Why is Justin Baldoni suing Ryan Reynolds along with Blake Lively? The accusations against the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ star.
Here’s what Ryan Reynolds is accused of in Justin Baldoni’s $400M lawsuit — and why a defamation lawyer isn’t surprised about his inclusion.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s It Ends With Us war escalated on Thursday after the director officially filed a $400 million lawsuit against the actress. The countersuit was expected as Lively first sued Baldoni in December and accused him of sexual harassment and misconduct on set.
But Lively isn’t the only one called out in the 179-page document. Ryan Reynolds was also sued and named in six of seven claims in the civil filing. One legal expert said it is not surprising the actor was included given the allegations.
“It is not strange that Ryan Reynolds was named in light of Baldoni’s theories in the complaint,” defamation lawyer Jeff Lewis told Yahoo Entertainment on Friday. “Baldoni argues that Reynolds participated in a meeting to force Baldoni to apologize for misconduct that did not occur and pressured Baldoni to surrender creative control over the film. This meeting is a key part of Baldoni’s civil extortion theory.”
That meeting, which took place on Jan. 4, 2024, is referenced in both Lively and Baldoni’s dueling lawsuits. It was set up to discuss a list of issues the Gossip Girl alum wanted addressed before returning to set. Topics included the role of an intimacy coordinator, no unscripted kissing and more. Reynolds attended the meeting as Lively’s chosen representative.
“Baldoni claims that both Lively and Reynolds took actions to force [talent agency] William Morris Endeavor to drop Baldoni as a client. Under the facts of this case, Reynolds is not just the husband of Lively,” Lewis added. “He is alleged to be individually responsible for Baldoni’s claims.”
Attorney Bryan Freedman filed the lawsuit on behalf of Baldoni, his company Wayfarer Studios, It Ends With Us co-producer Jamey Heath, publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan. All parties were named in Lively’s lawsuit in which she also claimed Baldoni’s publicists embarked on a smear campaign that ruined her reputation.
The group is suing Lively and Reynolds for civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy, intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage. (Lively is the only one being sued for breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.)
Here is what Reynolds is accused of in the lawsuit.
What happened at the Jan. 4 meeting?
The meeting was attended by Baldoni, Heath, a Sony representative, the film’s first assistant director, and two producers. Ahead of time, Lively sent 17 issues she wanted to discuss before returning to set. However, Baldoni claimed he did not know those issues centered around his and Heath’s alleged inappropriate behavior.
“Reynolds and Lively blindsided the rest of the group with a list of grievances, read aloud by Lively, that were as troubling as they were fictional,” Baldoni’s lawsuit claimed. “Reynolds then launched into an aggressive tirade, berating Baldoni in what Baldoni later described as a ‘traumatic’ encounter.”
Reynolds allegedly “demanded that Baldoni apologize to Lively” for his behavior, which Baldoni claimed “either never happened or had been grossly mischaracterized.”
“Baldoni resisted apologizing for things he had not done, further enraging Reynolds,” the lawsuit alleged. “The producer said that in his 40-year career, he had never seen anyone speak to someone like that in a meeting.”
Baldoni and Heath allegedly “left the meeting deeply unsettled by Lively and Reynolds’s behavior and the power dynamics at play.” They believed that this was an attempt for Lively to get “creative control over the film, a campaign now apparently joined by Reynolds.”
