Blake Lively wants Justin Baldoni to pay millions of dollars for filing a frivolous $400m (£294) defamation suit against her.
In a motion filed on Monday (8 September) Lively’s legal team argued that she should be awarded millions of dollars to cover attorney’s fees incurred by Baldoni’s defamation suit.
The A Simple Favor star also seeks damages for her economic, emotional and psychological harms, as well as punitive damages for abuse of the court system.
Baldoni was suing Lively, Ryan Reynolds, their publicist, and The New York Times for defamation. In the lawsuit, Baldoni alleged that the celebrity couple tried to destroy his career using false allegations of sexual harassment.
In December 2024, Lively filed a lawsuit claiming Baldoni sexually harassed her on the set of the Coleen Hoover adaptation, It Ends With Us, in which Baldoni played her character’s abusive partner.
New York federal Judge Lewis J Liman dismissed Baldoni’s defamation suit in June. A trial on Lively’s allegations against him is set to take place next spring.
Lively’s latest motion comes after the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, signed the Protecting Survivors from Weaponised Defamation Lawsuits Act in 2023.
In her filing, Lively states that the law ensures victims of sexual harassment are “able to share their experiences with courts, agencies, the press, and others, without fear of being sued for doing so.”
The law protects victims who have a “reasonable basis” to file a sexual harassment complaint and do so “without malice” from defamation lawsuits. Lively’s legal team argues those criteria have been met.
Although Judge Liman dismissed Baldoni’s defamation suit, he didn’t make a ruling on whether the Weaponised Defamation Lawsuits Act applies to the case. Baldoni’s attorneys argued that it doesn’t.
In a filing earlier this year, they claimed Lively had “fabricated her allegations of sexual harassment” and made a “malicious effort” to take control of the production on It Ends With Us.
The Gossip Girl actor’s legal team wants an order for damages under the Weaponised Defamation Lawsuits Act, followed by, if needed, a hearing to determine the amount.
The Independent has contacted Lively and Baldon’s representatives for comment.
After Baldoni’s lawsuit was dismissed in June, Lively wrote in a statement shared to her Instagram story: “Like so many others, I've felt the pain of a retaliatory lawsuit, including the manufactured shame that tries to break us. While the suit against me was defeated, so many don't have the resources to fight back.”
The actor added she’s now “more resolved than ever to continue to stand for every woman's right to have a voice in protecting themselves, including their safety, their integrity, their dignity and their story.”
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