Blake Lively's Legal Team Speaks Out As Judge Dismisses Justin Baldoni's Lawsuit Against Her
A judge has thrown out Justin Baldoni's defamation lawsuit against his former co-star Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds.
Last year, Baldoni and Lively appeared in the big-screen adaptation of the novel It Ends With Us, on which he also served as director.
Around the time of the film's release, rumours began to crop up suggesting there had been some behind-the-scenes drama on the set of the film, when it was spotted that none of the cast was following Baldoni back on Instagram.
The film's leads also seemingly avoided one another at the premiere, and did no joint interviews together while promoting the movie.
Months later, Lively filed a legal complaint against Baldoni and his production company, accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of their film, and a subsequent effort to deliberately 'destroy' her reputation.
Baldoni then retaliated with a lawsuit of his own, accusing Lively, her husband and her publicist of defamation and extortion.
He also claimed in a defamation suit that the New York Times had falsely reported that he had created a smear campaign against Lively.
On Monday evening, court documents obtained by HuffPost revealed that a judge had dismissed Baldoni's lawsuit, arguing that Lively had relied on 'legally permissible hard bargaining or renegotiation of working conditions' rather than extortion.
The judge also said that Lively's statements accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment are not considered defamation because they were made in a California Civil Rights Department complaint.
Lively's legal team said in a statement: '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, including Ryan Reynolds, Leslie 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. 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.'
Baldoni's team previously made an attempt to subpoena Lively's friend Taylor Swift as part of the court case, though this was eventually withdrawn.
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