Justin Baldoni’s $400 million defamation suit against Blake Lively dismissed

A federal judge has dismissed actor Justin Baldoni’s $400 million defamation lawsuit against actor Blake Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and the New York Times.

Baldoni directed the 2024 movie It Ends With Us, which he co-starred in with Lively. The movie is based on a popular novel by Colleen Hoover. A few months after the movie was released, Lively filed a legal complaint against Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, the movie’s production company which Baldoni co-founded, alleging she was sexually harassed during the making of the movie.

The legal complaint coincided with an article in the New York Times detailing the public relations/crisis management machine working on behalf of Baldoni.

In response, Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds, alleging defamation and extortion.

Wayfarer Studios also originally sued the New York Times in a separate $250 million libel lawsuit. That suit was dismissed after the Times was added as a defendant in the $400 million defamation suit.

In an opinion issued Monday, Judge Lewis J. Liman stated Baldoni failed to show that actual malice was involved in Lively’s allegations.

As for the Times, the judge wrote, “The alleged facts indicate that the Times reviewed the available evidence and reported, perhaps in a dramatized manner, what it believed to have happened.”

“Today’s opinion is a total victory and a complete vindication for Blake Lively,” read a statement from Lively’s lawyers, Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb. “This ‘$400 million’ lawsuit was a sham, and the Court saw right through it.”

NPR has reached out to the legal team representing Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios.