Blake Lively is asking a federal judge to reject Justin Baldoni’s $400 million defamation lawsuit against her, calling it both illegal and an “epic self-own” that places Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios partners on the hook for a massive damages payout to the It Ends With Us actress.
“The Wayfarer parties’ vengeful and rambling lawsuit against Blake Lively is a profound abuse of the legal process that has no place in federal court. The law prohibits weaponizing defamation lawsuits, like this one, to retaliate against individuals who have filed legal claims or have publicly spoken out about sexual harassment and retaliation,” Lively’s new dismissal motion filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court states.
Lively’s new motion cites a relatively new California law that protects alleged survivors of sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination from retaliatory defamation lawsuits. The statute, signed into law in 2023, applies in the Baldoni matter because he cited California law when he filed his claim, Lively’s lawyers argue. They also point out that the law includes a “mandatory fee shifting provision” that would require Baldoni and his Wayfarer partners to pay not only Lively’s attorneys’ fees and but also triple damages and punitive damages is she succeeds in getting the lawsuit tossed out.
“In other words, in an epic self-own, the Wayfarer parties have created more liability for themselves by their malicious efforts to sue Ms. Lively ‘into oblivion,’” the new motion states.
Lively, 37, previously sued Baldoni, his producing partners on It Ends With Us, and his publicists on Dec. 31, 2024. In her blockbuster complaint, Lively said she suffered “disturbing” sexual harassment during production of the movie and was later subjected to a vicious smear campaign designed to “silence” her.
Baldoni, 41, responded by suing Lively as well as her superstar husband, Ryan Reynolds, with claims he was the one subjected to false allegations aimed at destroying his career. He claimed Lively used “falsified stories” to “take control” of It Ends With Us, which Baldoni co-starred in as well as directed. He claimed Lively and Reynolds later turned him into a “scapegoat” after Lively faced a “self-inflicted press catastrophe” when the movie premiered in August 2024. (Lawyers for Baldoni and his partners did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.)
Reynolds filed his own separate motion to dismiss the defamation claim on Tuesday, arguing that Baldoni shouldn’t be allowed to sue over “hurt feelings.” “Mr. Reynolds has a First Amendment right to hold Mr. Baldoni — or any man who Mr. Reynolds believes sexually harassed his wife — in ‘deep disdain,’” the actor’s filing read.
Lively’s battle with Baldoni spilled into the public court system a week after The New York Times published a Dec. 21 story titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” that revealed Lively had filed a precursor complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department.
In a statement issued Thursday, Lively’s lawyers Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson said Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit was both “meritless and retaliatory” and would come back to haunt him and his partners, including Wayfarer’s billionaire co-founder Steve Sarowitz. (In the motion to dismiss, they claimed Sarowitz previously made a threat to essentially write a blank check for legal action against Lively. “Steve Sarowitz may indeed make good on his threat to spend ‘$100 million’ litigating against Ms. Lively, but perhaps not in the way he planned,” they wrote.)
“California law now expressly prohibits suing victims who make the decision to speak out against sexual harassment or retaliation, whether in a lawsuit or in the press,” the lawyers said. By suing Lively for defamation, Baldoni and his partners “only created more liability” for themselves, “and deservedly so, given what they have done,” the lawyers claimed.
“While Ms. Lively has suffered greatly by speaking up and pursuing legal claims, it is important for other people to know that they have protections, and that there is a specific law that expressly protects them from being silenced or financially ruined by a defamation lawsuit because they had the courage to speak up,” Lively’s spokesperson said in a separate statement Thursday.
From Rolling Stone US
