Just two weeks before Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni‘s multimillion-dollar legal war over alleged online smear campaigns and what went down around
Just two weeks before Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni‘s multimillion-dollar legal war over alleged online smear campaigns and what went down around It Ends With Us was due to start in New York, the parties have settled.
“The end product – the movie It Ends With Us – is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors – and all survivors – is a goal that we stand behind,” said lawyers for Baldoni and Lively on Monday in a shocking development.
“We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard,” added the joint statement by Bryan Freedman, Ellyn Garofalo, Michael Gottlieb and Esra Hudson. “We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”
Long story miniature: looks like Baldoni blinked.
First launched when Lively filed her initial sexual harassment and retaliation complaint in overdue 2024 against Baldoni and his inner circle with the California Civil Rights Department, the tabloid gift from God fight between the IEWU stars was termed to fundamentally be “a feud between PR firms” by Judge Lewis Liman in March 2025. While that POV from the federal bench may or may not have proven to be the case if the matter had gone to trial May 18 as scheduled, the reality is, based on jurisdiction among other things, the sexual harassment allegation and many of Lively’s others claims were struck from her action last month.
With the retaliation allegation still standing, and Baldoni’s $400 million countersuit dismissed months ago, Lively had sworn to carry on. Proclaiming “Don’t be distracted by the digital soap opera,” Lively back in April said she “will never stop doing my part in fighting to expose the systems and people who seek to harm, shame, silence and retaliate against victims.”
From the drop, with husband Ryan Reynolds lined up with her against Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios and his Melissa Nathan-led crisis PR team, Lively alleged that Baldoni and gang weaponized the Internet and online smear campaign against her in mid-2024, just before the Sony-distributed IEWU premiered. In a very 2020s assertion, Lively laid out a scenario in which Baldoni brought past defendants Nathan and fellow publicist Jennifer Abel on board to rip Lively apart before the debut of their (hit) movie to counter accusations he and his Wayfarer team were worried she would make against him.
Even with fairly damning communications between The Agency Group members and others about Lively and potential actions against her, as well as the presence of formerly self-proclaimed “hired gun” Jed Wallace, Nathan and Abel denied they ever activated any such online attacks. The PR line from the seasoned publicists, who have worked for Johnny Depp, Rebel Wilson and others in allegedly similar fashion, was they didn’t have to go after Lively — people just hated her naturally.
Blake Lively arrives at Federal District court in Manhattan on February 11, 2026 in New York for a settlement conference
Sipa via AP Images
After several attempts at court-ordered settlement talks failed over just the past few weeks, it seemed certainly both sides were loaded for bear to get in front of a jury for a Manhattan trial that was expected to last a month or so. Facing these smear-site claims, Baldoni in particular was still loathed to cop to any of the harassment or digital punking, sources tell me.
Still, with this now primarily a corporate case for the defendants, and a lot of something yucky still to be flung at the docket by both sides heading towards trial, calmer heads and reputations ultimately prevailed. In part, I hear the settlement came out of cost analysis on both sides of what could be next for their careers and those of the people close to them.
Simply put, for Lively more movies and for Baldoni some reinvention in the manosphere were looking more fraught, so the defendants made a deal.
So, one can now say, with today’s carefully worded statement from just a few of the dozens of attorneys involved in the case, it looks like it truly did end for them.
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