Justin Baldoni STOPS Ryan Reynolds From Exiting 400 Million USD Lawsuit Against Blake Lively: 'Based on His Direct Actions...'

Justin Baldoni and his legal team are challenging Ryan Reynolds’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit tied to an ongoing legal dispute involving Blake Lively.

According to court documents obtained by Us Weekly on Thursday, April 3, Baldoni's lawyers claimed Reynolds “pretends that the Wayfarer Parties’ First Amended Complaint (the ‘FAC’) fails to set forth any basis for his liability and that he merely acted as a supportive spouse. Not so.”

Justin Baldoni’s legal team stated the complaint clearly includes details of Reynolds’ direct involvement and alleged role as a 'co-conspirator.' They also argued that if the motion to dismiss is approved, Reynolds should not be entitled to recover attorneys’ fees.

A spokesperson for Ryan Reynolds responded to Baldoni’s filing, telling Us Weekly that the Wayfarer Parties’ opposition to Reynolds’ motion to dismiss only showed the weaknesses in their complaint.

According to the statement, they continued to claim defamation without clearly identifying who was defamed, what was specifically said, or how any actual harm occurred.

The spokesperson also addressed Reynolds’ role in the matter, saying that unlike Baldoni, who, they claimed, built his brand on the idea of being a man who listens to women, Reynolds truly lives by those values and would continue to support his wife.

Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, defended their right to move forward with the case, pushing back against the idea that the complaint lacks merit. “Ms. Lively and her circle of Hollywood elites cannot prevent my clients from exercising their constitutional right to petition the court to clear their names from her false and harmful claims,” he said in a statement.

Freedman added, “What Ms. Lively is attempting to do is to set a dangerous precedent by barring the courthouse doors to my clients and punishing them for having their day in court, a right protected by the First Amendment.”

The legal dispute began in December 2024 when Blake Lively accused Justin Baldoni, her It Ends With Us co-star and director, of sexual harassment and of orchestrating a smear campaign. Baldoni denied the allegations and responded by filing a USD 400 million lawsuit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Lively’s publicist.

In response, Reynolds filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the lawsuit did not identify any specific defamatory statement he had made. His attorneys, Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson, stated that the case seemed to rely entirely on the claim that Reynolds had privately referred to Baldoni as a 'predator.'

However, they argued this did not constitute defamation unless it could be shown that Reynolds did not believe the statement to be true. They also pointed out that Lively had privately and in multiple complaints accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation and asserted that Reynolds had a First Amendment right to express his opinion.

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