After exposing more alleged emails and texts, Justin Baldoni’s lawyer faced off with Blake Lively’s team in an explosive hearing.
Their first courtroom showdown was, by most accounts, a sparring match. “Things got heated,” NBC News’ Chloe Melas reported of the “courtroom fireworks” between lawyers for Blake and her It Ends with Us co-star and director, Justin, at a 90-minute hearing in New York City on February 3.
The main source of contention? Both sides are accusing each other of defamatory statements and squabbling over details from the dispute that have been leaked to the public. “Not to sound like a 4-year-old fighting a 4-year-old with ‘they started it,’ but in these kinds of cases, once someone says something it becomes fact,” Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, argued to the judge, according to Page Six. “This was not started by us, your honor.” Blake did strike first: In a December 20 complaint to the California Civil Rights Department (which she formalized in a December 31 lawsuit against Justin, producers and his publicists), Blake alleged that they had launched a calculated smear campaign against her in retaliation for her sexual harassment allegations.
Her claims were detailed in a bombshell New York Times article that month, featuring texts and emails between his publicists and crisis management team. Justin retaliated by filing a $400 million lawsuit against her, her husband, Ryan Reynolds and the Times, accusing them of defamation and extortion, before releasing his own trove of communications. (Blake, Ryan and the Times have denied the allegations.) As U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman told the lawyers at one point, according to NBC, “You’ve got a lot in front of the court that gives, I think, the public plenty to feast upon.”
Justin Baldoni Leaked Communications About Blake Lively Lawsuit
That includes a 168-page alleged “Timeline of Relevant Events” posted, along with Justin’s amended complaint, on a special website that went live on February 1. The dossier, which includes alleged notes from his meeting with an intimacy coordinator, along with hundreds of alleged emails and texts between Justin, Blake, Ryan, producers, a personal trainer, a wellness coach and more. The intent, Freedman told CNN, was to “corroborate” Justin’s side of the story by contextualizing each of Blake’s claims. Those include improvising kisses and touches without her consent, discussing his sex life and fat-shaming her so badly that “she was humiliated.”
Justin also released raw footage from filming. In the clip, he and Blake, 37, converse out of character while filming an intimate dance scene, and Justin, 41, nuzzles and kisses her. While his team says it proves he did nothing wrong, Blake’s side has pointed out the footage actually supports her specific claims.
Legal Expert Weighs in on ‘Public Opinion’ in Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively’s Legal Battle
The constant leaks sparked Blake’s lawyers to express their concerns to the judge. In a letter dated January 27, Michael J. Gottlieb writes that Blake also has texts and emails that back up her claims, which could lead to an “arms race” of information dumps.
“Mr. Freedman’s repeated media attacks of a victim of sexual harassment… and his weaponization of media outlets to broadly disseminate these false, defamatory, and misleading statements, have the potential to prejudice a jury pool beyond repair,” he added, demanding that they “must end.” Freedman retorted in a statement to the AP: The “irony is not lost on anyone that Ms. Lively is so petrified of the truth that she has moved to gag it.”
At the hearing, Gottlieb insisted they’re not seeking a “gag order” but instead for the judge to enforce the rules of official conduct, ABC reported. He said that the publicity has been “devastating” to Blake and “you can’t unring that bell,” according to CNN, while Freedman countered that Justin was also “devastated, financially and emotionally.”
The judge sided with Blake’s lawyers. “The law is pretty clear you can’t just attach a factual narrative,” Liman told Freedman of the timeline on the website, according to ABC. He admonished both lawyers to follow rules and suggested he would sanction them and even move up the court date — currently scheduled for March 9, 2026 — if they don’t behave. But as multiple experts have pointed out, the case is already being tried in the court of public opinion. Just like in the 2022 defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, passionate fans are using the newly leaked “evidence” to take sides online, calling out Blake and Ryan for alleged past offenses or comparing Justin’s behavior to his abusive character. Still, even Johnny’s lawyer, Benjamin Chew, called Freedman’s tactics “bold” and “aggressive” on the February 5 episode of “Law & Crime Sidebar with Jesse Weber.”
Legal coach and crisis manager Wendy Feldman is more critical. “Tampering with public opinion, which is your jury,” is a “terrible way” to handle the case, she tells In Touch, adding that it’s also “rare” to name a dollar amount in damages. Justin’s $400 million figure is “absurd,” she says, and is just another example of why this will likely be the nastiest lawsuit in Hollywood history. “It’s so crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this.” Feldman, like other experts, believes they’ll settle before going to trial. The longer they trade barbs, the worse it looks for both Justin and Blake, employment litigation attorney Camron Dowlatshahi told Variety. “I do think at some point both sides will realize there will be a public fatigue with this back and forth,” he says. “Reputationally, they’re not benefiting either way.”
