Watching a movie about toxic relationships and emotional abuse serve as the backdrop for a real-life conflict that reflects those themes is almost surreal. Based on Colleen Hoover’s popular book, It Ends with Us debuted in theaters in August 2024 to impressive box office results, grossing almost $350 million globally. It was meant to be a triumph. Rather, by December of that year, the two characters in that movie were suing each other in courts on different coasts.
In late December 2024, Blake Lively filed his first complaint with the California Civil Rights Department. She claimed that Justin Baldoni, who directed and co-starred in the movie, had talked inappropriately about his personal life on set and tried to add sex scenes that weren’t in the script. When she voiced her concerns, she saw a concerted effort to subtly harm her reputation in the media and on social media. An article in the New York Times titled “We Can Bury Anyone”: Millions of readers were exposed to those accusations almost immediately thanks to Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.
Baldoni’s group vigorously resisted. Bryan Freedman, his lawyer, dismissed the allegations as a calculated media play, calling them “intentionally salacious” and outrageous. Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, maintained that neither the studio nor its publicists had taken any reprisals. Baldoni then filed a $250 million libel lawsuit against the New York Times on New Year’s Eve 2024, alleging that the publication had used emails and texts selectively and without context to create a false narrative.
What transpired was a months-long legal maze that at times felt more like two distinct PR campaigns disguised as court documents than a civil dispute. Wayfarer and Baldoni filed a countersuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, alleging defamation and extortion. In June 2025, a federal judge dismissed those. In April 2026, Judge Lewis Liman also significantly reduced the scope of Lively’s lawsuit, including her allegations of sexual harassment. Nevertheless, her claims of reprisals persisted, which was noteworthy.
The amount of this dispute that existed in the liminal space between legal argument and public perception management is difficult to overlook. It seemed more like two teams vying for the morning news cycle than two parties seeking justice, given the complaints, leaks, and conflicting press statements. It’s hard to say for sure whether that was intentional or just the nature of celebrity litigation at this level.
In May 2026, a settlement was reached. The conditions were not made public. Soon after, Lively’s lawyers returned to a New York courtroom to argue for damages and legal fees, claiming that Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit against her had been retaliatory under California law. That reading was contested by Baldoni’s legal team.
There’s a feeling that this didn’t fully satisfy either party. Both the accused and the accuser typically lose the official vindication that a verdict might have provided in a settlement with no public terms. Lively’s harassment claims were not fully resolved. Baldoni’s countersuits were not heard on their merits. Separately, the New York Times lawsuit is still pending.
Perhaps more than anything else, the entire episode demonstrated how easily the legal system and celebrity machinery can work together in ways that are not particularly beneficial to accountability or the truth. While the movie that brought them together subtly became one of the biggest box office stories of 2024, two individuals with massive platforms, pricey lawyers, and conflicting narratives fought for almost two years. The cameras had long since stopped filming. The drama in the courtroom took a lot longer to conclude.
