Blake Lively has withdrawn two of the claims she made about the actor and director Justin Baldoni, who worked with her on the 2024 romantic drama It Ends With Us.
It was reported on Tuesday afternoon by Variety that judge Lewis Liman, is who overseeing the lawsuit, has decided that the Lively’s claims for emotional distress would be thrown out.
The two actors have been engaged in a legal dispute since Lively sued Baldoni in December 2024 following the release of the film based on the bestselling novel by Colleen Hoover. Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and a public smear campaign.
Baldoni’s legal team reportedly asked Lively to release her medical records, including therapy notes, as part of its defense against her claims she suffered “severe emotional distress and pain, humiliation, embarrassment, belittlement, frustration and mental anguish”, according to Variety.
In January, it was reported that Baldoni planned to sue his co-star and her husband, the actor Ryan Reynolds, following the accusations on claims of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.
Lively has now dropped the claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Though the actor is withdrawing the claims, she is refusing to withdraw the claims with prejudice as Baldoni’s legal team had requested, Variety reported. According to legal filings by Baldoni’s team, Lively is only willing to withdraw her claims without prejudice.
“Ms Lively wants to simultaneously: (a) refuse to disclose the information and documents needed to disprove that she suffered any emotional distress and/or that the Wayfarer Parties were the cause; and (b) maintain the right to re-file her IED claims at an unknown time in this or some other court after the discovery window has closed,” Variety reported a Monday filing as saying.
Judge Liman said that Baldoni’s motion to compel is denied “based on the plaintiff’s representation that the relevant claims will be withdrawn”.
Additionally, the judge wrote that “the parties shall stipulate to whether the dismissal is with or without prejudice, or Lively shall renew her request by formal motion. For avoidance of doubt, if the claims are not dismissed, the court will preclude Lively from offering any evidence of emotional distress.”
Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb, two of Lively’s lawyers, called the filing from Baldoni’s team “a press stunt”.
They added in a statement to the magazine: “The Baldoni-Wayfarer strategy of filing retaliatory claims has exposed them to expansive new damages claims under California law, rendering certain of Ms Lively’s original claims no longer necessary. Ms Lively continues to allege 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.”
In December 2024, the New York Times published an article entitled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” that detailed how Baldoni allegedly utilized his publicists and the media to publicly besmirch Lively’s reputation.
Baldoni, publicist Melissa Nathan, and eight other plaintiffs accused the Times of “cherrypicking” facts and filed a $250m libel lawsuit against the paper.
