LAmerican actor, Justin Baldoni, filed a defamation lawsuit against Hollywood stars Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds on Thursday, accusing them of attempting to destroy his career by falsely accusing him of sexual harassment toward Lively and retaliating against him with a smear campaign.
This legal action marks the latest development in a feud related to the 2024 film It Ends With Us, in which Lively starred and Baldoni both starred in and directed.
The 179-page lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Alongside Lively and Reynolds, the lawsuit also named their publicist Leslie Sloane and her company, Vision PR, as defendants.
Baldoni, along with the film’s lead producer, Jamey Heath, their production company Wayfarer Studios, and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, are seeking $400 million in damages.
Lively’s legal team responded on Thursday, stating, “The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”
The allegations stem from an article published by The New York Times on December 21, which covered Lively’s claims of sexual harassment against Baldoni during the filming of It Ends With Us.
She had filed a complaint the day before with the California Civil Rights Department.
The report cited private text messages and emails obtained by Lively through a subpoena, which were included in her complaint.
The complaint suggested that Baldoni and his business partner, Heath, worked with a crisis public relations expert to damage Lively’s reputation after she accused him of misconduct, fearing the allegations would go public. In response, Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni and others on December 31 in federal court in New York.
On the same day, Baldoni filed a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times in Los Angeles, alleging the newspaper relied on Lively’s “unverified and self-serving narrative.” He reiterated similar claims in the lawsuit filed on Thursday.
The New York Times responded, expressing intent to vigorously defend itself against Baldoni’s claims.
A spokeswoman for the newspaper, Danielle Rhoades Ha, issued a statement on Thursday saying, “The allegations against The New York Times in this new lawsuit are meritless and recycled from the equally baseless claims in the suit that was filed against The Times in California.”
In his countersuit against Lively, Baldoni accused the actress of hijacking “every aspect” of the film and later blaming him when her public reputation suffered during its promotional campaign.
He further claimed she tried to portray him as “the real-life villain in her story” and colluded with The Times to create a false and damaging narrative.
“This is a case about two of the most powerful stars in the world deploying their enormous power to steal an entire film right out of the hands of its director and production studio,” the lawsuit states. “Then, when Lively and Reynolds’s efforts failed to win them the acclaim they believed they so richly deserved, they turned their fury on their chosen scapegoat.”
Baldoni denied the allegations of sexual harassment and a smear campaign against Lively, asserting that he was the true victim of such efforts.
