Judge dismisses most of Blake Lively claims in harassment suit against Baldoni

A federal judge has dismissed most of the claims in a sexual harassment lawsuit that actress Blake Lively filed against her co-star Justin Baldoni.

In a 152-page opinion, Judge Lewis Liman threw out 10 of 13 claims in Lively’s case, including allegations of harassment and defamation.

He left in place three claims against Baldoni – breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting in retaliation – which will go to a civil trial in New York on 18 May.

The pair, who starred in the 2024 film It Ends with Us, have been locked in a legal battle since Lively sued Baldoni that year, accusing him of harassment and a smear campaign against her, which Baldoni denies.

A judge last year dismissed Baldoni’s $400m (£295m) counter-lawsuit against Lively, which alleged civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.

The case stems from interactions between Baldoni and Lively on the set of It Ends With Us, an adaptation of a best-selling Colleen Hoover novel, which features Lively as the main character, Lily Bloom, a young woman who grew up witnessing domestic abuse and finds herself in the same position years later.

Lively’s legal team have accused Baldoni and his film studio, Wayfarer, of leading a “multi-tiered plan” to wreck her reputation, which included social media manipulation and the use of friendly journalists to further certain narratives.

She shared details of the allegations in a New York Times article published before her lawsuit.

Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios in December 2024, alleging Baldoni sexually harassed her on set and retaliated against her for bringing those complaints, among other allegations.

In his ruling on Thursday, Liman listed a host of reasons for dismissing the many claims against Baldoni. For one, he said, harassment claims Lively brought against Baldoni under California law did not hold up because the filming, where the misconduct allegedly occurred, took place in New Jersey.

“None of these acts or occurrences provides the ‘substantial connection’ to California needed to sustain Lively’s sexual harassment claims,” Liman wrote.

Lively had also accused Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, of defaming her in a series of statements, including when he said publicly after her lawsuit that it was “shameful that Ms Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr Baldoni”.

But Liman said that because those statements and others directly referred to the allegations Baldoni was facing in court, Lively’s defamation claim did not hold up.

“Given their timing, content, and context – especially the person who made them -the comments could only have been understood as a reflection of the Wayfarer Parties’ view of what the evidence would show in the judicial proceeding,” Liman wrote.

Shortly after Lively’s suit, Baldoni brought defamation lawsuits against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist, claiming they were aiming to ruin his career and reputation with the allegations, as well as against the New York Times.

He alleged that Lively “stole the film” from him and his production company, Wayfarer, by threatening not to promote it, and that she and others perpetuated a false narrative that Baldoni sexually assaulted her and launched a smear campaign against her.

But in June, Liman dismissed Baldoni’s lawsuit, saying his team had “not adequately alleged that Lively’s threats were wrongful extortion rather than legally permissible hard bargaining or renegotiation of working conditions”.

The BBC has contacted Baldoni and Lively’s lawyers for comment.

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