Hollywood dust settles as Lively and Baldoni resolve legal fight over movie drama

Two years after filming wrapped on the romantic movie “It Ends With Us, ” Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have quietly ended their courtroom clash. The surprise settlement avoids a high-profile trial that was set for mid-May and could have had both actors taking the stand. During the dispute, Lively accused Baldoni’s team of creating a hostile set environment and then launching a whisper campaign to smear her online. Baldoni’s side fired back, saying Lively’s public comments about him were untrue and harmful enough to warrant a crisis-communications response. The disagreement started publicly in late 2024 when Lively filed a complaint with California’s civil-rights agency. A few weeks later she sued Baldoni and his production company, asking for money and claiming harassment, privacy violations, and defamation. Baldoni responded with his own lawsuit, arguing that Lively and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, tried to wreck his career with false stories. Both sides have now agreed to drop their claims.Before the trial could begin, a federal judge knocked out Lively’s harassment charges but left the door open for her retaliation claims to be aired at the scheduled May hearing. Those claims centered on whether Baldoni’s team overreacted to her complaints and turned the spotlight back on her. At the same time, the judge tossed out Baldoni’s defamation cases against Lively and even the New York Times, which had published a detailed piece about Hollywood’s reputation-management industry. Despite the backstage battle, “It Ends With Us” still played well with global audiences. The movie earned more than $350 million worldwide, proving that box-office numbers don’t always reflect off-screen drama.