Attorneys for US actress Blake Lively have returned to court in New York to seek legal fees and damages from her It Ends with Us co-star Justin Baldoni, despite the pair reaching a settlement last month in their long-running legal dispute.
Lively's legal team argued that the defamation lawsuit brought against her by Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, was a retaliatory move prohibited under California law.
Lawyers for Baldoni rejected the claim.
Details of the sum being sought by Lively are not currently available.
Lively filed her first complaint against Baldoni in December 2024, alleging that the actor, who also directed It Ends with Us, had behaved inappropriately during production and had sought to alter the film to include sex scenes that were not in the script.
The actress, who became widely known for her role in Gossip Girl, also alleged that Baldoni had orchestrated a PR and social media campaign to damage her reputation.
Baldoni and Wayfarer denied wrongdoing and countersued Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, with claims including extortion and defamation. Those claims were later dismissed by a judge.
Wayfarer has previously said that neither the studio, its executives, nor its PR team did anything to retaliate against Lively.
The federal judge handling the case, Lewis Liman, also dismissed some of Lively’s claims, but allowed her retaliation allegations to proceed.
The full terms of the out-of-court settlement reached between the two sides have not been publicly disclosed.
Based on the best-selling novel by US writer Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us made more than $350 million at the global box office in 2024, making it one of the year’s biggest hits.
Source: AFP
