Justin Baldoni’s $400 million defamation countersuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds has been formally dismissed, marking the latest chapter in the ongoing It Ends with Us legal battle.
On October 31, U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Liman signed an order ending the case after Baldoni and his co-plaintiffs at Wayfarer Studios failed to file an amended complaint following its dismissal in June 2025. According to court documents reviewed by PEOPLE, Judge Liman contacted all parties earlier in October to warn that a final judgment would be entered if no updates were made.
Lively, 38, responded by requesting that the court issue the final judgment but allow her request for legal fees to remain active a motion the judge approved. The order effectively ends Baldoni’s counterclaims against Lively, Reynolds, and their publicist.
The decision follows months of litigation that began in December 2024, when Lively filed a lawsuit accusing Baldoni of misconduct and orchestrating a retaliatory smear campaign on the set of It Ends with Us. Baldoni has denied all allegations.
His countersuit, filed in response, sought $400 million for alleged defamation and extortion, while a separate $250 million case against The New York Times was also dismissed in June.
Following the initial dismissal, Lively addressed the outcome in a heartfelt Instagram Story post:
“Like so many others, I’ve felt the pain of a retaliatory lawsuit, including the manufactured shame that tries to break us,” she wrote. “While the suit against me was defeated, so many don’t have the resources to fight back.”
Her attorneys, Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb, called the ruling a “total victory and a complete vindication,” stating that the court saw Baldoni’s claims as baseless.
Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, responded that the declaration of victory was “false,” maintaining that the case centered on “false accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation.”
Judge Liman previously ruled that Lively’s harassment allegations were protected under California law inspired by the #MeToo movement, and thus could not be used as the basis for a defamation suit. The court also found that Baldoni and his team had not demonstrated that Reynolds, Lively’s publicist Leslie Sloane, or The New York Times knowingly published false information.
While Baldoni’s countersuit has officially ended, Lively’s original lawsuit remains active, with a trial scheduled for March 2026.
Source: People