It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni sues actors Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds for defamation

NEW YORK - American actor and director Justin Baldoni filed a defamation lawsuit against Hollywood stars Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds on Jan 16, claiming that they tried to destroy him by

accusing him of sexual harassment against the actress

and then retaliation against her through a smear campaign.

The lawsuit is the latest legal action in a feud tied to the romantic film It Ends With Us (2024), which starred Lively, 37, and Baldoni, 40, who also directed it.

The 179-page complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, named Lively and Reynolds, 48, her husband, as defendants, as well as their publicist Leslie Sloane and her company, Vision PR.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Baldoni, the film’s lead producer Jamey Heath, their production company Wayfarer Studios, and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel. They are seeking US$400 million (S$546 million) in damages.

In response to the lawsuit on Jan 16, Lively’s legal team said in a statement: “The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”

The New York Times published an article on Dec 21 about Lively’s allegations against Baldoni. She claimed in a complaint, filed a day earlier with the California Civil Rights Department, that Baldoni had initiated the campaign after she accused him of sexual harassment during the shooting of It Ends With Us.

The Times report referred to private text messages and emails that Lively had obtained through a subpoena and that had been included in her complaint.

The complaint alleged that the messages showed Baldoni and Mr Heath, his business partner, working with a crisis public relations expert to tarnish Lively’s reputation because they were afraid the misconduct claims would become public. Lively sued Baldoni and others on Dec 31 in federal court in New York City.

That same day, Baldoni

filed a defamation lawsuit against The Times in Los Angeles,

accusing the American newspaper of relying on Lively’s “unverified and self-serving narrative”. He repeated some of the claims against the publication in the suit he filed on Jan 16.

The Times has said it plans to vigorously defend itself against Baldoni’s claims against the publication. A Times spokeswoman, Ms Danielle Rhoades Ha, added in a statement on Jan 16: “The allegations against The New York Times in this new lawsuit are meritless and recycled from the equally baseless claims in the suit that was filed against the Times in California.”

In his countersuit against Lively, Baldoni said the actress had used her star power to hijack “every aspect” of his film and then tried to blame him when her public reputation took a hit during the film’s promotion for how she chose to market it.

He accused her of trying to make him “the real-life villain in her story” and of colluding with the Times to “prepare a false and damaging narrative”.

“This is a case about two of the most powerful stars in the world deploying their enormous power to steal an entire film right out of the hands of its director and production studio,” the lawsuit said. “Then, when Lively and Reynolds’s efforts failed to win them the acclaim they believed they so richly deserved, they turned their fury on their chosen scapegoat.”

Baldoni denied that the alleged sexual harassment of Lively or the smear campaign against her had happened, and said he was the one who had been the victim of such a campaign. NYTIMES