A US court has thrown out It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni’s $400m lawsuit against Blake Lively and husband Ryan Reynolds, ruling that Lively’s prior claims of sexual harassment were legally protected and could not form the basis of a defamation case.
The Hollywood power couple and their publicist Leslie Sloane filed a motion to dismiss the case and on Monday New York federal judge Lewis Liman agreed, singalling the latest twist in a long-running saga.
Judge Liman also threw out Baldoni’s $250m defamation case against The New York Times that had alleged inaccurate reporting by the media outlet. However he granted Baldoni until June 23 to submit an amended complaint against Lively and Reynolds based on contractual interference and breach of implied covenant.
Matters boiled over last December, when It Ends With Us was still in US cinemas through Sony Pictures and well on its way to earning $148m at the North American box office and more than $350m worldwide.
Lively, who starred opposite Baldoni and served as a producer, brought a civil complaint alleging sexual harassment on the set. She also claimed retaliation for speaking out, eventually filing an official suit that among other things claimed Baldoni and others had run a smear campaign against her after her initial complaints.
Lively revealed hundreds of text messages between Baldoni and his crisis PR team that she said backed up her claim. Baldoni subsequently created a website with texts that he claimed backed up his case, and the website itself became the subject of separate legal hearings.
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