A federal judge in New York ruled on Wednesday that Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, the production company behind "It Ends With Us," must pay Blake Lively close to $400,000 to cover her attorneys' fees.
اضافة اعلان
The ruling followed Lively's request for $7.5 million in reimbursement, an amount U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman deemed excessive. Instead, he ordered Baldoni and Wayfarer to pay just over $363,000 in legal fees plus roughly $44,000 in costs. In his decision, Liman pointed to a California statute meant to shield people who report sexual harassment from retaliation, though he clarified that the law only covers Lively's fees tied to her defamation claims.
Baldoni's attorney, Bryan Freedman, said the outcome spoke for itself, noting that the judge had rejected Lively's roughly $8 million-plus demand and granted only about 5% of what she'd sought — something Freedman characterized as a major win for his client. ABC News said it had contacted a representative for Lively for comment.
This latest ruling comes more than a year after Liman threw out Baldoni's $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and the couple's publicist Leslie Sloane, along with a related defamation claim Baldoni had brought against The New York Times.
The legal battle between Lively and Baldoni, who co-starred in "It Ends With Us," dates back to December 2024, when Lively filed a complaint with California's Civil Rights Department alleging Baldoni — who also directed the film — sexually harassed her on set. She further claimed that he and his production company tried to orchestrate a smear campaign against her, allegations both Baldoni and Wayfarer have strongly denied.
Liman dismissed Baldoni's countersuit in June 2025, and by April of this year had also stripped away much of Lively's case against Baldoni, including her sexual harassment allegations — though he allowed her retaliation claims against Baldoni's PR team to proceed. In May, Baldoni and Lively reached a settlement, with Liman ruling at the time that Baldoni and Wayfarer were required to cover Lively's legal fees, while rejecting her bid for punitive damages.
