Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni return to court a month after reaching settlement | Blake Lively

Lawyers for US actor Blake Likely appeared before a judge in New York on Monday to seek legal fees and damages from It Ends with Us star Justin Baldoni, after reaching an agreement last month in a years-long legal battle.

The 38-year-old actor’s legal team argued that the defamation lawsuit filed against him by Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios was an act of retaliation prohibited by California law.

Baldoni’s lawyers rejected the claim.

Agence France-Presse was not immediately able to obtain details about the amount Lively is seeking.

Lively filed her first complaint against Baldoni in December 2024, claiming that the actor, who also directed the film, spoke inappropriately about her sexual life and tried to change the film to include sex scenes that were not included in the script.

Lively, who rose to fame with the TV series Gossip Girl, said she organized a public relations and social media campaign to damage Baldoni’s reputation.

Baldoni and her studio Wayfarer countersued Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, alleging extortion and defamation, but the judge dismissed those claims last year.

Wayfarer has previously insisted that neither the studio, its executives nor its public relations team did anything to retaliate against Lively.

Lewis Liman, the federal judge overseeing the case, also rejected some of Lively’s claims but upheld her claims of retaliation.

The exact terms of the agreement reached out of court between the two parties were not made public.

Adapted from the bestselling novel by US author Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us became one of the biggest hits of the year, grossing more than $350 million at the box office in 2024.