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Blake Lively vs Justin Baldoni: It Ends With Us Director Refuses to Let Actress' Publisist Leslie Sloane Exit Case; Find Out Why
Baldoni’s legal team claims Sloane played a key role in a conspiracy to harm him and his studio, arguing she should remain in the case.
Blake Lively’s longtime publicist, Leslie Sloane, is seeking to remove herself from the high-profile legal battle between the It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni and his former co-star. However, Baldoni and his legal team strongly oppose her exit, arguing that Sloane played an “active and integral role” in what they describe as a conspiracy against them. This latest development adds another layer of complexity to an already contentious dispute involving Hollywood power players, defamation claims, and allegations of a coordinated smear campaign.
Baldoni, along with his production company Wayfarer Studios and PR team, filed a motion on March 6 opposing Sloane’s request to be dismissed from the case. According to the filing, Sloane’s firm, Vision PR, allegedly worked alongside Lively and other parties, including Ryan Reynolds and The New York Times, to damage Baldoni’s reputation. The document claims that Sloane’s team “dropped breadcrumbs” and leaked false accusations to the press to deflect blame from Lively’s own public relations troubles.
At the heart of the controversy is an article published by The New York Times on December 21, which detailed Lively’s allegations of sexual harassment and a smear campaign orchestrated against her. Baldoni’s camp has since filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the newspaper, claiming that the piece was part of a broader attempt to destroy his career and discredit his film.
Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios have also launched a separate $400 million lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds, and Sloane for defamation and extortion. In response, Sloane’s legal team has dismissed Baldoni’s claims as “bizarre and abusive,” arguing that he has provided no direct evidence of wrongdoing on Sloane’s part.
Meanwhile, Lively maintains that she was the target of a calculated online attack led by Baldoni’s PR representatives, allegedly intended to suppress negative press surrounding the director. While Baldoni’s team denies orchestrating such a campaign, leaked messages suggest that PR strategies against Lively were at least discussed—though one former team member stated they never needed to act because “the internet was doing the work for us.”
With the case set for trial in March 2026, tensions continue to rise between the two camps. While Judge Lewis J. Liman has yet to rule on the motions for Sloane and The New York Times to be dismissed from the case, this legal feud shows no signs of slowing down. As Lively walked the red carpet at SXSW for her latest film, Another Simple Favor, she remained silent on the ongoing dispute—leaving the court battle to unfold in the headlines rather than on the Hollywood stage.
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