Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have reportedly asked a federal judge to dismiss Justin Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit against his It Ends With Us co-star.
In December, Lively sued Baldoni, who also directed the film, for sexual harassment and causing her “severe emotional distress”. Baldoni, who has denied the accusations, was subsequently dropped by his agency after the allegations emerged.
Earlier this month, Baldoni sued Lively and Reynolds for $400m (£321m) for attempting to “destroy” his reputation and career.
Variety now reports that the couple’s attorneys filed a notice on Thursday stating that they will seek to dismiss Baldoni’s lawsuit. This is in compliance with Judge Lewis Liman’s order, which outlined how the case will proceed.
The judge had reportedly asked for a letter that would “indicate in one sentence the Defendant’s intent to make a motion to dismiss”. Liman will later set a deadline for when to file the motion.
Following the judge’s instruction, lawyer Michael J Gottlieb said: “The Lively-Reynolds Parties intend to move to dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint.”
Leslie Sloane, who is a publicist for Lively and Reynolds and was also named as a defendant in Baldoni’s lawsuit, submitted a similar statement to the court on Wednesday.
A New York judge set a March 2026 trial date and moved an initial conference from mid-February to next week.
The judge told lawyers to be prepared to address complaints about pretrial publicity and attorney conduct.
Liman took the actions after Lively’s lawyers claimed in a filing on Monday that an attorney for Baldoni was trying to taint potential jurors over lawsuits the actors have filed against each other.
On Thursday (30 January), Baldoni’s team said that they are eager to take Lively’s deposition as soon as possible but claimed that her representatives have indicated that they don’t want his lawyer, Bryan Freedman, to do the deposition due to “unspecified statements made by Mr Freedman”.
The judge said earlier this week that he'll likely combine the lawsuits for trial.
In the separate filing in Hays County, Texas, a precursor to another potential lawsuit, Lively asks for an order for a deposition from Jed Wallace, a crisis management specialist she alleges was behind much of the social media manipulation surrounding the film that turned public sentiment against her through posts on Reddit and TikTok.
Wallace and his Texas-based firm Street Relations were brought on as subcontractors by publicists working with Baldoni and his production company, the filing said.
“He weaponised a digital army around the country, including in New York and Los Angeles, to create, seed, manipulate, and advance disparaging content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums,” the filing alleges.
It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel that begins as a romance but takes a dark turn into domestic violence, was released in August, exceeding box office expectations with a $50m debut. But the movie’s release was shrouded by speculation over discord between Lively and Baldoni.
