Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni locked in a legal showdown. Over £300 million in defamation and extortion lawsuit
Blake Lively accused Justin Baldoni of harassment on the set of "It Ends With Us," and now she has received a response. The actor and film director is suing her and her husband, demanding a substantial sum.
Justin Baldoni has filed a lawsuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds for £327 million in defamation and extortion. The actress and her legal team responded by accusing Baldoni of using tactics from a "perpetrator's playbook."
Lively claims that Baldoni is trying to divert attention from the allegations of sexual harassment and repression she made in December. Her lawyers emphasize that this is a classic strategy: denial, attacking, and reversing the roles of the victim and perpetrator. "It's a tale as old as time. A woman accuses, presenting specific evidence against an abuser, and in response, the abuser blames the woman," the statement said.
Baldoni, along with Wayfarer Studios, claims that he is the real victim in this whole story. In the lawsuit, he accuses Lively and Reynolds of trying to take over the film It Ends With Us. He reveals that the couple, along with Taylor Swift, forced him to accept a rewritten script for the film. Thus, Swift, who has been friends with Blake Lively for years, has emerged as a new person in the ongoing scandal.
The conflict between the stars has been ongoing since December, when Lively filed a complaint with the California Department of Civil Rights. Around the same time, the New York Times published an extensive report describing how Baldoni treated Lively on the film set.
He allegedly harassed her, showed pornographic materials, and forced her to perform improvised, intimate scenes that were not necessary on set, among other things. The list of accusations is long. Journalists also presented evidence that Baldoni, knowing Lively might sue him, organised and financed a smear campaign against his "colleague" from the set.
In response to the allegations, Baldoni and his legal team filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for £204 million. He also announced that he would sue Blake, which has now materialised. Both sides aim for a court trial, but it is possible that the case will be settled out of court.
