Justin Baldoni Breaks Silence Amid $400 Million Blake Lively Lawsuit
Justin Baldoni has broken his silence amid his ongoing legal battle with Blake Lively and said he was leaning on ‘amazing friends and family’ during the drama.
Justin Baldoni has broken his silence amid his ongoing legal battle with his It Ends With Us costar Blake Lively.
The Five Feet Apart director, 40, said he was leaning on his “faith,” along with his “amazing friends and family,” in a quick interview with TMZ published on Friday, January 17. In the video, Baldoni was walking through LAX with his wife, Emily Baldoni, and one of their children.
The clip comes on the heels of Baldoni filing his own lawsuit in response to the one Lively, 37, filed in December 2024. The former Gossip Girl star accused Baldoni of acting inappropriately on the set of their film, It Ends With Us. She alleged that his behavior eventually warranted an all hands staff meeting where he was given strict conditions regarding his actions.
In the lawsuit, Lively claimed that after the meeting, Baldoni was prohibited from showing her nude photos of women, inquiring about her weight and discussing his genitalia. The Jane the Virgin alum was also banned from “adding sex scenes, oral sex or on camera climaxing by BL outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project.” Lively also accused Baldoni of orchestrating a “smear campaign” in an effort to taint her public image.
Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, fired back at the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants actress’ claims, calling them “false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.” Freedman also discussed Lively’s lawsuit and said that he planned to “sue [Lively] into oblivion” during a January 7 appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show.
“Wait ‘til you see this lawsuit,” Freedman said. “It’s all going to be based on evidence, and it’s not going to be just a lawsuit. It’s going to be the kind of lawsuit that is full of evidence, admissions and documents that prove exactly what she did and how she bullied her way through the process to take over the movie and used her PR people to try and destroy Justin.”
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On Wednesday, January 16, Baldoni and Freedman followed through with their promises and filed a lawsuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and publicist Leslie Sloane. In the 179 page document viewed by In Touch, Baldoni accused Lively of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.
Suspicions of a feud brewing between Lively and Baldoni began after Baldoni was missing from several of the photos taken of the cast at the premiere of It Ends With Us. Baldoni claimed in his lawsuit that Lively attempted to prevent him from attending the premiere.
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“Long story short, but [Blake and I] won’t be in the same room. I was asked to not even attend the premiere,” a screenshot of a text message Baldoni allegedly sent an editor.
The lawsuit added that “Wayfarer persuaded Lively to ‘permit’ Baldoni and the Wayfarer team, along with their friends and family, to attend — though only under demeaning and humiliating conditions.” Baldoni alleged that Lively banned him from attending the afterparty with the rest of the cast and crew and instead was “relegated to a separate theater to view the Film, required to arrive at a different time than the rest of the cast and instructed to leave the red carpet immediately once Lively arrived.”
A representative for Lively released a statement regarding Baldoni’s lawsuit to In Touch on Friday, January 17.
“The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail,” the spokesperson said.