After nearly a year of multiple lawsuits filed against one another, part of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s post-It Ends With Us legal battle has come to an end. Already bringing to life Colleen Hoover’s controversial novel, Baldoni and Lively’s work together on the 2024 box office hit became a point of scandalous discussion as rumors and reports swirled of their on-set conflicts and the director/producer’s minimal press tour involvement.
This would explode as Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni for making It Ends With Us‘ set a toxic workplace, and reports coming out alleging the director of hiring a PR team to damage her public image. This turned into a slew of lawsuits and complaints between the pair, including sexual harassment against Baldoni, defamation suits against both Lively and The New York Timesand subpoenas to have Taylor Swift and Perez Hilton, among others, speak on their involvement in the production.
As first reported by PEOPLEBaldoni’s $400 million defamation countersuit against Lively and Ryan Reynolds was ended by US District Court Judge Lewis Liman. The ruling ended up in favor of the latter after the It Ends With Us director and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, failed to file any further amended complaints before the deadline set by the judge after the case was dismissed in June.
In the lawsuit document, Lively was reportedly the only one to respond to the judge’s request to both parties to close the case completely. In addition to the director losing the legal battle, the judge agreed to Lively’s request for Baldoni to cover her legal feeswhich, as of the time of writing, the It Ends With Us the filmmaker has not exercised his right to appeal the judgment.
The 10 months since Lively filed her initial complaint against Baldoni has seen the filmmaker operating on the back foot in his various legal battles against his It Ends With Us co-star. In addition to the aforementioned dismissal of his defamation case against Lively, as she was protected by a California law regarding her harassment allegations, Baldoni’s $250 million suit against The New York Times was dismissedwhile also being dropped by his talent agency, WME, and alienated by various others.
Lively, who got vocal support from numerous major Hollywood players, including Hoover, some of her It Ends With Us cast and Sony, hasn’t been universally victorious thus far. The actor’s case against PR expert Jed Wallace, who she claims to have been part of the alleged smear campaign against her, was dismissed without prejudicenor the judge felt that the star did not provide definitive enough proof to sue Wallace.
With Lively’s primary suit against Baldoni set to go to trial in March 2026, her latest victory against the It Ends With Us filmmaker continues to be a more damaging blow for the latter’s career than the former’s. Lively already has multiple other projects in various stages of development, including the action romantic comedy The Survival Listreuniting her with Simple Favor franchise producers Lionsgate, all while Baldoni has no major ventures yet set.
- Release Date
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August 9, 2024
- Runtime
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130 Minutes
- Director
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Justin Baldoni
- Writers
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Christy Hall, Colleen Hoover
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