsey filed amicus briefs supporting Lively's invocation of a new California law that is meant to protect sexual assault and harassment survivors from defamation lawsuits, commonly known as the #MeToo law after the Hollywood anti-sexual harassment movement.
May 22, 2025Baldoni's lawyers withdrew the subpoena, Variety and Deadline reported, after previously requesting texts between Swift and Lively, which they argued would show that Lively attempted to extort Swift for a public show of support amid her legal battle, though Lively's legal team denied this (Forbes has reached out to representatives for both Lively and Baldoni's legal teams for comment, though Lively's lawyers told Deadline they are 'pleased' the 'inappropriate subpoenas' were withdrawn).
May 9, 2025Taylor Swift was subpoenaed in Baldoni's lawsuit against Lively, which includes texts from Lively that appear to refer to Swift as 'one of her dragons,' though representatives for the billionaire singer argued she should not be involved in the dispute, telling Variety and NBC News that beyond the inclusion of her song 'My Tears Ricochet' in a 'It Ends With Us' trailer, Swift had no involvement in the making of the movie.
May 8, 2025Lively's legal team told multiple news outlets she plans to take the stand and testify once her trial begins: 'The ultimate moment for a plaintiff's story to be told is at trial. We expect that to be the case here. So we would, of course, expect her to be a witness at her trial. Of course she's going to testify,' Gottlieb told People (Forbes has reached out to Lively's legal team for comment).
May 1, 2025Lively gave her first televised interview since filing her lawsuit against Baldoni to promote 'Another Simple Favor' on Seth Meyers' late night show, in which she acknowledged she can't discuss much about her legal battle with Baldoni—whom she did not address by name—but stated she has faced the 'highest highs and the lowest lows of my life' over the past 'intense year,' adding she feels 'fortunate' she has been able to speak about her experience because many women are 'afraid to share their experiences' or do not have the opportunity to.
May 1, 2025'Another Simple Favor,' Lively's first film since 'It Ends With Us' and a sequel to the 2018 film 'A Simple Favor,' premiered on Amazon Prime Video and received mostly positive reviews from critics.
April 28, 2025Baldoni's lawyers submitted a letter to the court opposing Marvel's request to quash the subpoena, doubling down on their claim that ''Nicepool' is a defamatory and mocking portrayal of Baldoni' and that such a portrayal could establish malice for his defamation claim, while accusing Marvel's counsel of 'refusing to engage' with Baldoni's Wayfarer Studios to resolve the dispute.
April 25, 2025In response to Baldoni's allegation that a character in the 2024 Marvel film 'Deadpool & Wolverine,' Nicepool, was crafted by Ryan Reynolds as a caricature of Baldoni, Marvel Studios sent a letter to Liman asking the court to squash Baldoni's subpoena for relevant documents, stating the claims are irrelevant to Baldoni's claims of defamation and that releasing confidential Marvel documents would harm the studio.
April 24, 2025In an amended response to Jones' lawsuit against Baldoni, which she filed in December accusing him of defamation and breach of contract, Baldoni accused Jones of colluding with Lively to file a 'sham legal proceeding' in New York court in September under a company affiliated with Lively, Vanzan Inc., against unnamed defendants as a 'transparent ploy to obtain subpoena power' without Lively's name attached so the parties could obtain text messages—which were central to Lively's claims, and the basis for a New York Times story—sent among Baldoni's team.
In a statement to Deadline, Jones's lawyer Kristen Tahler accused Baldoni's team of 'presenting zero new evidence' and of conducting 'a desperate ploy by a team who tonight all but admits they're in trouble.'
April 24, 2025Lively attended the Time 100 Gala as an honoree, where she made a speech apparently alluding to her ongoing legal battle: 'I have so much to say about the last two years of my life, but tonight is not the forum," Lively said, in a speech in which she largely focused on abuse against women, a central theme of 'It Ends With Us,' and revealed her mother was a victim of abuse.
April 13, 2025'It Ends With Us' storyboard artist Talia Spencer defended Baldoni in an interview with '60 Minutes Australia,' stating she felt Lively 'smelled [Baldoni's] kindness, mistook it for weakness and tried to take advantage and take power,' alleging Lively 'tried to' take control of the film, resulting in a 'massive compromise' of Baldoni's vision for the movie.
April 8, 2025An actor who played a small role in 'It Ends With Us' as Lively's character's gynecologist pushed back against Lively's description of a birthing scene in her lawsuit as 'invasive and humiliating,' telling PageSix Lively wore a 'full hospital gown, black shorts and torso-covering prosthetic' and was not 'nearly nude' as she had claimed in her complaint.
March 20, 2025In a counterclaim to Jones' December lawsuit against Baldoni and Abel, Baldoni alleged Jones attempted to undermine Abel's authority as a PR representative for Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios production company, claiming she suddenly terminated Abel from her PR firm, seized her phone and leaked texts to Lively's team, which the lawsuit says was done in response to Abel voicing her intent to leave Jones' firm and Jones' fear she would take Baldoni as a client with her.
March 20, 2025In her motion to dismiss, Lively slammed Baldoni's 'vengeful and rambling lawsuit' as a 'profound abuse of the legal process,' urging the court to 'dismiss all claims against Ms. Lively with prejudice, deny leave to amend, and award Ms. Lively all relief sought,' including attorney's fees and damages for 'reputational and emotional harm.'
March 18, 2025Reynolds filed a motion to dismiss Baldoni's lawsuit, in which he is named as a co-defendant, alleging Baldoni's lawsuit does not prove Reynolds defamed him and is instead 'a list of grievances attempting to shame Mr. Reynolds for being the man Mr. Baldoni has built his brand pretending to be.'
March 7, 2025Lively attended the South by Southwest premiere of 'Another Simple Favor,' a sequel to the 2018 film 'A Simple Favor,' where she received a warm reception from the crowd and spoke primarily about her work on the film, though co-star Anna Kendrick dodged a question that appeared to allude to Lively's legal battle, and one protester held up a sign that said 'Justice for Justin Baldoni' outside the theater.
March 6, 2025At a hearing Thursday, Lively's attorneys argued certain information should be treated as highly classified 'attorney's eyes only' material, which lawyer Sigrid McCawley said would help minimize the risk of 'irreparable harm if marginal conversations with high profile individuals with no relevance to the case were to fall into wrong hands'—apparently suggesting messages between Lively and celebrity friends may leak. The judge did not rule on the request Thursday.
Though it's unclear which 'high profile individuals' McCawley was referring to, Baldoni's lawyer Bryan Freedman has previously suggested he could request Lively's friend Taylor Swift testify, after she appeared to be referred to in Baldoni's lawsuit.
March 5, 2025The Los Angeles Times published an investigative report on Baldoni's career, citing multiple unnamed employees at his Wayfarer Studios production company, some of whom said he injected 'toxic positivity' and his Bahai faith into the workplace culture in a way that felt 'professionally inappropriate.'
Representatives for Baldoni and Wayfarer told the Los Angeles Times there have 'never been any reported complaints regarding the workplace culture' and Wayfarer's work is rooted in 'various faiths and backgrounds.'
March 4, 2025Lewis Liman, a U.S. district judge, said the New York Times' motion to dismiss Justin Baldoni's $400 million case against the newspaper provided 'substantial grounds,' suggesting the lawsuit—in which Baldoni accused the Times of working with Lively's team to smear him—could be dismissed.
Feb. 28, 2025Shapiro, who formerly served as the CIA's deputy chief of staff between 2013 and 2015 before starting his own strategic consulting firm, will advise Lively's litigation team on legal communications relating to the lawsuit she filed against Baldoni in New York federal court.
Feb. 20, 2025Attorneys submitted a letter on behalf of Lively and Reynolds asking a new, more extensive protective order be imposed that would shield 'personal, sensitive or proprietary information' from the public after claiming they and their allies have been victimized since the legal battle began. The letter goes on to say that it is "inevitable" that the release of more discovery in the case will further violate their privacy, expose them to threats and create "a climate of possible witness intimidation."
Feb. 18, 2025Lawyers for Lively filed an amended complaint that included new accusations Baldoni's behavior made at least two additional, unnamed female cast members uncomfortable and that both of those women brought their complaints to Lively, who documented them in writing and reported them to higher-ups on the film (the complaint references Baldoni's 'unwelcome behavior' but does not specify exactly what he is accused of doing).
The suit claims Baldoni was made aware of at least one of the additional cast members' concerns and responded to her in writing at the time, promising "adjustments would be made'—but alleges he instead launched a PR campaign to discredit any future claims made against him.
Forbes reached out to Baldoni's attorney, Bryan Freedman, for comment on the new complaint Wednesday.
Feb. 13, 2025Baldoni and Lively's letter to the judge, filed in New York federal court on Thursday, said mediation or reaching a settlement would be 'inappropriate' and 'premature' for this case, suggesting their legal feud could eventually head to trial.
Feb. 12, 2025Hoover, who deactivated her Instagram account as the legal battle between Lively and Baldoni continued to play out, has wiped any photos with Lively or Baldoni from her account. Most posts related to the film at all have been deleted, including an post supporting Lively that went up shortly after she filed her initial lawsuit against Baldoni: "@blakelively, you have been nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient since the day we met. Thank you for being exactly the human that you are. Never change. Never wilt," she wrote.
During promotion for the 'It Ends With Us' film, Hoover appeared to take Lively's side when a clear rift emerged among the film's cast and crew. Lively refused to promote the movie alongside Baldoni and the pair were never interviewed or photographed together during its highly publicized press tour, Hoover and most of Lively's co-stars, including Jenny Slate, Brandon Sklenar and Isabela Ferrer, appeared at her side rather than Baldoni's. Hoover still follows Lively on Instagram, but does not follow Baldoni.
Feb. 11, 2025A three-year-old video interview of Blake Lively admitting to Forbes she's ruffled feathers in the film industry by attempting to have more 'authorship' over her projects has gone viral. In a resurfaced interview from the 2022 Forbes Power Women's Summit, Lively said just following direction as an actress "wasn't fulfilling for me" and that she's received backlash for stepping in and trying to be part of costume design, writing and other aspects of a project. She said she's had writers, producers and directors "welcome that and invite that," and others who resented her for stepping on toes. She also said she hasn't always upfront with her plans to step in to other parts of a project when she was hired as an actress, and that she 'wouldn't reveal that I actually need to have authorship in order to feel fulfilled... Sometimes that might have felt like a rug pull.'
Feb. 8, 2025Filmmaker Judd Apatow joked about "It Ends With Us" at the 77th Annual Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards Saturday night, calling it "such a terrible movie" and referencing the Baldoni-Lively lawsuits. "I loved Wicked. I saw it four times in the first four days," Apatow added. "It was the highest-grossing movie musical of all time. Do you know that? Usually to make that much money, you have to sue Blake Lively."
Feb. 7, 2025Comedian Chelsea Handler, who hosted the Critics' Choice Awards, also poked fun at the legal battle, which has played out dramatically in the media over the last six weeks. Handler thanked the pair for providing a "distraction" from heavier headlines: 'I want to personally extend my gratitude to Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively... I'm grateful. I think we're all grateful. And I think we're good. I think everybody in this room, no matter whose side you're on, we can all agree to accept that there's probably not going to be a sequel. It ends with us, guys."
Feb. 5, 2025Baldoni's lawyer suggested in an interview with TMZ he could call on Taylor Swift—a close friend of Blake Lively's who may have been alluded to in Baldoni's lawsuit against the actress—to testify once the case goes to trial. After TMZ's Harvey Levin asked about deposing Swift, Freedman didn't rule out the idea, calling it a 'game time decision' and adding he would seek testimony from anyone who may have relevant information (Freedman also said Swift was present alongside Baldoni, Lively and Ryan Reynolds at a meeting about Lively's proposed script edits to 'It Ends With Us' that is referenced in Baldoni's lawsuit, though the suit only refers to the alleged attendee as 'Taylor' with no last name).
Feb. 4, 2025Jed Wallace, owner of the crisis PR firm Street Relations, sued Lively in Texas federal court for defamation, alleging she falsely claimed in a civil rights complaint and her lawsuit that Wallace participated in an alleged smear campaign against the actress at the behest of Baldoni's public relations team, which he says caused him 'millions of dollars in reputational harm.'
Feb. 4, 2025'A Simple Favor 2,' Lively's latest film, will open at the SXSW Film and TV Festival next month, Director Paul Feig said, after rumors the film had been shelved, partially due to the Lively/Baldoni legal battle.
Feb. 3, 2025Liman told lawyers for Lively and Baldoni that he would move up the trial date, set for March 2026, if the case continued to be 'litigated in the press.' Liman ordered both sides to adhere to the New York Rules of Professional Conduct, which stops lawyers from making public comments that have a 'substantial likelihood' of tainting a jury, but stopped short of sanctioning Baldoni's attorney, Freedman, despite claims from Lively's team that he has gotten close to defaming her and has made 'extrajudicial statements' about her and her character.
Feb. 1, 2025Baldoni's team published a website dedicated to supporting his lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds that links to to an amended complaint filed on Jan. 31 and contains a timeline of events outlining what he says happened on the set of 'It Ends With Us,' including corresponding text messages, emails and a statement Baldoni has said he was pressured into releasing by Reynolds and Lively that would have seen him take the blame for the "troubled production" of the movie (he refused to put out the statement). In addition to the statement, Baldoni released a text message exchange with Lively that showed she chose not to meet with the on-set intimacy coordinator he hired, leaving him to relay uncomfortable information from the meeting on his own.
Jan. 30, 2025Lawyers for Lively and Reynolds said in a letter to Liman that they plan to move to dismiss the lawsuit filed against them at a pre-trial conference scheduled for Monday, Feb. 3.
Jan. 29, 2025The Hollywood Reporter cited unnamed sources in reporting Baldoni has "lost three jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars' since Lively first filed suit against him in December and that an in-the-works "Pac-Man" movie project he was set to direct is now in jeopardy.
Jan. 27, 2025Liman told Lively and Baldoni's lawyers to prepare for a March 9, 2026 trial date and set a pretrial conference to discuss, among other things, complaints from Lively's team about the conduct of Baldoni's lawyer. Lively's lawyers have claimed Freedman is trying to paint potential jurors by creating a website to release communication between the two actors and documents from set, and accused him of making an "endless stream of defamatory and extrajudicial media statements."
Jan. 27, 2025 The Daily Mail first published a nearly seven-minute voice note it says Baldoni sent to Lively at 2 a.m. during the filming of "It Ends With Us," in which he allegedly apologizes for not being open enough to script changes she made, admits he is a 'a very flawed man' and makes a reference to her breastfeeding her then-newborn child.
Jan. 21, 2025Baldoni's legal team countered Lively's claims that he acted inappropriately while filming a slow dancing scene for the film by releasing a 10-minute video from set that includes three takes of the same scene, which Baldoni's team says is the entirety of the footage shot for that scene, during which Lively alleged in a lawsuit Baldoni 'leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, 'it smells so good.'' The footage shows a similar interaction, where Baldoni is seen nuzzling Lively's neck, and she says, "I'm probably getting spray-tan on you," to which he responds, "It smells good." Lively's team says the footage fully corroborates her account, and 'any woman who has been inappropriately touched in the workplace will recognize Ms. Lively's discomfort.' Baldoni's lawyers said the footage proves both actors clearly behaved "well within the scope of the scene and with mutual respect and professionalism.'
Jan. 16, 2025Baldoni filed a federal lawsuit in New York against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, her publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane's firm Vision PR alleging his co-star "tormented" him, his family and his partners, falsely accused him of sexual harassment and used him as a "scapegoat" to dodge the negative press surrounding. He also pushed back on claims he sexually harassed her, instead claiming she "calculatingly devised" fake stories to destroy his reputation and livelihood, seized control of the film he was directing and set out to damage his career and Wayfarer Studios "if they did not bend to her incessant demands' (Here's more on Baldoni's lawsuit).
Jan. 10, 2025Deadline reported Baldoni's former publicist Stephanie Jones, who sued the actor and a handful of others for defamation and breach of contract in December, has issued subpoenas to WhatsApp, Signal, website hosts Hostinger and Name Cheap, digital publishing platform AnyFlip and chatbot company Gab AI in attempts to discover who may have been behind posts and websites aimed at harming Lively and Baldoni's reputations.
Jan. 10, 2025Feig, who directed Lively's upcoming film "A Simple Favor 2," responded to viral rumors the film had been shelved "indefinitely," partially due to the Lively/Baldoni legal battle, calling it "total BS" and confirming the film "is finished and coming out soon."
Jan. 8, 2025In an interview with Baldoni's attorney, Bryan Freedman, TMZ founder Harvey Levin said about the co-stars' competing accusations about online campaigns to damage one another's reputation: 'Both sides tried to skew this story. We've been on the recipient end of that ... It has happened on both sides in the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni war. Both sides.' Freedman responded by saying, 'That's good to know.' (In recent days, Freedman has denied Lively's allegations that she faced a smear campaign by Baldoni's PR team, claiming Lively's team was instead working to smear Baldoni.)
Jan. 7, 2025Freedman appeared on Megyn Kelly's YouTube show to discuss Baldoni's plans to sue Lively 'into oblivion' and pushed back on several of the actresses' allegations, accusing Lively of not reading the source material for the film, refuting claims she was sexually harassed and accusing her of orchestrating her own smear campaign against Baldoni. The interview also included newly released sound from a voice note from Baldoni explaining that he was "sent to the basement" of the film's premiere because Lively "didn't want me anywhere near her or the rest of the cast' (Here's more on what Freedman said on Kelly's show.)
Jan. 3, 2025Freedman told NBC's "Today" he "absolutely" plans to file suit against Lively after she alleged she was subjected to "sexually inappropriate behavior" by Baldoni on the set of their 2024 film, but wouldn't say exactly what the countersuit would allege, though denied Lively's claim that Baldoni and his team launched a smear campaign against the actress.
Jan. 2, 2025Glaser, the first solo female to ever host the Golden Globes, warned viwers in advance that she wouldn't be poking fun of Baldoni and Lively while on stage. 'I think the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni thing is such a hot-button thing right now that even a mere mention of it will seem like I could be on the wrong side of things, even though I would never be,' Glaser told Yahoo Entertainment. 'I also don't want to give (Baldoni's) name any — I'm mad I even know his name, to be honest with you, so I don't need to say it anymore.'
Dec. 31, 2024Baldoni filed a $250 million libel lawsuit against The New York Times for the paper's reporting on Lively's allegations, accusing the outlet of having "cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful 'untouchable' Hollywood elites"—Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds (on Jan. 31, Baldoni added defamation allegations against the Times to his sweeping lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds, and his attorney said he would drop the original suit against the paper).
Dec. 31, 2024Lively formally filed a lawsuit in New York federal court against Baldoni, his publicist, Wayfarer Studios and other defendants for "retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns."
Dec. 24, 2024Baldoni was sued by his ex-publicist, Stephanie Jones, over an alleged conspiracy to discredit her and steal her clients.
Dec. 24, 2024Vital Voices, a nonprofit that focuses on empowering women, rescinded an award it gave to Baldoni, who has made a career expressing his support of women's stories and co-hosted a podcast about masculinity called "Man Enough," which his co-host pulled out of the same day.
Dec. 21, 2024Baldoni was reportedly dropped by his talent agency.
Dec. 20, 2024Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department claiming Baldoni invaded her privacy by "entering her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed," pressured her to lose weight four months after giving birth and coordinated a PR campaign with a crisis firm "designed to 'destroy' Ms. Lively's reputation."
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The message, which was obtained by the Daily Mail and has since gone viral on TikTok, appears to be Baldoni apologizing for his reception to changes Lively proposed for a scene in "It Ends With Us." Baldoni says his reaction to the changes "fell short" and thanked her for telling him how she was feeling about his response, according to the newspaper. "I f***ed up, that is a fail on my part," he appears to say. "One thing you should know about me is that I am willing to apologize when I fail... I am a very flawed man, as my wife will attest." Baldoni then appears to talk for almost another five minutes, in which he says there is 'nothing more exciting to me' than working with Lively. The message does not specifically say which scene Baldoni is referring to but his lawsuit against Lively mentions tension over a rooftop scene in the film that Lively rewrote and presented to Baldoni as her own work before telling media outlets that her husband, Reynolds, actually wrote it.
Baldoni directed and co-starred with Lively in 'It Ends With Us,' the movie adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling book of the same name, which released last August. Rumors of a rift developing between Lively and Baldoni during post-production began to emerge around the movie's release, and were further fueled during the film's press tour when Lively appeared to avoid mention of Baldoni in interviews. Speculation emerged that there were disputes over creative control and sources told TMZ Baldoni had "fat-shamed" Lively by inquiring about her weight, telling an on-set trainer he wanted to avoid injury while lifting the actress in the movie. Baldoni and Lively were never photographed together while promoting 'It Ends With Us.' As rumors of a feud grew, Baldoni hired Melissa Nathan, a crisis PR manager who represented Johnny Depp in his defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard. According to texts published by The New York Times, Nathan suggested plans including 'full social take downs' by creating 'threads of theories' and planting pieces in the media of 'how horrible Blake is to work with.' Lively said the alleged smear campaign had caused 'severe emotional distress' for her and her family, prompting her to back out of hosting the 'Saturday Night Live' season 50 premiere.
Lively's initial complaint included excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails, which were the main focus of the Times article at the center of Baldoni's lawsuit. The text messages were largely between Baldoni, his publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis management expert Melissa Nathan, and were obtained through a civil subpoena, Lively's complaint said. A lawsuit filed by Baldoni's ex-publicist Stephanie Jones, the founder of the Jonesworks publicity firm, days later revealed she was the source of the text messages, which were obtained from Abel's work phone. In her own lawsuit against Baldoni, Jones claimed Abel was fired for conspiring to steal clients from her firm and Jones later had Abel's company-issued phone 'forensically preserved and examined in detail.' Lively's team then obtained the texts through a subpoena against Jonesworks. The texts show discussions on how to coordinate a social media campaign against Lively, and how Baldoni wanted to feel like Lively "can be buried' under negative media. The messages show the trio talking about the 'shift on social' against Lively, and reveal that Baldoni was aware of the negative messaging against her. Messages from Baldoni also show him encouraging the P.R. team, flagging social media posts for them to use and, in one case, suggesting 'flipping the narrative' on a positive story about Lively and Reynolds, according to The Times. In other messages, he reiterates that the campaign needs to be untraceable.
Around the time of the 'It Ends With Us' premiere, Lively was the subject of intense criticism online targeting how she promoted the film, the opportune release of her haircare line and other behaviors. In one promotional video, Lively encourages the audience to "grab your friends, wear your florals and head out to see (the movie)." Fans instantly criticized Lively's upbeat tone and claimed she was attempting to promote the movie as a lighthearted love story, cheapening the movie's serious take on domestic abuse. Comments on the video attacked Lively—"shame on you and your PR team for turning a blind eye," one said—but praised Baldoni for how he handled promotion. Lively was also criticized for seeming to promote her newly launched hair-care line, Blake Brown, off the back of the film, but it was later revealed that the two were never supposed to launch at the same time. Production delays caused by Hollywood strikes in 2023 pushed the premiere of 'It Ends With Us,' then coinciding with the predetermined launch date of the brand. At the same time, Lively was freshly criticized for her reaction to an interviewer in a resurfaced 2016 clip. Lively's lawsuits claim the public's attacks were part of the smear campaign she says was orchestrated against her.
A number of celebrities have come out to support Lively since she filed her initial complaint, including Hoover, Lively's 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' co-stars and actress Amber Heard, who claimed to be a victim of a similar social media takedown. Hoover, who The Times reported also refused to do press with Baldoni, posted to Instagram after Lively first made her allegations to call her "nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient." America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel and Amber Tamblyn, who starred alongside Lively in her 2005 breakout role in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," slammed the 'vindictive effort ensued to discredit her voice' and Heard said she has seen similar social media campaigns "firsthand and up close,' calling it "horrifying and destructive.' Actresses Kate Beckinsale and Abigail Breslin shared their own stories of harassment and retaliation in the wake of Lively's lawsuit, and director Paul Feig posted that Lively "did not deserve any of this smear campaign.' Lively's "It Ends with Us" costar Brandon Sklenar posted a link to the initial New York Times story and Jenny Slate, another co-star in the film, said she stands by her "loyal friend." Amy Schumer posted a story on Instagram that said, 'I believe Blake.' Political influencer Candace Owens posted in support of Baldoni after he was stripped of his Vital Voices award, writing that he should "have his day in court" before such drastic measures are taken.