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Blake Lively vs Justin Baldoni: Why It Ends With Us Director's Defamation Case Can't Be Scrapped? Lawyers Reveal
Justin Baldoni’s lawyers claim Blake Lively cannot attempt to throw out the director’s defamation suit. Find out new developments in the legal battle.
Justin Baldoni’s lawyers are now stating that Blake Lively cannot throw out his defamation suit. In their argument on Thursday, April 3, the attorneys stated that Lively’s attempt to invoke a California law meant to protect harassment victims doesn’t apply to her case, as the actress had “fabricated” claims.
For those unversed, Justin Baldoni filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, in January, claiming that the couple was aiming to destroy his career and hijack his movie It Ends with Us with false allegations of harassment.
In an attempt to dismiss the suit, Blake Lively’s attorneys argued that her allegations are protected by litigation privilege. They also cited the Protecting Survivors from Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act, a 2023 law that protects harassment accusers from retaliatory defamation suits, granting defendants immunity from such lawsuits and allowing them to claim attorneys’ fees and damages.
In response, Baldoni’s team argued that the protection only applies to harassment claims with a “reasonable basis” that are made “without malice.” “Lively fabricated her allegations of sexual harassment—either wholesale or by exaggerating benign (and not harassing) interactions—in a concerted, malicious effort to seize control of the film and later to restore her reputation after a well-publicized series of marketing missteps that sullied her image,” Baldoni’s attorneys stated.
The lead lawyer on Justin Baldoni’s team, Bryan Freedman, also stated that Blake Lively’s legal team was attempting to set a “dangerous precedent” by using the law to undermine Baldoni’s First Amendment right to sue.
Meanwhile, Baldoni’s team also argued that litigation privilege does not apply in this case, as The Shallows actress had made her allegations prior to filing a civil rights complaint.
The team further cited a 2022 Forbes Power Women’s Summit interview with Lively, arguing that it supports their claim that the actress attempted to seize creative control over the film.
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