By Jack Queen
NEW YORK, April 28 (Reuters) – Lawyers for actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni sparred in court on Tuesday over Lively’s potential bid for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in an upcoming civil trial stemming from her allegations of sexual harassment during the filming of their 2024 romantic drama “It Ends With Us.”
The highly anticipated civil trial set to begin in May will be limited to Lively’s retaliation claims against Baldoni’s production company after a judge threw out her sexual harassment claims. Both actors are expected to testify about Lively’s claims after a steady drip of details emerged in more than a year of acrimonious and widely publicized litigation, though neither attended Tuesday’s hearing.
Baldoni and his company Wayfarer Studios have strongly denied Lively’s allegations, and Baldoni was dismissed as a defendant in U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman’s April 2 ruling throwing out Lively’s sexual harassment claims.
The case is proceeding to trial on Lively’s claims that Wayfarer retaliated against her for complaining about misconduct and organized what she called a smear campaign aimed at destroying her reputation and career prospects through a flood of negative social media posts.
Tuesday’s hearing included arguments over the admissibility of an expert report commissioned by Lively’s lawyers estimating that she suffered as much as $230 million in lost earnings and profits due to the alleged smear campaign, and at least $40 million from reputational harm.
Wayfarer lawyer Fabien Thayamballi called those “pie-in-the-sky” figures that did not reflect her past earnings.
A lawyer for Lively, Naeun Rim, said Wayfarer’s attacks on Lively erased years’ worth of investment in her hair care product line and other companies that were built off her reputation.
Liman concluded Tuesday’s hearing without ruling.
Lively sued Baldoni, Wayfarer and others in December 2024, seeking damages for alleged harassment, defamation, invasion of privacy and violations of federal and state civil rights laws.
Baldoni, 42, countered that he resolved Lively’s concerns as soon as she raised them, and that he was entitled to hire a crisis management firm after Lively began disparaging him publicly.
He filed a $400 million countersuit accusing Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds of trying to destroy his reputation, but Liman dismissed that case in June.
(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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