A Hollywood feud turns into a legal and PR battlefield as Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni trade lawsuits, leaked messages, and explosive allegations over It Ends With Us—with reputations and careers on the line. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
Chapter 1: What is the Hollywood feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni about?
Actress Blake Lively and director Justin Baldoni are continuing their public feud over their hit film, It Ends With Us, with both sides filing lawsuits. But even more than a legal battle, this has become an all-out PR war with leaked texts, calls, and film footage, as well as allegations of sexual harassment and spousal jealousy. The first trial date is set for March of 2026.
Chapter 2: Who provides expert insight into the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni legal battle?
In this episode, Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham speaks with award-winning journalist, author, and Daily Mail columnist Maureen Callahan to get insight into a drama only Hollywood could produce.
Thanks so much for joining us, Maureen. You know, for those of us who are maybe just catching up with this story a little bit on the later side, I'm wondering if you can give us something of a 10,000-foot summary of this scandal.
Chapter 3: What are the allegations made by Blake Lively against Justin Baldoni?
Sure. So about a month ago, the New York Times ran a blockbuster, I think, 4,000-word piece in which Blake Lively was alleging her writer-director co-star, forgive me, I'm not sure if he was the writer, Justin Baldoni, on their film It Ends With Us, had subjected her to almost ritualistic sexual harassment attacks.
And that she suffered so greatly, it was a concerted effort in which he involved multiple people to not only harass her while filming, but then once the movie was about to be released, orchestrated an online smear campaign against her.
A couple of weeks later, Baldoni's lawyer, Brian Friedman, filed a countersuit in which he alleged that the text messages obtained by the New York Times had been selectively edited. And they sort of threw open their document dump, which seemed to absolve Justin of many of the things that Lively has been claiming. Nonetheless, these two are now locked
In a bitter, bitter, expensive lawsuit, Baldoni's countersuing Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for $400 million, which is, I believe, what he thinks their estimated net worth is. And the trial is tentatively set for March 2026.
So before we get to some of the kind of legal ramifications, there's obviously been a lot of leaks. There's been a lot of, I would even say, shifting in public loyalties back and forth. At least that's been my experience. At the outset, I was kind of team Justin. And then I went, well, wait a minute. Okay, that...
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Chapter 4: How has the public perception shifted in the PR war between Lively and Baldoni?
New York Times piece was really persuasive, but then Justin Baldoni's team released some new audio leaks and those kind of things sort of shifted the game a little bit. What's your sense right now of who's on top in the PR war?
I think Blake Lively is suffering mightily right now, and the collateral fallout is affecting not just her husband, Ryan Reynolds, but her so-called dragon, her BFF, Taylor Swift, who it's reported has been taking a step back from her friendship with Blake because she doesn't want any of this runoff affecting her career. Justin's team has been very smart in what they're leaking and when.
They leaked footage of the two of them while filming a scene, rehearsing a scene in which they were dancing very closely. And Justin had his mic on. And so they're working out how they're going to do this scene. Justin is saying, I think we should be kissing. And Blake says, no, I think we should be talking. I think that's even more intimate. And Justin says, okay.
So that sort of takes some wind out of her sails. They also released another lengthy voice memo that Justin had sent to Blake in which he's phrasing her to the high heavens and saying he has let her down by not taking all of her notes and she's so brilliant and so smart and he's going to do everything he can to make her happy. Again,
A counter-narrative to Lively's claims that he was doing everything possible to sabotage her and make her feel unsafe on that set. So I think right now, Baldoni's team is in the power position, but that of course could shift in another few days.
Well, you know, it seems like there was a moment where Lively could have disengaged and just moved on. And this would have been something of a blip on Hollywood's gossip radar. Why do you think she escalated to a lawsuit that opened up so much more of these internal communications?
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Chapter 5: Why did Blake Lively escalate the conflict to a lawsuit?
This is such a great question, Megan, because if you think about it, the damage has already been done to her. I don't know what director, because think about it, there are like five female directors working in Hollywood today.
what male director is going to put himself and his career and reputation at risk by working with Blake Lively, who launched this all out assault on a guy who is not as well capitalized as she and Ryan are, who doesn't have the reputation, the lengthy career, you know, Who on earth would risk it? And I have to wonder why she did it.
Because like you said, it could have just been, you know, a thing where they butted heads, they didn't see eye to eye, but they each walked away clean to do their next project. I have a theory and it is just my own theory and supposition that something went on between these two. And perhaps it was an unrequited... crush on Blake's part and Justin didn't respond in kind.
Perhaps they did in some way have a physical relationship outside of the filming and that went south. There's something about this that just feels way too intense, way too personal that I think that the real undergirding, the real story is why, why she did this.
Well, I'm glad that you bring that up because I do want to talk a little bit about those messages between Baldoni and Lively. And I know that some media outlets characterize them as flirty. I don't know that I necessarily saw them that way, but I at least saw them as very familiar. Let's put it that way. Do you think that, by surprise?
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Chapter 6: Are the messages between Baldoni and Lively flirty or familiar?
I kind of read them as flirty. And even the text messages between Justin and Ryan Reynolds. If anybody listening wants to get a taste of what it's like to deal with Hollywood people, this is it. And it's really quite vile because they're just mooning over each other. I mean, they've just met and Ryan's like, hasn't responded to Justin's text for two weeks. And then he replies and he says-
I happen to adore you, Justin, period. It's like, buy me dinner first before you start talking to me like this. It's disgusting. And Justin and Blake are having a very, very familiar texting relationship. Whether they were that familiar, whether it was this sort of hastened intimacy because they were working so closely together so quickly, who knows?
But now I don't think there's any slight that's not going to be weaponized. I just read... an item yesterday that Blake Lively blew a good chunk of the movie's budget on her wardrobe. I mean, this is how petty we're going to get. I love it, but it is the strangest Hollywood war. I'm going to say it's maybe the biggest one since Brad versus Angie.
Well, and do you think that Lively and Reynolds, at least as a couple, their image, like maybe Reynolds individually, Lively individually, do kind of come back from this? Because, you know, Brad and Angelina eventually did. But does their image as this blissful it couple bounce back?
Oh, well, Megan, first of all, when I said Brad v. Angie, I meant like when they divorced, when they separated. And it was like the bombshells were going off. He was abusive. She was like out of her mind. Like this will be the thing that shows the strength of their marriage because I'm very cynical about.
So I really do believe that if this blowback against Blake gets to be too much, Ryan's going to cut her loose. I think that Ryan Reynolds has his eyes firmly set on becoming a billionaire, and I believe he'll get there.
And I don't think he's going to stand for his reputation getting muddied in all of this, even though he's already in it with these lawsuits and all of these text messages and these documents. And he was famously brought in by Blake to write a whole scene in the movie and be some sort of- unpaid advisor.
So I think that's really where you're going to see the strength of this countersuit against Justin, if it really does sort of crater their marriage.
Well, maybe just a couple more questions, Maureen. One of them is that The New York Times has come under a lot of scrutiny for the role it played in sort of rehabilitating Lively's claims when she was on the outs in terms of public affection, let's put it that way.
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