Maybe It Ends With $161 Million in Damages

Newly unsealed documents reveal that Lively is seeking millions in damages from Justin Baldoni. She also included roughly half of Hollywood on a list of potential witnesses.

By Lauren Tousignant | November 7, 2025 | 9:53am

Photo: Getty Images Celebrities Dirt Bag Dirt Bag

Maybe It Ends With $161 Million in Damages

A judge may have thrown Justin Baldoni‘s $400 million defamation lawsuit against Blake Lively into the trash, but the seemingly endless legal drama hasn’t ended yet.

Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni, his studio, Wayfarer, producer Jamey Heath, and their publicists, which was filed on December 31, 2024, and alleges Baldoni sexually harassed her, created a hostile work environment on the set of It Ends With Us, and then orchestrated a smear campaign against her, will go to trial in March. This week, in a newly unsealed court filing, which was first submitted in July, Lively claims Baldoni’s retaliation campaign cost her a whopping $161 million in damages. She also named about half of Hollywood in a list of potential witnesses.

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In the attached exhibit, Lively’s lawyers claim the campaign cost her $56.2 million in lost income, including acting and producing gigs, speaking engagements, and appearances, $71 million in lost business profits from Betty Buzz, Betty Booze, and Blake Brown Beauty, and that the “65,000,000 impressions of the defamatory statements” cost her an additional $34 million in “reputational harm.

In the original lawsuit, Lively’s lawyers listed a mere $75,000 in damages.

The same exhibit includes a list of more than 100 witnesses, including Taylor Swift, Gigi Hadid, Hugh Jackman, Lively’s Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-stars, Amber Tamblyn, America Ferrera, and Alexis Bledel, as well as Emily Blunt, Colleen Hoover, Jenny Slate, and all three of the Haim sisters, Este, Danielle, and Alana.

“Parties are notoriously over-inclusive when they list witnesses in their initial disclosures because they don’t want to lose the right to call someone at trial by not listing them,” a lawyer and legal expert who is not involved in the case told People.

On Halloween, a judge formally dismissed Baldoni’s lawsuit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist, after his team missed the deadline to file an amended complaint. This was after the judge first tossed the suit in June, along with Baldoni’s $250 million defamation suit against the New York Times. Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, insists this is a mischaracterization of the details, and they only allowed the deadline to pass so that Baldoni could “preserve appeal rights.”

I hope Lively gets her payday—and that in at least six months, we’ll never have to read, hear, or utter the words It Ends With Us or Justin Baldoni, ever again.

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