The legal battle between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively over the production of It Ends With Us has consumed the entertainment world for the past year… and now, it looks like one part of it has finally come to a close.
On Monday, new reporting from People revealed that Baldoni’s extortion and defamation lawsuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and The New York Times has officially been shut down in court. Baldoni’s lawsuit, which was first filed in January of 2025, sought damages of up to $400 million as a self-described “counterattack” for Lively’s accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation against him.
This decision came after Baldoni and his co-plaintiffs at Wayfarer Studios did not meet the deadline to file an amended complaint, which would have potentially revived their case. The ruling was determined by U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman of the Southern District of New York, who initially dismissed the case back in June of this year. On October 17th, a notice was reportedly sent out to all parties, alerting them that Liman would be entering a final judgement on the case. While Baldoni and his co-plaintiffs did not engage with this notice, Lively was reportedly the only party to respond. She reportedly asked for the final judgement to be declared, but that her ongoing request for legal fees would remain active, which Liman reportedly agreed to.
Lively first sued Baldoni in December of 2024, over allegations of his “disturbing” misconduct on the set of It Ends With Us, which Baldoni directed and co-starred in alongside Lively. These allegations include sexual harassment, creating a hostile work environment, and pushing for an explicit sex scene that Lively had not approved of when signing on for the project. That lawsuit is still ongoing in Manhattan’s federal court.
The New York Times was dragged into this after a December 2024 story titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” broke down the initial filing of Lively’s case, as well as documents alleging that Baldoni’s legal team launched a smear campaign to discredit her and her friends and family. When Liman first dismissed the case back in June, he argued that Lively’s allegations and The New York Times‘ reporting on the matter were both legally protected, and could not be used as grounds for a defamation suit.
“Like so many others, I’ve felt the pain of a retaliatory lawsuit, including the manufactured shame that tries to break us,” Lively wrote on Instagram when the case was first dismissed. “While the suit against me was defeated, so many don’t have the resources to fight back. “I’m 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… With love and gratitude for the many who stood by me, many of you I know. Many of you I don’t. But I will never stop appreciating or advocating for you.”
(featured image: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic and Gotham/WireImage via Getty)
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