Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds Push for Dismissal of Justin Baldoni’s $400M Defamation Lawsuit

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds seek to move to toss Justin Baldoni’s 400 million USD defamation lawsuit. Find the details inside.

Written by Ipshita Chakraborty , Entertainment Journalist

Updated on Jan 31, 2025 | 02:46 PM IST | 9.7K

CC: Getty Images

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds want to have Justin Baldoni’s 400 million USD defamation lawsuit thrown out, as the intense legal tensions between the It Ends With Us co-stars heat up.

The couple, in an indication of a likely dismissal, has formally signaled their intention to dismiss the lawsuit ahead of a crucial hearing early next week. As per Deadline, their attorney, Michael Gottlieb, sent a letter on Thursday to Judge Lewis Liman stating this intention.

Baldoni filed his lawsuit on January 16, accusing Lively, Reynolds, and their PR chief, Leslie Sloane, of defamation and extortion. This is part of a larger row, as it also involves the 250 million USD lawsuit Baldoni filed against The New York Times for a defamatory article.

Lively has a complaint separate from that one against him, filed with the court and against Baldoni, his production company Wayfarer Studios, and several of his key associates. The accusation against him: sexual harassment and retaliation. Allegations, submitted on December 20 to California's Civil Rights Department, add fuel to months of speculation over internal conflicts in the film.

As the legal war progresses in the courtroom as well as in the media, Judge Liman has advanced a pretrial conference that was scheduled to take place on February 12 to February 3. In another related development, Lively and Reynolds's lawyers have filed a motion to restrain public commentary by Bryan Freedman, attorney for Baldoni, stating that these could be used as external comments that might inform the hearing.

Freedman told Deadline, "All these motions to dismiss are just yet another attempt by Ms. Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Leslie Sloan to hide and delay the discovery of the hundreds of pages of true facts and well-documented information that we remain dedicated to providing publicly, with full transparency. We expect such motions to be denied and, in the meantime, stand ready to oppose each and every one of them."

Freedman, who recently discussed the case on major media platforms, rejected Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds' motion to dismiss the case as a tactic to delay and suppress evidence. He said that his team continues to work toward making all pertinent information public.