Ohhh boy, buckle up because this one’s got more twists than a soap opera finale — and we’re only in Act Two. So Blake Lively struts out of court claiming “total victory” after a judge just “eviscerated” Justin Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit against her. Social media lit up. Headlines flew.
Even Blake herself dropped a victory lap on Instagram, tagging every women’s rights group like she was running a charity telethon. She framed it as a “win for women,” and honestly, who wouldn’t, when a Hollywood giant tries to drop half a billion dollars on your head and the judge goes, “Nah, that’s not gonna work.”
But here’s where it gets spicy. Daily Mail pulls the curtain back and goes, “Hold up — not so fast.” Because apparently, that “total victory”? Yeah, it was only partial.
The defamation and extortion claims were tossed because they were based on protected court filings — “legal privilege, baby!” — but that left the door wide open for Baldoni and his team to go back to the drawing board. And they “are” coming back. With receipts.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, didn’t just deny Blake’s mic drop moment. He launched a counter-opera. According to him, they’re refiling “four” of the original seven claims, and he’s already planning to depose Lively — yeah, that’s right. He says a motion to do so has “already” been filed.
Lively’s camp, naturally, is calling foul, saying no such motion exists and — plot twist — that extortion has “also” been thrown out. It’s a classic Hollywood he-said-she-said but in legalese and with multimillion-dollar implications.
This all started in late 2024 when Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment during production of “It Ends With Us”. That sparked the entire war — civil rights complaints, lawsuits, counter-lawsuits, and now, media statements with more side-eye than a Real Housewives reunion.
Baldoni’s camp even launched a full-on website featuring court filings and private text messages trying to paint Blake, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloane as orchestrators of a takedown campaign.
And while Judge Lewis Liman ruled that some of Baldoni’s claims were essentially dead on arrival — especially anything relying on statements made in official complaints — his ruling “invited” Baldoni to come back with more sharply drafted allegations. So what looked like the finale might just be intermission.
Bottom line: Blake Lively may have won a round, but this legal brawl is still swinging. Baldoni isn’t backing down, Blake isn’t backing off, and the Internet is definitely not looking away. Stay tuned.
