Justin Baldoni has launched a website containing documents and text messages linked to his legal dispute with Blake Lively, his It End With Us co-star, just days before the case’s first court hearing.
In December, Lively sued Baldoni, who also directed the film, for sexual harassment and causing her “severe emotional distress”. Baldoni, who has denied the accusations, was subsequently dropped by his agency after the allegations emerged.
Earlier this month, Baldoni sued Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds for $400m (£321m) for attempting to “destroy” his reputation and career.
The website, published Saturday (1 February), called Lawsuit Info, so far contains two documents which have already been filed in court. The first is Baldoni’s $400m counter lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds. The second is a “timeline of relevant events” related to the feud and the production of the movie.
In documents, Baldoni’s team claims that the New York Times had access to Lively’s civil rights complaint, 11 days before publishing their lengthy report on Balodoni’s alleged smear campaign on 21 December. His team also claims that the metadata in the piece shows that they were working on the story as early as 31 December. Variety reports that the Times has disputed “inaccuracies” in the complaint.
In a statement given to the Daily Mail, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman said: “The decision to amend our lawsuit was a logical next step due to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light.”
“This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along, that due to purely egotistical reasons Ms. Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through a complex web of lies, false accusations and the manipulation of illicitly received communications,” Freedman added.
“The ongoing public interest in this case online has ironically shed light on the undeniable facts pertaining to The New York Times and how heavily Ms Lively and her representatives were not only deeply involved in the attempted take down and smear campaign of Mr Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and their teams but that they themselves initiated it.”
In response, a spokesperson for the New York Times said: “The Baldoni/Wayfarer legal filings are rife with inaccuracies about The New York Times, including, for example, the bogus claim that The Times had early access to Ms. Lively’s state civil rights complaint,” a Times’ spokesperson said in a statement. “Mr. Baldoni’s lawyers base their erroneous claim on postings by amateur internet sleuths, who, not surprisingly, are wrong. The sleuths have noted that a version of the Lively state complaint published by The Times carries the date ‘December 10’ even though the complaint wasn’t filed until more than a week later. The problem: that date is generated by Google software and is unrelated to the date when The Times received it and posted it.”
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Try for free
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Try for free
Earlier this week, Lively and Reynolds reportedly asked a judge to dismiss Baldoni’s lawsuit against them. The couple’s attorneys filed a notice on Thursday stating that they will seek to dismiss Baldoni’s lawsuit. This is in compliance with Judge Lewis Liman’s order, which outlined how the case will proceed.
On Thursday (30 January), Baldoni’s team said that they are eager to take Lively’s deposition as soon as possible but claimed that her representatives have indicated that they don’t want his lawyer, Bryan Freedman, to do the deposition due to “unspecified statements made by Mr Freedman”.
The judge said earlier this week that he’ll likely combine the lawsuits for trial.
CNN reports that neither Baldoni nor Lively are expected to be present for Monday’s hearing. A trial date for the dispute has been set for March 2026.
