No money was exchanged in the settlement between Blake Lively and her It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni when they laid down their arms Monday, just weeks before they were set to go to trial.
For all the money the Gossip Girl alum, 38, and 42-year-old Baldoni spent on legal counsel since she first filed suit against him in late 2024, they never ended up having to fork over any money to one another, nor did Baldoni issue a formal apology, insiders told TMZ Tuesday.
All this despite Lively in recent days hiring law firm Susman Godfrey, which has a history of winning big for clients, including US$425mil against Google and US$1.5bil in an AI dispute.
Perhaps that’s why Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman told NBC News that the actor-director is “feeling pretty good.”
Lively and Baldoni had been embroiled in a legal battle since just before Christmas 2024, when she filed a civil rights complaint in California — followed by a lawsuit in New York — accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of their film, adapted from Colleen Hoover’s novel about an abusive relationship. Lively at the time also accused Baldoni of waging a retaliatory smear campaign.
In recent months, federal New York Judge Lewis J. Liman dismissed Baldoni’s US$250mil libel lawsuit against The New York Times, for its coverage of Lively’s claims, as well as his US$400mil defamation suit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and publicist Leslie Sloane.
Last month, Liman also tossed 10 of Lively’s 13 claims against Baldoni, including those related to sexual harassment, defamation and conspiracy.
As a source familiar with the matter told NBC, it was after those dismissals that the warring camps started to explore a settlement, even as Lively’s remaining claims were set to go to trial on May 18.
The case was officially put to bed with a settlement Monday afternoon, at which point, Lively and Baldoni’s legal teams released a joint statement.
“Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors — and all survivors — is a goal that we stand behind,” read the statement, in part. “We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognise concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard.”
“There was a willingness to get the case resolved, given the opportunity and the position the case was set, and so, you know, when we were presented with an opportunity, we took that opportunity,” Freedman told NBC, adding that the dismissal of most of Lively’s claims “changed the nature of the case.”
He said he imagines Baldoni “absolutely wants a chance to tell his story,” which Freedman said will happen “maybe sooner than later.”
Shortly before news of the settlement broke, TMZ reported on a Sony e-mail that countered Lively’s statement, made in a summer 2025 deposition, that she’d never requested the studio to delete raw footage — known as “dailies” — from It Ends With Us.
In the hours after the settlement, Lively shocked all with a return to the Met Gala. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
