It Ends With Us… settled! Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni avoid explosive trial after feuding co-stars finally reach agreement in multimillion-dollar case
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’s hearing, the Daily Mail exclusively revealed.
The 38-year-old actor eventually reached a settlement with Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, and his PR agency over allegations of retaliation and breach of contract related to his 2024 film It Ends With Us.
In a joint statement released on Monday, the duo said the film remains a “source of pride” for everyone who worked to bring it to life and emphasized its mission to raise awareness for victims of domestic violence.
‘We acknowledge that the process presents challenges and recognize that the concerns raised by Ms Lively deserve to be heard. “We are firmly committed to workplaces free from improprieties and unproductive environments,” they added.
The statement did not include an apology from either party, which has been locked in a complicated court battle since December 2024, when Lively first launched her multimillion-dollar lawsuit.
Instead, Baldoni and Lively’s teams said they ‘sincerely hope this will bring closure and allow everyone involved to move forward constructively and peacefully, including in a respectful environment online’.
Wayfarer, It Ends With Us Movie LLC, and The Agency Group (TAG PR) are said to be very pleased with the way this issue was resolved.
The legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s production company has ended after both parties reached a settlement, the Daily Mail exclusively revealed
The agreement marks the end of a two-year legal battle over the fallout from the 2024 movie It Ends With Us. Arrived two weeks before the case went to trial
The surprise settlement comes after a judge last month sensationally rebutted Lively’s lawsuit, dismissing ten of her 13 claims, including all allegations of sexual harassment.
The trial was still set to begin on May 18, but covered only three crimes: retaliation, aiding and abetting retaliation, and violation of an agreement known as the Covenant Rider.
The decision also meant that Baldoni was no longer the named defendant in the case.
Instead, Wayfarer, along with the company he founded for It Ends With Us and TAG PR, would be prosecuted for the alleged ‘smear campaign’ against Lively. He denied the allegations.
Baldoni and Wayfarer filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of defamation and extortion. The judge dismissed the allegations last June.
At a pre-trial hearing last week, Lively’s lawyers argued that the actress had lost tens of millions in support on top of her nine-figure earnings and profits; Wayfarer’s side rejected these figures, saying they were grossly inflated.
Wayfarer’s lawyers denied any liability for her losses and claimed Lively was a ‘bully’ who already had a history of failed business ventures.
Despite behind-the-scenes tensions flaring on and off set, both stars said on Monday they hoped to move forward “constructively and peacefully.”
The company’s lawyer, Amir Kaltgrad, also claimed that Lively experts’ calculations of lost earnings were speculative.
He told the court the estimated figures were “pie in the air” and were broken down as follows: $143 million in lost profits, $132 million in lost earnings and several more million dollars in lost turnover.
The lawyer argued his team made an “unrealistic assumption” about how much work Lively could get in the years after It Ends With Us.
Kaltgrad noted that Lively has earned just $21 million from her four film projects in the eight years leading up to the 2024 film’s release.
He also argued in one case that it was business decisions, not the company, that caused Lively economic harm.
He claimed that soft drink company Betty Buzz ‘did not succeed because it had nothing to do with the defendants’ and pointed out that his own accountant, Jeffrey Kinrich, had said the same thing.
Lively admitted in a previous court filing that the brand had failed.
Another of Wayfarer’s lawyers, Fabien Manohar Thayamballi, disputed Lively’s claim that online comments calling her a bully were merely the result of digital manipulation.
The lawyer noted that Lively herself was an attacker, pointing out that she mocked Kate Middleton in March 2024 after the Princess of Wales posted a family photo that was later revealed to have been digitally altered, sparking global headlines.
The multimillion-dollar lawsuits have painted a portrait of a troubled production in which an A-list star asserts herself against a relatively inexperienced director who allegedly struggles to rebuff her escalating demands.
At the center of the case were several incidents that Lively claimed Baldoni’s insertion of unscripted sexual moments amounted to sexual harassment, including one of his personal friends playing the doctor during a birth scene on an inadequately enclosed set, and the film’s producer Jamey Heath allegedly barging into her trailer while she was topless. These claims came to nothing.
Filming began in 2023 and was paused for several months due to the Hollywood writers’ strike.
Lively’s team claimed that Lively lost tens of millions of support following the smear campaign launched after It Ends With Us. This was denied by Baldoni-owned Wayfarer Studios
Baldoni and Wayfarer filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of slander and extortion. The judge rejected these claims last year
But before production restarted, Baldoni had to attend a meeting at Lively’s New York home, where she claimed husband Ryan Reynolds ‘berated’ her for mistreating his wife.
Those present included Lively’s former best friend Taylor Swift and Hugh Jackman; Reynolds attacked Baldoni for “fat-shaming” his wife by asking her personal trainer about her weight.
Baldoni eventually signed a 17-point agreement presented to him to get the film back on track; he later claimed he did so under duress.
Explosive case files later offered a glimpse into Lively’s relationship with Swift, whom she called one of her “dragons” along with Reynolds.
Baldoni argued that the threat of two such big superstars turning on him was the reason he handed over control to Lively.
At times, the duo’s friendship seemed unshakable. Text messages presented as evidence show Swift texting Lively on December 21, 2024, saying: ‘You win. You did it.”
He then sent the actress a link to a story that talent agency WME had dropped Baldoni and referenced Lively’s filing with the California Department of Civil Rights, in which she accused him and others of sexual harassment and a “coordinated effort to damage her reputation.”
Swift told Lively: ‘You’ve helped so many people who will never have to go through this again.’
Referring to the negative publicity towards Lively during the film’s promotion, Swift said: ‘Never has a cancellation been reversed this quickly.
‘You don’t understand how rare this is. ‘Having the evidence and taking the perfect steps to bring this truth to light.’
Lively replied: ‘I like it. Mine. God’. Another message read: ‘I love you so much. I wouldn’t have agreed to any of this if it weren’t for you.’
But just a few weeks earlier, Lively had sensed something wasn’t right, and on December 4, 2024, shortly before the end of Swift’s Eras Tour, he asked her: ‘Is everything okay?
‘I’ve been feeling like a bad friend lately because I was a sad sack who only talked about my own shit for months.’
Swift said Lively ‘wasn’t wrong, but it also wasn’t a big deal.’
Speaking outside court last week, Lively’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley poured cold water on the possibility of any last-minute deal.
‘Blake was ready for this hearing, this is the moment he has been waiting for for a long time for his voice to be heard in this court,’ he said.
‘He’s feeling really good… he’s finally gotten to a point where he can tell his side.’
It Ends with Us, adaptation Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel of 2016 The film, which begins as a romance novel but turns darkly into domestic violence, was released in August 2024. exceeding box office expectations With a $50 million debut.
