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Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are headed to trial.
The former “This is Us” co-stars, who became embroiled in a scandal-turned-legal battle late last year, will take their disputes to the courtroom, a New York judge ordered Monday.
In the order, reviewed Tuesday by USA TODAY, Judge Lewis J. Liman set the trial date for March 9, 2026, and ordered both parties to submit case management plans.
Just one of several ongoing lawsuits between Baldoni, his production company Wayfarer Studios and Lively, the New York case is the result of Baldoni suing Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and others after the actress went public with claims Baldoni harrassed her and helped orchestrate a smear campaign against her.
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In the original complaint filed Jan. 16, lawyers for Baldoni and Wayfarer argued that Lively, not Baldoni, caused acrimony on the set, accusing the actress of using her star power to flip the narrative after the public turned on her during the press tour for the film.
“Had Lively chosen to merely ride out the self-inflicted press catastrophe she faced in August 2024, the public would likely have moved on and never known the truth about her,” the filing read. “They would have never known that she deliberately and systematically robbed” Baldoni and Wayfarer of their movie.”
The complaint goes on to allege that Lively fabricated the claims of sexual harassment, conspired with The New York Times to publish a damning article against Baldoni and used her celebrity status to “seize control” of the filmmaking process. The formal legal complaints include extortion, invasion of privacy and defamation. (Baldoni is also separately suing The New York Times for $250 million.)
Baldoni’s New York suit followed a claim made by Lively across the country in California with the state’s Civil Rights Department, which preceded the actress’s federal lawsuit. Lively alleged Baldoni sexually harassed her on set, added unwanted intimate scenes to the script, shared unsolicited information about his sex life and asking about hers, and entered her dressing room uninvited while she was breastfeeding.
Implicating not only Baldoni, but also the crisis PR firm he hired after the movie wrapped, Lively alleges the hatred she received online was not an organic phenomenon but rather a highly coordinated operation to boost negative sentiment around the actress and insulate Baldoni from potential claims of harassment.
The first string to catch, the complaint led to an unspooling of a long-suspected dispute between the co-stars.
Should the dispute make it to trial, it will no doubt enrapture a public already fascinated and highly opinionated about the feud.
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