It Ends With Us<\/a>.\u201d She also alleged that when she raised complaints about it, he and his army of publicists engaged in a digital smear campaign to retaliate.<\/p>\n\n\tIn a carefully crafted joint statement released on Monday, the parties expressed their feelings about moving on.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe end product \u2013 the movie \u2018It Ends With\u00a0Us\u2019 \u2013 is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. Raising awareness, and\u00a0making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors \u2013 and all survivors \u2013 is a goal that we stand behind. We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard. We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe settlement comes about a month after Judge Lewis Liman threw out 10 of Lively\u2019s 13 civil claims, including all claims for harassment. The ruling left three claims \u2014 retaliation, aiding and abetting retaliation, and breach of contract \u2014 to be decided by a jury.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt the time, Lively\u2019s attorney said she looked forward to telling her story on the witness stand. But the attorney, Sigrid McCawley, also seemed to telegraph that a settlement was a real possibility, suggesting that Lively had already achieved her goals by exposing the \u201csmear machine\u201d at the heart of the case.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFor Blake Lively, the greatest measure of justice is that the people and the playbook behind these coordinated digital attacks have been exposed and are already being held accountable by other women they\u2019ve targeted,\u201d McCawley said at the time.<\/p>\n
\n\tLively herself also took to Instagram to claim a measure of victory at the time.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe last thing I wanted in my life was a lawsuit, but I brought this case because of the pervasive RETALIATION I faced, and continue to, for privately and professionally asking for a safe working environment for myself and others,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI hope the Court\u2019s decision shows others that, as unfathomably painful as it is, you can speak up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLively began the legal war in December 2024, filing an administrative complaint with the California Civil Rights Department. At nearly the same time, the New York Times published a lengthy article exposing text messages from Baldoni\u2019s publicists, in which they strategized about how to respond to Lively\u2019s allegations, and bragged of being able to \u201cbury\u201d anyone.<\/p>\n
\n\tBaldoni responded with a lengthy defamation lawsuit in federal court, alleging that Lively had in fact destroyed his reputation with false allegations of harassment in a cynical bid to hijack the film. He also sued the New York Times. Lively then countersued, accusing Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and others of harassment, retaliation and other claims.<\/p>\n
\n\tBaldoni\u2019s defamation suit was thrown out in the early stages, as the judge ruled that Lively and the Times were both protected by privileges covering litigation and reporting on litigation. After more than a year of extensive discovery and bitter legal fighting, most of Lively\u2019s claims were also thrown out \u2014 mostly on technical grounds instead of the merits. Lively was found to be an independent contractor, not an employee, meaning she could not sue for harassment under federal law. And since the filming took place in New Jersey, she could not file suit under California\u2019s harassment statute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It ends with a settlement. After a year and a half of bitter feuding in court and in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":773388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[45511,185,171,74502,34615,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-773387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-blake-lively","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-it-ends-with-us","tag-justin-baldoni","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116518343626146522","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}