Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni: Everything you need to know about scandal involving It Ends With Us stars including bombshell lawsuits

The romance drama released in cinemas across the world in August 2024, but it wasn’t until December of the same year that the drama circling the film hit the headlines, after Lively, 37, filed a lawsuit against her co-star and director, 40.

It Ends With Us, based on the Colleen Hoover book of the same name, tells the story of Lily Bloom (Lively) and her troubled relationship with neurosurgeon Ryle Kinkaid (Baldoni). The film touches on themes of domestic violence and emotional abuse.

During the film’s promotional tour, rumours swirled of issues between Baldoni and Lively on set, with some eagle-eyed fans spotting that the pair had not appeared together during promotional events. While neither commented on the situation at the time, it was months later that fans were told about the tensions on set.

What has Blake Lively accused Justin Baldoni of?

In a complaint filed on December 20, 2024 and detailed in The New York Times story ‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine’, Lively made several allegations of sexual harassment perpetrated by Baldoni and the film’s producer James Heath while they worked on set together. The Gossip Girl star claims that Baldoni and Heath repeatedly attempted to enter her makeup trailer uninvited while undressing.

She accused Heath of showing her a video of his wife naked, while she alleged Baldoni attempted to add gratuitous sex scenes into the film without her consent, wanted to discuss his sex life and previous “porn addiction”, and also improvised unwanted kissing while filming.

She has also accused the pair of orchestrating a public smear campaign against her during the film’s promotional release to discredit her allegations before she made them public. Lively said that this campaign was led by Baldoni’s PR representative Jennifer Abel and crisis PR expert Melissa Nathan, with Nathan allegedly writing in texts included in the complaint: “You know we can bury anyone”.

Negative press amplified around Lively during the time of the film’s release, which included a resurfaced interview from 2010 reuploaded to YouTube titled ‘The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job’. Norwegian reporter Kjersti Flaa, who posted the re-upload, has said that the re-upload “was neither co-ordinated nor influenced by anyone associated with the alleged campaign”.

In her complaint, Lively said that she laid out her concerns in a letter to Baldoni’s production studio, Wayfarer Studios, which led to a sit-down discussion with Baldoni, Heath, a Sony executive and Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds. Wayfayer Studios agreed to her terms during the meeting, which included an intimacy co-ordinator on set at all times and a stunt double for sex scenes, but noted that “our perspective differs in many aspects”.

Lively and other cast members, as well as the book’s author, reportedly refused to take part in publicity appearances Baldoni following the alleged behaviour on set.

Lively has since filed an official lawsuit against Baldoni for sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and lost wages. She has also filed against Nathan and Abel.

Baldoni’s former publicist Stephanie Jones has also filed a lawsuit against the actor, Wayfarer Studios, Abel and Nathan, alleging a breach of contract in relation to the claimed smear campaign against Lively.

What has Justin Baldoni said about Blake Lively’s allegations?

The former Jane The Virgin star saw his talent agency WME drop him after the allegations from Lively were made public. He was also stripped of his Voices of Solidarity Award by the Vital Voices Global Partnership, which he was awarded on December 9 for his work in strengthening women’s empowerment.

However, Baldoni and Bryan Freedman, a lawyer for Wayfarer Studios, denied all allegations, telling Page Six: “It is shameful that Ms Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations. These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.”

Freedman said that Baldoni had hired a crisis PR manager due to “multiple demands and threats” made by Lively during the production of It Ends With Us, which allegedly included ultimatums on turning up to set “if her demands were not met”. The lawyer added that Lively’s complaint was “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation, which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film, interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions”.

He also alleged that Lively was in fact the one to be planting negative stories about Baldoni, adding: “There were no proactive measures taken with media or otherwise, just internal scenario planning and private correspondence to strategize, which is standard operating procedure with public relations professionals.”

Following Lively’s lawsuit being filed in New York, Baldoni and the nine other people detailed in The New York Times article filed a £250m lawsuit against the newspaper, alleging libel and invasion of privacy. The lawsuit said that the newspaper’s report on Heath showing Lively a video of his wife naked was “absurd”, saying that he had shared a video of his wife giving birth, describing the video as a “deeply personal one with no sexual overtone”.

It added that Lively allegations of sexual harassment in this instance was part of “strategic and manipulative” smear campaign against Baldoni. It also said that Abel and Nathan’s actions were “standard industry practice”, with Freedman accusing The New York Times of having “cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites [Lively and Reynolds], disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting of the revered publication by using doctored and manipulated texts and intentionally omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative.”

The New York Times has responded to the lawsuit, saying in a statement: “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. We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”