{"id":963159,"date":"2026-07-27T20:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/963159\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T20:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:32:14","slug":"baldonis-wayfarer-studios-must-pay-171k-to-ny-times-over-libel-filing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/963159\/","title":{"rendered":"Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios must pay $171K to NY Times over libel filing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over a year after a federal New York judge tossed \u201cIt Ends with Us\u201d director and star Justin Baldoni\u2019s<\/a> libel lawsuit against The New York Times, his studio has been ordered to pay over $171,000 to the paper.<\/p>\n

The 42-year-old filmmaker, who also starred in the adaptation of Colleen Hoover\u2019s book of the same name, filed a $250 million suit against The Times in early 2025, alleging that its Dec. 2024 feature<\/a>, which laid out co-star Blake Lively\u2019s allegations of sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign<\/a>, was \u201crife with inaccuracies [and] misrepresentations.\u201d Judge Lewis Liman dismissed the filing in June 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, Wayfarer Studios must pay $171,616 to The Times<\/a>, according to legal documents obtained Monday by TMZ, with an insider close to the company saying they \u201cfully understood the enormous risks involved in taking on\u201d the paper.<\/p>\n

Ultimately though, Wayfarer felt the filing \u201ca significant victory\u201d as it \u201cwas lost on journalistic privilege, not on the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times\u2019 piece, \u201c\u2018We Can Bury Anyone:\u2019 Inside a Hollywood Smear Campaign,\u201d<\/a> detailed Lively\u2019s civil rights complaint against Baldoni, which she then followed up \u2014 also in Dec. 2024 \u2014 with a lawsuit against him.<\/p>\n

Liman, in his decision, found The Times had \u201cno obvious motive to favor Lively\u2019s version of events,\u201d merely the \u201cavailable evidence\u201d and her initial complaint.<\/p>\n

In addition to suing The Times, Baldoni and co. filed a $400 million defamation suit against Lively and her camp, which was also tossed in June 2025. For that suit, Liman found the actress not liable as her allegations originated in a civil rights complaint.<\/p>\n

Baldoni missed the deadline<\/a> to appeal Liman\u2019s tossing of either suit<\/a>, as reported by TMZ in late October.<\/p>\n

Lively\u2019s suit was still set to go to trial this May when news broke that she and the Wayfarer parties had settled in early May, by which point Liman had also dismissed 10 of her 13 claims against Baldoni<\/a>, including those pertaining to sexual harassment and defamation<\/a>. No money was awarded<\/a> in the settlement.<\/p>\n

Roughly a month later, Liman ordered Baldoni and the Wayfarer parties to pay<\/a> $8 million toward Lively\u2019s legal fees but denied her bid for punitive or treble damages.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the Wayfarer parties called on Liman to \u201csignificantly reduce\u201d the legal fees owed to Lively, citing the $181,622.70 sought by The Times. A Lively source at the time told People that discovery in the Times case was a significantly shorter one<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over a year after a federal New York judge tossed \u201cIt Ends with Us\u201d director and star Justin…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":963160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1370,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,22810,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-963159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-latest-headlines","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-snyde","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116993848712384161","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963159","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=963159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}