The judge overseeing the legal battle between It Ends With Us co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni decided against imposing restrictions on public statements by their lawyers, though he hinted that the trial date could be moved up if the back-and-forth between the actors’ representatives continues.
U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman issued the warning during a pretrial hearing in New York City, the first in-person meeting of the lawyers involved in the dispute. Lively and Baldoni were absent. The trial is scheduled to begin in March 2026.
"You’ve got a lot in front of the court that gives, I think, the public plenty to feast upon," Liman told the lawyers.
Lively has accused Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of the movie and alleges he worked with others to damage her reputation in the media. In return, Baldoni has filed a defamation lawsuit against Lively and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds.
Lively and Reynolds’ legal team recently requested a gag order for Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, claiming Baldoni’s team was conducting a “harassing and retaliatory media campaign” against Lively with frequent media statements and press releases.
Lively’s lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, described her as devastated by the situation with Baldoni, who also directed It Ends With Us , a drama about domestic abuse based on the bestselling novel by Colleen Hoover. During the hearing, Gottlieb compared the media feud between both sides to an “arms race” with no boundaries and likened the dynamic with Freedman to “two 4-year-olds in a playground.”
The hearing, initially meant to discuss case management, legal issues, and discovery, quickly devolved into accusations of leaks, harassment, and retaliation.
Both sides expressed a desire to proceed with discovery, with Freedman ready to depose Lively, a move her legal team strongly opposed. Judge Liman ruled that Freedman would not be allowed to depose Lively but emphasized that she would not be able to choose her own interrogator.
In an aggressive move, Baldoni’s attorneys recently launched a website linking to his lawsuit, featuring 168 pages of what they claim are personal emails, documents, and texts exchanged between the two actors, along with their publicists and crisis managers. Many of the messages are friendly, including one from Lively to Baldoni where she described her flirtatious nature. The meaning of the text wasn’t clear, and Gottlieb demanded to know who created and funded the website.
Baldoni is seeking $400 million in his defamation and extortion suit against Lively and Reynolds. Lively’s legal team responded by accusing Baldoni’s side of using a tactic known as DARVO — deny, attack, reverse victim and offender.
Additionally, Baldoni and his publicists are suing The New York Times
Freedman claimed Baldoni has lost hundreds of millions of dollars since the article’s publication, citing the public’s tendency to react before a judicial decision is made.
The conflict began when Lively filed a civil rights complaint in Los Angeles on December 20, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment on set. She also accused him of hiring a crisis firm to orchestrate a “social manipulation campaign” against her while they were promoting the film. This led to a federal lawsuit in New York, which Baldoni’s attorney called “completely false.”
Baldoni acquired the rights to It Ends With Us through Wayfarer Studios in 2019, and Lively’s casting had been a topic of significant buzz leading up to the film’s release. As the movie’s media tour progressed, rumors about the off-screen dynamics between Lively and Baldoni fueled online speculation, with Lively being accused of “mean girl” behavior. Lively claims that Baldoni’s team exacerbated these rumors in an attempt to damage her reputation, a charge his legal team has denied.
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