Ryan Reynolds Goes Scorched Earth on Justin Baldoni

"While Mr. Baldoni ‘may not appreciate being called’ a predator, those hurt feelings do not give rise to legal claims," Reynolds' lawyers wrote in a motion to dismiss Baldoni's lawsuit. 

By Lauren Tousignant  |  March 19, 2025 | 9:58am
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Ryan Reynolds Goes Scorched Earth on Justin Baldoni

As the very tense and very public It Ends With Us litigation continues, Ryan Reynolds is making his “disdain” for Justin Baldoni part of the public record. On Tuesday, Reynolds’ lawyers filed a motion to dismiss Baldoni’s “gossip rag” legal claims against him, claiming, essentially, that Reynolds does think Baldoni sucks, but that you can’t sue someone for “hurt feelings.”

Attorneys for both Blake Lively and Reynolds write in the claim that while Lively is suing Baldoni and his business associates for sexual harassment and the subsequent retaliation, Reynolds has nothing to do with that and has only been a “supportive spouse.” It further claims, according to Variety, that Reynolds “has a First Amendment right to hold Mr. Baldoni—or any man who Mr. Reynolds believes sexually harassed his wife—in ‘deep disdain.’”

“The entirety of Plaintiffs’ defamation claim appears to be based on two times that Mr. Reynolds allegedly called Mr. Baldoni a ‘predator,’” the motion reads. “But, the FAC alleges no plausible facts that suggest Mr. Reynolds did not believe this comment to be true.”

The “allegations suggest that Mr. Reynolds genuinely, perhaps passionately, believes that Mr. Baldoni’s behavior is reflective of a ‘predator,’” it continues. “(T)he law establishes that calling someone a ‘predator’ amounts to constitutionally protected opinion… While Mr. Baldoni ‘may not appreciate being called’ a predator, those hurt feelings do not give rise to legal claims.”

In Baldoni’s amended lawsuit earlier this year, he also claimed Reynolds was “bullying” him with the Deadpool character “Nicepool”; the film’s misogynistic male ally with a man bun who identified as a feminist and said lines like, “I’d be fighting alongside you, but my calling is to one day start a podcast that monetizes the women’s movement.”

Reynolds’ lawyers did not dispute that “Nicepool” is based on Baldoni, instead stating that Baldoni is just complaining and showing “thin-skinned outrage over a movie character.”

Baldoni sued the New York Times for libel for $250 million in December and then filed a second $400 million defamation lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds, and their publicist, Leslie Sloane in January. Sloane filed a motion to dismiss in February.

I’m sure Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, already has at least two random right-wing podcast appearances lined up to rage about this.

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