{"id":640677,"date":"2026-06-15T23:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T23:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/640677\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T23:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T23:36:09","slug":"it-ends-with-us-post-mortem-blake-lively-gets-no-financial-payout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/640677\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It Ends With Us\u2019 Post-Mortem: Blake Lively Gets No Financial Payout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe aftermath of Blake Lively<\/a>\u2018s eleventh-hour deal to avert a headline-splashing trial years in the making over alleged sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us saw both sides jockeying for a legal and public relations edge.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaldoni\u2019s lawyers played up the absence of any monetary payout to Lively, who initiated the legal saga in 2024 when she accused the director and his production company Wayfarer of marshaling a plan to undermine her reputation in retaliation for speaking up about misconduct on the set of the movie.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the other side, Lively\u2019s lawyers celebrated an acknowledgement from Baldoni in the joint statement that the actress\u2019 claims \u201cdeserved to be heard.\u201d They also made a bold wager: Lively would soon see damages and the recovery of her legal costs by way of a California law intended to shield sexual harassment victims from retaliatory defamation claims. If not, the settlement would not involve any financial concession after years of legal wrangling and not-so-great headlines. Michael Gottlieb, Lively\u2019s lead lawyer, called the preservation of the claim a \u201ccore issue\u201d in an industry podcast after the deal was reached.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat gambit ended with a whimper on Friday when the court ordered Baldoni to pay Lively\u2019s legal fees but rejected her bid for damages. The decision ends her last chance at a payout in the case.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, Baldoni\u2019s lawyers are claiming victory.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAll Blake Lively needed to do was to say, \u2018No, I\u2019m not settling. Let\u2019s go to the trial and the jury of our peers, and let\u2019s see what we can get,’\u201d Bryan Freedman said on The Megyn Kelly Show, where he discussed the full agreement to settle the case, on Monday. \u201cIf it was so good, why do you settle a case exchanging no money? It doesn\u2019t make any sense. It doesn\u2019t pass the smell test.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the deal was announced last month, Freedman underplayed the significance of Lively\u2019s remaining claim and called it \u201cprocedural.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s pretty standard,\u201d Freedman added in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. \u201cBut when you want to parade around and call a loss a victory, this is your attempt to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, Lively\u2019s spokesperson turned to the same language over what it characterized as a \u201cprocedural\u201d decision.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dispute swung on a novel application of a state law barely tested in California in federal court. That law, the court said, \u201cdoes not create an end run around the entire set of carefully crafted federal procedural rules designed to protect the rights of the parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt instead establishes a narrow exception to the usual litigation process for a specific and limited kind of relief,\u201d wrote U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in the ruling. \u201cCompensatory and punitive damages do not fall within that exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the thinking of Gottlieb, Lively surrendered her chances at prevailing on her three remaining legal claims, which didn\u2019t include the core sexual harassment allegation after it was dismissed earlier in the case, to focus entirely on her assertion under the California law adopted to prevent the weaponization of defamation lawsuits. Lively\u2019s legal team lost that bet, or at least didn\u2019t win it outright (she got legal fees).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe didn\u2019t get the result that they hoped to get in this case,\u201d Freedman said of Gottlieb, estimating the litigation cost Lively roughly $30 million to $60 million. \u201cWhen you bring a case and you hope to prevail on that case, if you have the evidence to show that you\u2019re right, you go to trial, and so it was really easy for us to end up in a trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIf you ask either side, they\u2019d likely say the case was never primarily about money. For Lively, it was about accountability and exposing a smear machine that threatened her reputation. For Baldoni, it was about vindication.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile there will never be a definitive answer of who came out on top in the court of public opinion, it appears sentiment against Lively shifted as the litigation escalated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe reaction to Ms. Lively bringing this lawsuit was positive,\u201d Gottlieb said on The Town podcast last month. \u201cThat began to shift after the Wayfarer parties filed a defamation lawsuit and went on a press tour branding her a liar. That\u2019s why we focused on holding them accountable for bringing a frivolous lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe last remaining issue before the court is how much Baldoni should pay in legal fees. Still, nothing is stopping Lively from pursuing another lawsuit for damages over his allegedly retaliatory defamation claim, though Freedman is of the belief that it\u2019s now \u201ctime to move on.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The aftermath of Blake Lively\u2018s eleventh-hour deal to avert a headline-splashing trial years in the making over alleged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[17860,96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-640677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-blake-lively","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}