New twist in the script in the case of complaints between actress Blake Lively and actor and director Justin Baldoni, co-stars This Thursday—working day in the United States—a judge has dismissed most of the lawsuit that Lively had filed against Baldoni. However, the case will continue, and on May 18 there will be a trial in this regard.
Of the 13 cases presented by Lively in her complaint against Baldoni, Judge Lewis Liman, of the Southern District of New York, has dismissed 10. Among them, as reported by the American press, those related to defamation, conspiracy and harassment. Therefore, he has only admitted three of them to processing: those related to a breach of contract (the actress accused him of not complying with the clauses of what was signed in Break the circle), as well as those of possible retaliation that he may have taken for his complaint and those of complicity in said retaliation.
Baldoni and Lively had met, but the actor and director had asked that this be filed before the judge. He has not achieved it, but he has made a lot of progress in his requests, by making 10 of those demands disappear. According to Liman, the lawsuits have not been successful for what he calls “legal reasons,” since many of them depended on the fact that Lively was considered an employee of Baldoni, who was an actor, but also co-producer and director of the film. On the other hand, he considers that those related to retaliation, especially against Wayfarer, Baldoni’s production company, are well founded.
The Gossip Girl actress’ lawsuit, the interpreter’s countersuit, and the long legal fight they are having have been the protagonists of the media since the end of 2024. Already in the fall of that year, when they presented the film to the public and the press, their relationship seemed strained, but everything blew up when in the last days of December of that year she told a very long report in the newspaper The New York Times that in reality there was a smear campaign orchestrated by Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer, providing emails and messages where members of the company sought its collapse.
The report did not come alone: Lively. Among the issues that came to the fore was how she demanded that Baldoni not talk to her anymore about his “addiction to pornography” or show her videos of naked women, as well as that they not talk about the weight of the actress, who had just had her fourth child, or comment on the death of her father.
The next step came when he, just a few days later, countersued Lively and the , lawsuits that were . The New York media counterattacked, demanding that .
But also, in September Lively sued Baldoni again, precisely because of the psychological and emotional damage that this entire process has caused her. The interpreter of Jane the Virgin He has not stood still and has tried to drag his former partner into that smear campaign, (and godmother of his older daughters) for years, the all-powerful singer Taylor Swift. Although a multitude of messages were finally leaked showing how the relationship between the two women was damaged by Lively’s obsession with Baldoni.
: “I’ve been feeling like a bad friend lately, I’ve been a mess who’s only talked about my own shit for months. You’ve been so generous in not only being the point person for me all that time, but also for forgiving me for being so caught up in all of this.” Swift replied a couple of hours later: “No, you’re not wrong, but it doesn’t matter.” To continue: “Yes, there has been a lot of the Justin thing, but I have been through things like this before and I know how exhausting it is.” And then acknowledge: “I feel really bad for saying this, because your messages have been very kindly intended, but the last few… I felt like I was reading a massive corporate email sent to 200 employees. You’ve said the word ‘we’ like 18 times.” Later, Lively confesses to him: “I’m not able to trust my own judgment anymore. It sounds like a lot, but it’s true. This fucking guy and what he’s done to me has caused me an identity crisis. Really.”
The case does not end with these 10 charges dropped. The two protagonists of the romantic drama Break the circle when a conciliation hearing took place to decide whether they would go to trial or not. They did not reach an agreement and, therefore, they will appear before the judge again on May 18.
