Justin Baldoni has hit back at Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds‘ legal action by slapping them with a $400 million USD ($643 million AUD) lawsuit. The It Ends With Us saga never really ends, does it?
Baldoni’s legal team filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on Friday (local time) on behalf of Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath and publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan. The 179-page legal complaint accuses Lively, Reynolds and their publicist Leslie Sloane of defamation, civil extortion and invasion of privacy.
Not only does it absolutely slam the famous couple, but the suit seemingly mentions Taylor Swift.
“This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media,” Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman said in a statement.
“It is clear based on our own all-out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real-time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret. Blake Lively was either severely misled by her team or intentionally and knowingly misrepresented the truth.”
Freedman alleges that Lively was the one who “attempted to bulldoze reputations and livelihoods” through her “own dangerous manipulation of the media”.
“We know the truth, and now the public does too,” Freedman continued.
“Justin and his team have nothing to hide, documents do not lie.”
Where does Taylor Swift fit into Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit?
To be super-duper clear, Taylor Swift is not being sued by Balsdoni. However, she is seemingly mentioned on pages 21 to 25 of the lawsuit. According to Baldoni’s legal team, Lively allegedly asked to “take a pass” at rewriting the now-infamous rooftop scene during pre-production.
The docs claim that Lively was “stung” when Baldoni expressed “mild resistance” to her changes.
“Was working on the rooftop scene today, I really love what you did. It really does help a lot,” Baldoni wrote.
“Makes it so much more fun and interesting (And I would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor)😉 You really are a great talent across the board. Really excited and grateful to do this together.”
In response, Lively admitted it “didn’t feel great for me” when Baldoni had praised her passion “instead of a specific contribution” and referenced sending the pages to Reynolds along with an unnamed mega-celebrity.
“As for [redacted] and Ryan, I’m the luckiest motherfucker on the planet to have them as my Dance Moms level stage mums. They are embarrassingly effusive,” Lively wrote, as per the lawsuit, describing them as the people she goes to for all creative decisions.
“Both Ryan and [redacted] have established themselves as absolute titans as writers and storytellers outside of their primary gig — just singing or just acting or just directing. I am so lucky ot have them as creative barrometres,” the message continued.
“If you ever get around to watching Game Of Thrones, you’ll appreciate that I’m Kahleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually for the better. Because my dragons protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you.”
Although Lively didn’t specifically mention Taylor Swift, Baldoni’s texts did refer to someone called Taylor and Lively’s responses referred to a “singer”.
Lively’s relationship with the Eras Tour megastar has been well documented. She’s even been named as the godmother to one of Lively and Reynold’s children. Plus, her track “My Tears Ricochet” was featured in the film’s trailer.
Baldoni’s lawsuit comes just under a month after Lively filed her own legal complaint on December 20, 2024. Lively alleged that Baldoni acted inappropriately on the set of It Ends With Us, causing her “grief, fear, trauma and extreme anxiety”. Her lawsuit also accuses Baldoni of sexual harassment and claimed that Baldoni, Heath, Abel and Nathan created a smear campaign to hurt her reputation.
The lawsuit was accompanied by a report by The New York Times, which Baldoni previously filed a defamation lawsuit against, accusing the publication of taking messages out of context to paint him in a negative light.
So, in short, it really doesn’t end with them. In fact, the legal drama surrounding the two leads just keeps going and going.
