Insisting that his interactions with Blake Lively were 'benign,' James Baldoni argued through his lawyers that the new 2023 law could not be used in their ongoing legal spat.
- April 4, 2025
AceShowbiz - The legal wrangling between actor-director Justin Baldoni and his former co-star Blake Lively has reached a new peak, with Baldoni's lawyers responding vehemently against Lively's bid to dismiss a massive $400 million defamation suit. The crux of the controversy revolves around allegations of harassment on the set of their film "It Ends With Us."
Earlier this year, Baldoni filed the lawsuit, claiming that Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds aimed to destroy his career through false accusations.
In an attempt to have his lawsuit thrown out, Lively contends that her allegations are shielded by California's recently enacted Protecting Survivors from Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act, which extends immunity to those who make harassment claims with a "reasonable basis" and "without malice."
Baldoni's legal team counters this defense, arguing that Lively's claims were fabricated so the "MeToo" law doesn't apply in her case.
"Lively fabricated her allegations of sexual harassment, either wholesale or by exaggerating benign (and not harassing) interactions in a concerted, malicious effort to seize control of the Film and later to restore her reputation after a well-publicized series of marketing missteps that sullied her reputation," his lawyers argue.
Moreover, Bryan Freedman, lead counsel for Baldoni, portrayed Lively's legal strategy as setting a "dangerous precedent" that jeopardizes First Amendment rights.
"Ms. Lively and her circle of Hollywood elites cannot prevent my clients from exercising their constitutional right to petition the court to clear their names from her false and harmful claims," Freedman said, emphasizing the broader implications for those seeking legal recourse against false accusations.
One of the arguments put forth by Baldoni's team to discredit Lively's claims involves an interview she gave at the 2022 Forbes Power Women's summit. In it, Lively expressed frustration about not being a part of the storytelling process early in her career.
"I knew that they just wanted me to show up and look cute and stand on a little pink sticker where I'm supposed to go and say what I'm supposed to say," she said in the interview, which Baldoni's team asserts as a reflection of her intent to wrestle control on the set of "It Ends With Us."
