Hollywood Movies Lawsuit: Allegations, Dismissals, and Fallout

The Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni lawsuit began in December 2024, when Lively accused her It Ends with Us director and co-star of sexual harassment and of orchestrating a retaliatory smear campaign; Baldoni denied the claims and countersued for $400 million. A federal judge in New York threw out Baldoni’s countersuit in June 2025, dismissed Lively’s harassment claims on a Title VII technicality in April 2026, and the two sides settled the surviving retaliation and contract claims in May 2026, weeks before trial. A judge later ordered Baldoni and his production company to pay Lively’s attorney fees.

What the Case Was About

It Ends with Us, based on Colleen Hoover’s novel about domestic violence, was made on a $25 million budget and grossed about $350 million worldwide after its August 2024 release.¹²³

On December 20, 2024, Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department. Eleven days later, on December 31, she filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, Heath, investor Steve Sarowitz, publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, The Agency Group PR, and the film’s production entity, It Ends With Us Movie LLC.⁴

What Lively Alleged

Lively’s complaint described a pattern of physical boundary violations by Baldoni during filming. She alleged he leaned in as if to kiss her, kissed her forehead, rubbed his face and mouth against her neck, put his thumb to her mouth and flicked her lower lip, and leaned into her neck saying “it smells good.”⁵ She said Baldoni told her she looked “pretty hot” after asking her to remove her jacket to reveal a lace bra, and that when she said it was inappropriate he rolled his eyes and said, “Sorry, I missed the sexual harassment training.”²

She also alleged that Baldoni and Heath entered her trailer uninvited while she was undressed or breastfeeding, volunteered details about their own sexual experiences, and pressured her to perform a birth scene naked despite no such requirement in the script or her contract. She alleged Heath entered her makeup trailer while she was topless, stared at her after she asked him to keep his back turned, and showed her a graphic video of his wife giving birth without her consent.³

A second part of her case focused on what she called a coordinated campaign to destroy her reputation after she raised complaints. She alleged Baldoni and Heath hired crisis PR specialists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel to plant negative stories in outlets like the Daily Mail and Page Six and to seed negative content on Reddit and TikTok, calling it “social manipulation” and “astroturfing.”⁶⁷ A December 2024 New York Times investigation, “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” reported on text messages between Nathan and Abel. Baldoni’s attorneys later called the article biased and said it relied on “cherry-picked” and altered communications “stripped of necessary context.”⁸

What Baldoni Alleged in Return

On December 31, 2024, Baldoni filed a $250 million defamation suit against the New York Times, arguing the paper leaned too heavily on Lively’s account and gave him too little time to respond.⁹ On January 16, 2025, he and Wayfarer filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloane, alleging civil extortion, defamation, and invasion of privacy. The suit claimed Lively “stole the film from Baldoni and Wayfarer” by threatening not to promote it unless she was given creative control and credit.¹⁰ The defamation count against the Times was folded into that broader suit.¹¹

Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman denied Lively’s allegations and said Wayfarer had hired a crisis manager “proactively” because of “multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production.”⁶

How the Court Ruled

Judge Lewis Liman of the Southern District of New York consolidated Lively’s suit and Baldoni’s countersuit into a single case in January 2025.⁸ Two significant rulings followed.

Baldoni’s Counter-Suits Dismissed

On June 9, 2025, Judge Liman dismissed Baldoni’s $400 million countersuit in full, along with the defamation claims against the New York Times. He ruled that the Wayfarer parties “failed to state a viable claim,” that Lively’s statements were privileged because they appeared in her civil rights complaint, and that the plaintiffs had not shown Reynolds, Sloane, or the Times “would have seriously doubted these statements were true based on the information available to them.”¹² The judge found the alleged conduct did not “constitute civil extortion under California law” and characterized it as “legally permissible hard bargaining.”¹⁰ Baldoni was given leave to amend certain claims by June 23, 2025, but did not refile. Final judgment ending the countersuit was entered October 31, 2025.

Lively’s Harassment Claims Dismissed

On April 2, 2026, Judge Liman dismissed Lively’s sexual harassment claims. He found that because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee of the production, she could not sue under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The judge also concluded the physical contact she described during a slow-dancing scene was “not so far beyond what might reasonably be expected to take place between two characters” to support an inference of hostile treatment based on sex.¹³ Lively’s legal team called the dismissal a “technicality,” noting the judge had not found the defendants “did nothing wrong” and that some underlying allegations could still be presented to a jury in support of her surviving claims. Baldoni’s attorneys said they were “grateful to the Court for its careful review.”¹⁴

What Survived for Trial

Three claims were allowed to proceed toward a trial scheduled for May 18, 2026: retaliation under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act against Wayfarer and It Ends With Us Movie LLC; aiding and abetting retaliation against The Agency Group PR; and breach of the contract rider agreement against the film’s production entity. The retaliation theory rested on Lively’s allegation that the reputation-damaging campaign was launched specifically because she had complained about a hostile work environment. The contract claim rested on Paragraph 10 of the rider, which explicitly prohibited retaliation for raising misconduct concerns.¹⁵

How It Ended

In May 2026, about two weeks before trial, the parties settled. A joint statement from lawyers for Lively and Wayfarer acknowledged that “the process presented challenges,” recognized that “concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard,” and expressed a commitment to “workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments.”¹⁶ The deal resolved the retaliation and breach of contract claims. Financial terms were not disclosed, and reporting indicated the settlement did not include an immediate cash payment to Lively.¹⁷

The settlement carved out one issue: Lively’s motion for attorney fees, treble damages, and punitive damages under California Civil Code Section 47.1, the Protecting Survivors from Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act. Both sides agreed Judge Liman’s ruling on that motion would be final and waived any appeal.¹⁷

On June 12, 2026, Judge Liman granted Lively’s motion in part. In a 47-page order, he ruled that Baldoni and Wayfarer must pay her attorney fees for defending against the defamation claims, finding her sexual misconduct complaints had been made “without malice” — the threshold under the 2023 California statute, which requires a losing defamation plaintiff to cover the defendant’s legal costs when the underlying harassment statements were not malicious. He denied her separate request for treble and punitive damages, finding those remedies unavailable under federal law.¹⁸ The specific dollar amount had not been set as of that ruling.

Professional and Public Fallout

William Morris Endeavor dropped Baldoni as a client on December 21, 2024, the day after Lively’s initial complaint. WME denied the decision was made at the request of Lively or Reynolds.¹⁹ Reporting as of mid-2026 did not indicate he had signed with a new agency.²⁰

Lively’s hair-care brand, Blake Brown, saw sales fall sharply. Her filings attributed drops in retail sales of 56 to 78 percent, with some internal estimates as high as 90 percent, to the negative media campaign. The brand launched in 2024 with projections of $100 million in revenue and was tracking to make less than $15 million in 2025, according to industry reporting.²¹

Public reaction split. Colleen Hoover posted support for Lively on Instagram, writing “you have been nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient.” Co-star Brandon Sklenar urged people to read the complaint. Lively’s Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants castmates America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel, and Amber Tamblyn issued a joint statement of solidarity. Liz Plank resigned from the Man Enough podcast she had co-hosted with Baldoni and Heath.¹⁹

Related Spin-Off Lawsuits

The core dispute produced several related actions that ran separately from the main case. On December 24, 2024, Stephanie Jones, Baldoni’s former publicist, and her firm Jonesworks sued Abel, Nathan, Baldoni, and Wayfarer, alleging they conspired to run the smear campaign behind Jones’s back and then blamed her.⁶²²²³ After Baldoni’s defamation claims against the paper were dismissed, the New York Times filed its own suit against Wayfarer in New York Supreme Court on September 30, 2025, seeking to recover at least $150,000 in legal fees under New York’s anti-SLAPP law.¹¹

1
Forbes. 5 Reasons Sony Went With Blake Lively’s Version of It Ends With Us, According to Legal Expert
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NPR. Blake Lively Sexual Harassment Justin Baldoni Tossed Out
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People. Who Is Jamey Heath, It Ends With Us Producer in Blake Lively Complaint
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CourtListener. Lively v. Wayfarer Studios LLC
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CBS News. Blake Lively Sexual Harassment Claims Justin Baldoni
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Click2Houston. Blake Lively’s Claims That Movie Co-Star Launched Smear Campaign Gets Support in Publicist’s Suit
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Deadline. Justin Baldoni Dropped WME Blake Lively Sexual Harassment Complaint
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ABC News. Blake Lively Justin Baldoni’s Legal Battle Timeline
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Washington Post. Justin Baldoni Sues New York Times
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ABC News. Justin Baldoni’s $400M Countersuit Against Blake Lively Ended by Judge
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Courthouse News. NY Times Sues Baldoni’s Production Company to Recoup Costs of Tossed Defamation Suit
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People. Justin Baldoni Countersuit Against Blake Lively Ryan Reynolds Dismissed by Judge
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PBS NewsHour. Judge Tosses Out Blake Lively’s Sexual Harassment Claims Against Costar Justin Baldoni
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BBC. Blake Lively Justin Baldoni Ruling
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U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. Lively v. Wayfarer Studios LLC, Opinion and Order
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NPR. Blake Lively Justin Baldoni Settle Trial It Ends With Us
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Deadline. Blake Lively Settlement Details Justin Baldoni
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Variety. Blake Lively Attorney Fees Justin Baldoni It Ends With Us
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E! Online. Blake Lively Justin Baldoni Lawsuit Taylor Swift More Celebs Named
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People. WME Didn’t Drop Justin Baldoni Blake Lively Ryan Reynolds Request Says Agency
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Yahoo Finance. Blake Lively’s Hair Care Booze
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First Amendment Watch. Blake Lively Is Sued by Texas Crisis Specialist in Latest It Ends With Us Lawsuit
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CourtListener. Wallace v. Lively