Justin Baldoni’s $400M lawsuit in opposition to Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds brushed aside by means of federal pass judgement on. How we were given right here.

The Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni drama is the he-said-she-said case heard round Hollywood, with accusations flying on each side.

Lively and Baldoni are entangled in a felony struggle over what might or won’t have took place at the set in their Colleen Hoover adaptation, It Ends With Us, with Lively accusing her director and costar at the movie of sexual harassment and a next retaliatory marketing campaign in opposition to her. Since then, the 2 have communicated via warring felony groups and the clicking as they head towards their March 2026 courtroom case.

Baldoni has denied all allegations and acknowledged that Lively’s claims had been false and designed to assist Lively acquire ingenious keep watch over of It Ends With Us. In reaction to Lively’s allegations, which have been reported by means of the New York Times and incorporated texts between Baldoni and participants of his crew, he filed a $400 million countersuit in opposition to the actress, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloane. The lawsuit alleges defamation and extortion, in addition to a separate $250 million defamation swimsuit in opposition to the New York Times.

But on June 9, Judge Lewis J. Liman threw out Baldoni’s lawsuit, ruling that the statements on the middle of the fits had been both privileged or lacked the essential felony foundation for defamation. Baldoni’s crew might amend sure claims and refile by means of June 23.

In a observation to Deadline, Lively’s legal professionals Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb known as the ruling “a total victory and a complete vindication” for Lively, in addition to Reynolds, Sloane and the New York Times.

“As we have said from day one, this ‘$400 million’ lawsuit was a sham, and the Court saw right through it,” they said. “We look forward to the next round, which is seeking attorneys’ fees, treble damages and punitive damages against Baldoni, Sarowitz, Nathan, and the other Wayfarer Parties who perpetrated this abusive litigation.”

It’s all very messy — and with the case headed to court in March 2026, there is almost certainly going to be more that will unfold. But how did It Ends With Us go from being a highly anticipated adaptation of a popular BookTok novel to being one of the entertainment industry’s biggest rifts to date? Here’s what to know.

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How it all began

Lively and Baldoni starred together in 2024’s It Ends With Us, based on Hoover’s 2016 romance novel about a woman breaking out of the cycle of domestic violence. Baldoni, who initially got the rights to the book through his production company, Wayfarer Studios, also directed the film, while Lively was also an executive producer on the project.

When the movie came out in August 2024, fans noticed that Lively and Baldoni — who played a couple in the film — did not do interviews together or pose for photos at the movie’s premiere, fueling speculation that there was a rift between the two.

During the film’s press tour, Lively faced backlash for downplaying the story’s central theme of domestic violence, instead emphasizing female empowerment and the film’s floral aesthetic and even weaving in promotion for her newly launched hair care line. Social media buzz turned critical against the star as old interviews resurfaced that portrayed the actress as catty or rude. Meanwhile, Baldoni — whose brand and podcast Man Enough is centered on untangling himself from toxic masculinity — received praise for including domestic violence as part of the larger conversation about the film.

Blake Lively speaks out

Lively had stayed quiet about her time on the It Ends With Us set and work with Baldoni — until December 2024, when she filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department. In her complaint, she claimed Baldoni engaged in sexual harassment and created a hostile work environment during the film’s production.

Her complaint coincided with a New York Times exposé titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” which detailed Lively’s allegations — at the side of her legal complaint — and highlighted the alleged retaliatory actions by Baldoni’s team. That included Baldoni encouraging publicists to drum up a smear campaign against the star, which Lively said was the driving force behind the sudden onslaught of negative social media comments about her.

Lively was once to begin with met with some public beef up following the New York Times piece — other folks like her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants costars and her Another Simple Favor director Paul Feig spoke out in her want — however within the weeks after the thing, social media sentiment towards the actress remained detrimental.

Justin Baldoni pushes again

On Dec. 31, 2024, Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit in opposition to the New York Times. The actor claimed that the thing crafted a deceptive narrative that broken his recognition the use of cherry-picked communications — like, say, a quoted textual content message that overlooked an emoji indicating sarcasm. The New York Times stood by means of its reporting and in February 2025 filed to brush aside the lawsuit.

On Jan. 16, 2025, Baldoni and his crew — together with Wayfarer Studios, manufacturer Jamey Heath and PR reps Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel — filed a lawsuit in New York federal courtroom. They accused Lively, her husband Reynolds and her publicist Sloane of defamation and different contract violations, whilst in quest of a whopping $400 million in damages. In Baldoni’s model of occasions, Lively and Reynolds sought after to realize keep watch over over the making of It Ends With Us, and, when met with resistance, tried to wreck Baldoni’s recognition with a harassment declare.

In the times after his lawsuit submitting, Baldoni’s crew launched photos from the It Ends With Us set in an effort to contradict a few of Lively’s proceedings about harassment. Later, in March, he introduced a web site with details about the location for the general public to view.

Also in March, Lively sought to have Baldoni’s lawsuit brushed aside, bringing up California regulation on misconduct claims.

How Taylor Swift were given concerned

In May, pop famous person Taylor Swift was once formally dragged into the mess, with a subpoena for the artist to look in courtroom. Swift is an established buddy of Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and may be godmother to their 4 youngsters.

The artist entered the dialog when messages between Baldoni and Lively got here to mild in Baldoni’s submitting. In the lawsuit, she is known as Lively’s “megacelebrity friend,” and Baldoni claimed that Lively used her connection to Swift — whose music “My Tears Ricochet” is within the movie — as leverage to take keep watch over of the set. That is the explanation Swift was once subpoenaed.

According to textual content messages between Baldoni and Lively, Swift was once allegedly with Lively when she and Baldoni had been discussing a scene from It Ends With Us that Lively sought after to modify.

In one text exchange between her and Baldoni, Lively wrote of Swift and husband Reynolds, “If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you.”

Swift’s reps, however, say that the singer’s only involvement in the film was allowing her song to be used in the movie.

“Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, she did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history,” her reps said in a statement to the press, stating that the subpoena was “designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.”

Though Swift’s crew acknowledged her handiest function within the movie was once offering a music for it, as different artists who weren’t subpoenaed had finished, Baldoni up to now mentioned that she had a bigger affect. He informed journalists that Swift had watched a video of Isabela Ferrer, who performs a more youthful model of Lively’s personality, and inspired the casting choice — one thing that Ferrer additionally shared with the clicking.

In addition to Swift, her longtime law firm Venable was also subpoenaed. The subpoena, initially served April 29, demanded all communications between Venable and Lively, Reynolds and their attorney Michael Gottlieb. It specifically named Douglas Baldridge, a Venable partner who has represented Swift since 2013.

On May 12, Venable filed a motion to dismiss it, according to documents obtained by Billboard, calling it a “fishing expedition.” The firm stated that Venable is in no way involved in the lawsuit, and that any information Baldoni seeks should be sourced from Lively and Reynolds themselves.

“Venable had nothing to do with the film at issue or any of the claims or defenses asserted in the underlying lawsuit,” the firm wrote, arguing the subpoena was designed “to distract from the facts of the case and impose undue burden and expense on a non-party.”

In a May 13 court filing, Reynolds and Lively supported Venable’s motion, calling it an “abuse of the discovery process.”

On May 14, however, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman came back with a letter to the judge in the case, per People, stating that the decision to subpoena Swift was necessary under the circumstances. Freedman wrote that the team received a tip from what he believes to be a highly credible source that claimed that Lively urged Swift to delete text messages between the two of them.

The letter also alleged that Lively’s lawyer demanded that Swift release a statement of support for Lively over the Baldoni situation, suggesting that if the singer refused, “private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released,” the letter from Baldoni’s attorney read.

In a statement to People on May 14, Lively’s attorney Gottlieb denied the allegations, which he called “categorically false” and “cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality.”

“This is what we have come to expect from the Wayfarer parties’ lawyers, who appear to love nothing more than shooting first, without any evidence, and with no care for the people they are harming in the process,” he continued. “We will imminently file motions with the court to hold these attorneys accountable for their misconduct here.”

On May 18, Lively’s crew filed a movement in New York’s Southern District Court that alleged Baldoni’s legal professional made the declare that she extorted Swift as some way “to seed harassing media narratives” against the actress.

“These public attacks, combined with the Rule 11 Plaintiffs filing numerous claims against Ms. Lively without any basis in law or fact, is willfully improper and warrants sanctions,” the legal document read, per the Wrap.

Lively’s team also filed a second motion to compel Wayfarer Studios to hand over documents and recordings from what they call a “disingenuous charade” of an investigation into her sexual harassment on the It Ends With Us set. The filing accuses Wayfarer of failing to properly investigate her allegations, which include Baldoni allegedly discussing his sex life and staging improvised intimacy scenes without her consent. Her team argues that if a real investigation had taken place in 2023, it would have validated her claims — and that Lively would have been “spared the retaliatory smear marketing campaign” she alleges Baldoni incited in its wake.

However, on May 22, the subpoena against Swift was dropped.

A spokesperson for Lively confirmed that Baldoni’s legal team has withdrawn subpoenas issued to Swift and her legal counsel — a move the spokesperson says they are pleased with.

“We supported the efforts of Taylor’s crew to quash those irrelevant subpoenas directed to her suggest, and we will be able to proceed to rise up for any 3rd birthday party who’s unjustly confused or threatened within the procedure,” the spokesperson said in a statement obtained by People.

The statement also criticized the Baldoni and Wayfarer team’s handling of the case, suggesting they had attempted to use Swift’s fame for strategic advantage. “The Baldoni and Wayfarer crew have attempted to position Taylor Swift, a lady who has been an inspiration for tens of tens of millions around the globe, on the middle of this example since day one,” the spokesperson said. “Exploiting Taylor Swift’s famous person was once the unique plan in Melissa Nathan’s situation making plans file, and it continues to at the present time. Faced with having to justify themselves in federal courtroom, they folded. At some level they are going to run out of distractions from the real claims of sexual harassment and retaliation they’re going through.”

Where Deadpool is available in

Baldoni also referred to as out Reynolds’s Marvel film for allegedly making an attempt to wreck his recognition — particularly with the nature of Nicepool, portrayed by means of Reynolds however credited below the title “Gordon Reynolds.” In the movie Deadpool & Wolverine, Nicepool is an alternative version of Reynolds’s sarcastic superhero Deadpool who sports long hair and a bun similar to a style worn by Baldoni in the past. Nicepool also calls himself a feminist and remarks on Lively’s character Ladypool’s postpartum body.

“Reynolds portrayed Nicepool as a vicious caricature of a ‘woke’ feminist before concluding the character’s arc with his violent shooting death at the hands of ‘Ladypool,’ a character voiced by Blake Lively,” the suit states. It calls the character a “transparent and mocking portrayal of Reynolds’ warped perception of Baldoni.”

The It Ends With Us credit additionally thank “Gordon Reynolds.”

Blake Lively breaks her silence in 2025

Lively and Reynolds saved a somewhat low profile within the rapid wake of the lawsuit. However, the 2 have not too long ago hinted on the drama at public occasions, certainly one of which contains Lively and Reynolds’s February look on the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary on Feb. 16 — their first public look in combination because the lawsuit broke. When requested how issues had been going by means of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Reynolds jokingly answered with “Why? What have you heard?”

Baldoni’s lawyer Freedman addressed the moment on Billy Bush’s podcast, calling it “surprising” that they would joke about such serious matters.

At the 2025 Time100 Gala on April 24, the place Lively was once an commemorated visitor after making its checklist of maximum influential other folks, she spoke about the use of her voice for excellent, announcing, “Who and what we stand up for, and what we stay silent about, what we monetize versus what we actually live, matters.”

She also hinted at her legal battle, stating, “I have so much to say about the last two years of my life, but tonight is not the forum.”

In a May look on Late Night With Seth Meyers to advertise Another Simple Favor, Lively additionally spoke about the use of her voice for exchange.

“What I can say without getting too much into it is that this year has been full of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life,” Lively told Meyers. “And I see so many women around, afraid to speak — especially right now — afraid to share their experiences. And fear is by design. It’s what keeps us silent. But I also acknowledge that many people don’t have the opportunity to speak. So I do feel fortunate that I’ve been able to. It’s the women who have had the ability to use their voice that’s kept me strong and helped me in my belief and my fight for the world to be safer for women and girls.”

Lively drops her emotional distress claim

According to courtroom paperwork, on June 2, Lively selected to withdraw her emotional misery claims in opposition to Baldoni, which got here after the director’s felony crew asked get entry to to Lively’s scientific data. They argued the data had been central to her allegations of emotional misery.

Baldoni’s crew mentioned that somewhat than quit her data, Lively is chickening out her emotional misery declare, courtroom papers cited by means of Variety mentioned. However, Lively needs to withdraw the claims with out prejudice, that means she may refile them later will have to she exchange her thoughts — one thing that Baldoni’s crew has driven again in opposition to.

Baldoni’s team argued that Lively is both refusing to disclose the documents needed to disprove that she suffered emotional distress, and/or that Baldoni and his production company were the cause. However, at the same time, she is maintaining the right to refile the claim “at an unknown time on this or every other courtroom after the invention window has closed.” As of now, they have got reached an deadlock.

Lively’s legal professionals refuted that, pointing out that Baldoni’s legal professionals aren’t correct in Lively refusing handy over those paperwork. Instead, they acknowledged the crew is “intentionally misleading to the Court” and that their “intended audience” for this “false record” was once the general public, alleging that Baldoni’s legal professionals are the use of this to be able to spin detrimental press concerning the actress. They mentioned that they’re shedding the emotional misery declare to concentrate on different fees in courtroom.

“Once again, this is a routine part of the litigation process that is being used as a press stunt. We are doing what trial lawyers do: preparing our case for trial by streamlining and focusing it; they are doing what they do: desperately seeking another tired round of tabloid coverage,” they acknowledged, in step with TMZ.

Lively’s crew mentioned that Lively nonetheless “alleged emotional distress, as part of numerous other claims in her lawsuit, such as sexual harassment and retaliation, and massive additional compensatory damages on all of her claims.”