{"id":269305,"date":"2025-11-03T18:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T18:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/269305\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T18:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T18:25:08","slug":"justin-baldonis-400-million-blake-lively-countersuit-is-officially-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/269305\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Baldoni’s $400 million Blake Lively countersuit is officially dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

One half of the It Ends With Us legal battle<\/a> has reached its end.\n<\/p>\n

Justin Baldoni<\/a>‘s $400 million lawsuit against Blake Lively<\/a> and Ryan Reynolds<\/a> is officially dead after the actor declined to file an amended complaint. In a Friday ruling obtained by PEOPLE<\/a> and reviewed by Entertainment Weekly, U.S. District Court Judge Lewis J. Liman signed a new order formally dismissing the lawsuit, stating that Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios co-plaintiffs allowed the refile deadline to lapse after their case was dismissed in June.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

At the time, Liman threw out the claims of defamation, but allowed the plaintiffs the opportunity to amend and refile their claims against Lively for breach of implied covenant and tortious interference with contract. Liman stated that he subsequently contacted all parties on Oct. 17 to warn them that he would be entering a final judgment to conclude the case, but only received a response from Lively. The actress asked the judge to declare a final judgment but still allow her request for legal fees to remain active, which he granted,\u00a0with Baldoni having\u00a0the option to now file an appeal.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Representatives for Baldoni and Lively did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly’s request for comment.\n<\/p>\n

Justin Baldoni speaks onstage at the Vital Voices 12th Annual Voices of Solidarity Awards at IAC Building on Dec. 9, 2024 in New York City.<\/p>\n

Bryan Bedder\/Getty<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was Baldoni’s counterpunch<\/a> in the ongoing bitter legal battle, which began when Lively filed a complaint<\/a> with the California Civil Rights Department last December, accusing her costar and director of sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us and claiming that he orchestrated a smear campaign against her in the aftermath. She subsequently filed a lawsuit against Baldoni and Wayfarer in New York federal court.\n<\/p>\n

In response, Baldoni filed his $400 million lawsuit against her as well as her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloane, claiming civil extortion, defamation, breach of contract, and invasion of privacy. He also filed a $250 defamation suit against The New York Times, over the publication’s story<\/a> that first brought Lively’s allegations to light.\n<\/p>\n

In June, Judge Liman dismissed the entire lawsuit filed by Baldoni <\/a>and his Wayfarer Studios production company. Liman found that since Lively’s claims against Baldoni were first made in a complaint to the California Civil Rights Department (which was then reported on by The New York Times), the claims are covered by litigation privilege and not considered defamatory.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Liman also dismissed the claims of defamation made against Lively’s publicist, Reynolds, and the Times, stating that they did not defame Baldoni by relying on Lively’s account, as they had no reason to doubt her version of events.\n<\/p>\n

Lively’s attorneys Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb declared the June ruling a “total victory” for Lively and a “complete vindication” of her claims. “As we have said from day one, this ‘$400 million’ lawsuit was a sham, and the Court saw right through it,” they said in a statement provided to EW. “We look forward to the next round, which is seeking attorneys’ fees, treble damages and punitive damages against Baldoni, [Wayfarer co-founder Steve] Sarowitz, [publicist Melissa] Nathan, and the other Wayfarer Parties who perpetrated this abusive litigation.”\n<\/p>\n

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in ‘It Ends with Us’.<\/p>\n

Nicole Rivelli\/Sony Pictures Entertainment<\/p>\n

Lively herself celebrated the victory in an Instagram Stories post, opening up about the “pain” caused by the “retaliatory lawsuit” and writing that she is “more resolved than ever to continue to stand for every woman’s right to have a voice in protecting themselves, including their safety, their integrity, their dignity and their story.”\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, slammed Lively and her team for their “predictable declaration of victory,” which he stated was “false.”\n<\/p>\n

Freedman continued, “This case is about false accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation and a nonexistent smear campaign, which Ms. Lively\u2019s own team conveniently describes as ‘untraceable’ because they cannot prove what never happened.”\n<\/p>\n

Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni is set to go to trial in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One half of the It Ends With Us legal battle has reached its end. Justin Baldoni‘s $400 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-269305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}