Blake Lively has launched another legal action against her co-star Justin Baldoni, citing ‘severe and serious emotional distress’.
In a legal filing from December, Lively accused her It Ends With Us co-star Baldoni of sexual harassment and orchestrating a ‘social manipulation’ campaign against her. The Gossip Girl actress alleged that Baldoni attempted to introduce ‘improvised gratuitous sexual content and/or scenes involving nudity into the film’ and made remarks about her appearance, even allegedly crying in her dressing room because she didn’t look ‘hot’.
After these allegations surfaced, Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, responded, labeling the claims as ‘categorically false’.
Freedman further addressed speculation that Baldoni might file a countersuit, suggesting it would ‘shock everyone who has been manipulated into believing a demonstrably false narrative’.
As we step into 2025, Lively has initiated another lawsuit, this time seeking ‘punitive’ and ‘compensatory’ damages for the emotional distress she claims to have suffered due to the defendants.
The new legal complaint was filed on December 31, with Lively alleging that Baldoni, along with his publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis PR expert Melissa Nathan, conspired to tarnish her reputation. Wayfarer Studios, co-owned by Baldoni, is also named in the lawsuit.
Lively’s legal team conveyed to The Daily Mail: “Earlier today, Ms. Lively filed a federal complaint against Wayfarer Studios and others in the Southern District of New York.
“Ms. Lively had previously filed a California Civil Rights Department Complaint in response to the retaliatory campaign Wayfarer launched against her for raising concerns about sexual harassment and workplace safety. Unfortunately, Ms. Lively’s advocacy has led to further retaliation and attacks.
“As highlighted in Ms. Lively’s federal Complaint, Wayfarer and its associates have breached federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety issues. The defendants will now have to respond to their actions in federal court.
“Ms. Lively has initiated this litigation in New York, where many of the pertinent events mentioned in the Complaint occurred, though we maintain the right to seek further legal action in other jurisdictions as allowed by law.”
Baldoni, in turn, has filed his own lawsuit against The New York Times for libel and false light invasion of privacy.
He is among ten plaintiffs in a $250 million lawsuit against the publication, alleging that The New York Times ‘cherry-picked’ and ‘altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead’.
Freedman told Variety that the publication had ‘cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting of the revered publication by using doctored and manipulated texts and intentionally omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative’.
In contrast, a New York Times spokesperson stated: “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.
“To date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the other subjects of the article and their representatives have not pointed to a single error. We published their full statement in response to the allegations in the article as well.
“We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”