Blake Lively has called time on her bitter two-year legal battle with Justin Baldoni, in a surprise move just two weeks before the case was set to go to trial, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal.
The actress, 38, finally reached a settlement with Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, as well as the PR firm he hired, over claims of retaliation and breach of contract relating to their 2024 movie It Ends With Us.
In a joint statement released on Monday, the pair said the film remained a ‘source of pride’ to all who worked to bring it to life and emphasized its mission to raise awareness for domestic violence survivors.
‘We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms Lively deserved to be heard. We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments,’ they added.
The statement did not include an apology from either of the parties, who have been locked in a messy court battle since December 2024, when Lively first launched her her suit.
Instead Baldoni and Lively’s teams said it was their ‘sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online’.
The settlement comes after a judge last month sensationally gutted Lively’s case, dismissing 10 of her 13 claims including all of the sexual harassment allegations.
The legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s production company is over after both sides reached a settlement, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal
The latest clash comes ahead of a high-stakes trial over the fallout from the 2024 movie
The trial was still due to kick off on May 18 but covering only three counts: retaliation, aiding and abetting retaliation and breach of an agreement, known as the Contract Rider.
The ruling also meant that Baldoni was no longer a named defendant in the case.
Instead, Wayfarer, along with the company he set up to make It Ends With Us and his public relations agency TAG PR, were due to go on trial for the alleged ‘smear campaign’ against Lively after she spoke out.
Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios had countersued Lively and her husband, ‘Deadpool’ actor Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of defamation and extortion. The judge dismissed Baldoni’s claims last June.
In a pre-trial hearing last week, Lively’s attorneys argued that the actress had lost tens of millions in endorsements on top of nine-figure hits to her earnings and profits – figures Wayfarer’s side has dismissed as wildly inflated.
Wayfarer’s attorney, Amir Kaltgrad, argued that the numbers were ‘pie in the sky,’ broken down as: $143 million in lost profits, $132 million in lost earnings and several million more for lost endorsements.
He claimed the calculations from Lively’s experts about her lost earnings were speculative.
Justin Baldoni’s legal team argued that Blake Lively’s sexual harassment lawsuit should be dismissed, calling her allegations ‘petty slights’ that couldn’t be legally upheld in court because the film was intended to be ‘hot and sexy’
One of them made an ‘unrealistic assumption’ about how much work Lively would do in the years after It Ends With Us, he told the court.
Kaltgrad noted that Lively only earned $21 million from four film projects in the eight years leading up to the release of the 2024 movie.
Yet Lively’s expert Richard Marks, a lawyer who works in the entertainment industry, estimated that she would have earned $142 million in the five years after the film, just based on her acting.
Kaltgrad argued Lively had a ‘scattered work history’ and claimed there was ‘evidence she didn’t want to work full time.’
‘Yet Mr Marks has opined she’s going to be working day and night,’ Kaltgrad said.
‘He has a 600 percent increase in her earnings between $21 million she made and $142 million she’s going to make.’
Kaltgrad said that in one case, it was Lively’s business decisions that caused her economic harm, not the firm.
He claimed her non-alcoholic drinks line Betty Buzz ‘did not succeed for nothing to do with the defendants,’ pointing out that that her own accountant, Jeffrey Kinrich, said as much.
In a court filing last week, Lively herself admitted that the brand was failing.
Another of Wayfarer’s lawyers, Fabien Manohar Thayamballi, disputed the claim from Lively that online comments calling her a bully were solely the result of digital manipulation.
The attorney noted Lively had been an aggressor herself, pointing to when she apparently mocked Kate Middleton in March 2024 after the Princess of Wales posted a family photograph that was later revealed to have been digitally altered, sparking global headlines.
Speaking outside court last week, Lively’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley poured cold water on the prospect of any last-minute settlement.
She said: ‘Blake’s hope is to be able to have her voice heard in that courtroom and that’s what we’re focused on right now’.
McCawley said that Lively would testify and was ‘expecting to take the stand’.
‘Blake’s been ready for this trial, it’s a moment she’s been waiting for a long time, to have her voice heard in this court,’ she said.
‘She’s feeling really good…she’s finally at a point where she will be able to tell her side.’
‘It Ends With Us,’ an adaptation of Colleen Hoover´s bestselling 2016 novel that begins as a romance but takes a dark turn into domestic violence, was released in August 2024, exceeding box office expectations with a $50 million debut.
