Actor and director Justin Baldoni has filed a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times following the publication of an article detailing serious allegations from his It Ends With Us co-star, Blake Lively, as People reported. The suit, which was filed on December 31, 2024, claims that the Times‘ report was “rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions” that relied on Lively’s “self-serving narrative,” according to CNN.
The controversy erupted when Lively accused Baldoni of harassment during the filming of the Netflix adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel, It Ends With Us. She claimed Baldoni’s actions created an unwelcoming atmosphere on set, and she alleged that his public relations team orchestrated a campaign to tarnish her reputation after she made the accusations. In response, Baldoni’s legal team is asserting that the allegations were exaggerated and that the Times’ reporting misrepresented the facts.
The article in question, published by the Times on December 21, titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” and included details from Lively’s legal complaints, highlighting what she described as a deliberate attempt to damage her career. The piece suggested that Baldoni and his PR team played a central role in the campaign to discredit Lively. However, Baldoni’s legal action argues that the newspaper relied on selective quotes, out-of-context communications, and statements from Lively’s legal filings that painted an incomplete and inaccurate picture of the situation.
Baldoni claims that Lively “created false…harassment accusations so she could take control of the film, then set out on a campaign to ‘reshape her public persona’ with ‘salacious, headline-grabbing allegations’ in The New York Times at Baldoni’s expense,” as CNN stated.
“Lively’s cynical abuse of…harassment allegations to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production was both strategic and manipulative,” Baldoni’s lawsuit says. “Simultaneously, her public image suffered as a result of a series of high-profile blunders, which she tried to deflect by blaming Plaintiffs for the public’s prying interest into the foibles of an A-list celebrity. This is nothing but an excuse. Fame is a double-edged sword, but Lively’s tactics here are unconscionable.”
In addition, the suit claims, the news outlet failed its “journalistic integrity” and “relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self-serving narrative, lifting it nearly verbatim while disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives.”
A spokesperson for The New York Times told CNN they will “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.” “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, spokesperson for the Times, told CNN. “Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article. To date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the other subjects of the article and their representatives have not pointed to a single error. We published their full statement in response to the allegations in the article as well.”
With the case still in its early stages, Baldoni and Lively’s legal teams are expected to continue to make headlines throughout 2025. Further developments are eagerly anticipated as the legal proceedings unfold and more details emerge about the intricacies of the case.
