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With the date set for her court hearing in 2026, Blake Lively is trying to get one of the many lawsuits scrapped with her ‘It Ends With Us’ co-star Justin Baldoni.
In the latest update on the legal drama between the warring co-stars, it has been revealed that Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, are set to officially move to have Baldoni’s $400 Million defamation lawsuit against them dismissed.
In a letter submitted on Thursday, attorney Michael Gottlieb, representing Lively and Reynolds, informed Judge Lewis Liman of their intent to seek dismissal of Baldoni’s suit. “The Lively-Reynolds Parties intend to move to dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint,” the letter stated, as reported by Deadline.Baldoni’s legal team, however, was quick to respond, saying “All these motions to dismiss are just yet another attempt by Ms. Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Leslie Sloan to hide and delay the discovery of the hundreds of pages of true facts and well-documented information that we remain dedicated to providing publicly, with full transparency,” Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, told Deadline.
He also reiterated his confidence that such motions would be denied.
The legal dispute began when Lively raised allegations of sexual harassment and claimed that director Baldoni along with others of the film’s producers started a ‘smear campaign’ against her. This prompted Baldoni to clap back with a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times. He then followed it up with a separate $400 million lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds, and their PR chief, Leslie Sloan, on January 16, citing defamation and extortion.
Speculation about tensions between the co-stars had been circulating for months, with the latest buzz indicating that Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds is the one to blame for the legal drama. Following Blake and Baldoni’s ‘flirty’ text messages being leaked online, many have now suspected that a ‘jealous’ Reynolds could have spearheaded the lawsuits and allegations.
With the legal battle playing out both in court and in the media, Judge Liman recently moved up a pretrial conference from February 12 to February 3.
Meanwhile, Lively and Reynolds’ legal team has also been pushing for a ‘gag order’ against Baldoni’s attorney to curb what they describe as ‘prejudicial statements’ made outside of court which could influence the jury.
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