Blake Lively‘s legal team accused Justin Baldoni and his team of trying to stop victims from speaking out as they allegedly try to “bury” her sexual harassment claims.
Lively’s lawyers Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson issued a statement to Us Weekly on Friday, April 4, after Baldoni filed a response to her motion to dismiss his $400 million lawsuit.
“Baldoni, [Steve] Sarowitz and the rest of the Wayfarer Parties are now arguing that nobody should be protected by the sexual harassment privilege. They’re not just saying that it doesn’t apply to Ms. Lively — they’re saying it’s unconstitutional and no woman should ever have these protections,” read a response from Lively’s team. “That’s right: Justin Baldoni, the man who has built his brand on supposedly speaking up for victims, believes that the First Amendment rights of victims of sexual assault and harassment to speak out should give way to the rights of perpetrators to sue their victims “into oblivion.”
The statement accused Baldoni, 41, and his team of being “so hell bent on trying to destroy Blake Lively that they are willing to shred a law designed to protect all victims just to make sure they ‘bury’ one.”
Late last month, Lively’s lawyers filed the motion to dismiss while calling Baldoni’s claims “vengeful and rambling” and an abuse of the legal system. The paperwork argued that the California Civil Code Section 47.1 prohibits retaliatory lawsuits tied to public disclosures of sexual harassment.
Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, responded to the motion on Thursday, April 3, by defending Baldoni’s complaint, which allegedly provides details of “Lively’s calculated efforts first to extort and manipulate” Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios production team “into ceding total control over the film It Ends with Us and then to defame and scapegoat them when her plan backfired.”
The legal back and forth started when Lively, 37, filed paperwork in December 2024 accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment, creating a “hostile work environment” and causing her “severe emotional distress” while working together on It Ends With Us.
Baldoni’s lawyer called Lively’s claims “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.” That same month, Wayfarer Studios also filed a lawsuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and Lively’s publicist, Leslie Sloane, seeking $400 million in damages. The lawsuit, filed in January, included accusations of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy and other claims. (Lively and Reynolds both filed paperwork to dismiss the lawsuit while the publicist requested to be removed from the lawsuit.)
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“Ms. Lively and her circle of Hollywood elites cannot prevent my clients from exercising their constitutional right to petition the court to clear their names from her false and harmful claims,” read Freedman’s statement on April 3. “What Ms. Lively is attempting to do is to set a dangerous precedent by barring the courthouse doors to my clients and punishing them for having their day in court, a right protected by the First Amendment.”
The response continued: “This right protects not only Mr. Baldoni and the Wayfarer parties in this particular case, but all Americans in the future who have false accusations levied against them and seek relief from our justice system. This must stop here, and we will continue to fight against this blatant attempt to block access to the court system and to weaken our nation’s Constitution to serve those who are in the position of power.”
Baldoni and his legal team also recently argued that Reynolds’ motion for dismissal should be denied, calling Reynolds his wife’s “co-conspirator” and citing a recent quote from Reynolds about him drinking the “blood” of his “enemies.” A spokesperson for Reynolds’ addressed the latest filing in a statement to Us.
“The main takeaway from the Wayfarer Parties’ opposition to Ryan’s motion to dismiss their case is that they finally realize the plain defects in their complaint,” the statement read. “They once again claim defamation without alleging who was defamed, what specifically was said, or how anyone suffered actual harm.”
The statement continued: “Unlike Mr. Baldoni, who built his brand pretending to be a man who is ‘confident enough to listen’ to the women in his life, Ryan Reynolds actually is that man and he will continue to support his wife as she stands up to the individuals who not only harassed her but then have retaliated against her. Under New York law, California law, and indeed in every jurisdiction of the United States this lawsuit not only fails but may result in the Wayfarer Parties covering Ryan’s costs and attorneys’ fees for bringing such a frivolous case in the first place.”
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