A judge previously dismissed its defamation lawsuit against NYT\u00a0over the newspaper’s investigation into\u00a0Blake Lively\u2019s\u00a0sexual harassment and smear campaign allegations<\/p>\n
\n\tJustin Baldoni<\/a>\u2019s Wayfarer Studios was ordered to pay\u00a0The New York Times<\/a>\u00a0more than $171,000 in damages after a judge dismissed its defamation lawsuit against the publication\u00a0over its bombshell report on\u00a0Blake Lively\u2019s\u00a0<\/a>sexual harassment and smear campaign allegations related to\u00a0It Ends With Us.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re delighted by the court\u2019s decision,\u201d a spokesperson for The New York Times said in a statement. \u201cThe anti-SLAPP statute is designed to combat exactly these kinds of meritless suits brought to silence the press.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA rep for Wayfarer Studios did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n \n\tAccording to court documents reviewed by\u00a0Entertainment Weekly<\/a>, New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits awarded The New York Times $171,616.20 after granting summary judgment.<\/p>\n \n\tThe decision stems from Wayfarer Studios\u2019 lawsuit over The New York Times\u2019 December 2024 investigation<\/a>, which broke the news of Lively\u2019s original sexual harassment complaint against Baldoni.\u00a0The publication\u2019s\u00a0story was based on a pre-lawsuit<\/a>, California Civil Rights Department filing from Lively against the\u00a0It Ends With Us\u00a0director<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n \n\tIn response, Baldoni \u2014 and nine other plaintiffs, including publicists\u00a0Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel \u2014 sued the newspaper for libel and false light invasion of privacy, among other claims, over the article, and sought $250 million in damages. The\u00a0Times\u00a0story was based on a pre-lawsuit<\/a>, California Civil Rights Department filing from Lively against the\u00a0It Ends With Us\u00a0director<\/a>. The suit was ultimately dismissed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAfter defeating the defamation claims,\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0filed a lawsuit in New York\u00a0to recover more than $150,000 in legal fees from Wayfarer Studios, defending itself under the state\u2019s anti-SLAPP law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge previously dismissed its defamation lawsuit against NYT\u00a0over the newspaper’s investigation into\u00a0Blake Lively\u2019s\u00a0sexual harassment and smear campaign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[419,46107,9,11,10,5489],"class_list":["post-307419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-courts","tag-justin-baldoni","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}