Breaking: Justin Baldoni sues the New York Times for $250 million over ‘defamatory’ reporting of Blake Lively smear campaign; Lively official sues Baldoni for sexual harassment….

What a way to end the year! Justin Baldoni launched a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times on Tuesday (Dec. 31, 2024), challenging what he claims is “defamatory” coverage regarding his alleged campaign to discredit Blake Lively.

The It Ends With Us filmmaker and lead actor joins nine other plaintiffs in filing the libel and invasion of privacy lawsuit. Along with publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, they assert that the newspaper’s explosive Dec. 21 article, “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” relied on “‘cherry-picked’ and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead.”

The legal action, submitted to Los Angeles Superior Court through attorney Bryan J. Freedman, comes barely two weeks after Lively, Baldoni’s co-star in It Ends With Us, filed sexual harassment allegations against him on Dec. 20. This triggered an ongoing media storm and swift professional consequences for Baldoni. The aftermath saw him promptly dropped by WME, stripped of a prestigious allyship recognition from a prominent women’s organization, abandoned by his podcast co-host, and faced with mounting opposition from Hollywood figures who rallied behind Lively.

“The Times story 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,” states the lawsuit, which additionally charges the paper with promissory fraud and breach of implied-in-fact contract.

However, winning libel cases—particularly against a journalistic powerhouse like the Times—is historically challenging. Regarding the Times’ “We Can Bury Anyone” coverage, the publication based its reporting on evidence and messages documented in Lively’s legal filing.

The Times maintains that Baldoni and his representatives have yet to identify “a single error” in their reporting, despite the lawsuit’s assertions.

Tuesday’s lawsuit alleges that Times journalists Megan Twohey, Mike McIntire, and Julie Tate misled their audience by suggesting, based on Lively’s complaint, that Baldoni, his publicity team, and co-plaintiffs Jamey Heath and Steve Sarowitz, the film’s producers, launched a “retaliatory public relations campaign against Lively for speaking out about sexual harassment” — claims they assert are “categorically false and easily disproven.”

While Lively’s December 20 filing claims Baldoni and his crisis PR team orchestrated a smear campaign against her as preemptive retaliation for her sexual harassment allegations, Tuesday’s lawsuit contends that Lively’s accusations were fabricated and part of her own “strategic and manipulative” campaign targeting Baldoni.

The suit further alleges that Lively’s spouse, Ryan Reynolds, had confrontations with her co-star and director during production, accusing Baldoni of “fat-shaming” her, before later pressuring WME to terminate their relationship with him.

These actions were allegedly undertaken “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production,” according to the suit — reflecting widespread public speculation about Lively’s behavior during It Ends With Us production and the onset of Baldoni’s supposed crisis PR efforts.