Blake Lively #

Introduction #

Blake Lively, one of Hollywood’s most bankable actresses, spent two years at the center of the entertainment industry’s bitterest legal battle after she accused Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director on “It Ends With Us,” of sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign against her. On April 2, 2026, a federal judge dismissed her sexual harassment claims, writing in a ruling that a jury will still hear many of the allegations through three surviving claims, including retaliation. The decision came roughly six weeks before a trial was scheduled to begin on May 18, 2026, in a case that had already consumed both actors’ careers and much of the internet’s attention.

Background Information #

Born Blake Ellender Brown on August 25, 1987, in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles, Lively came from an acting family and made her film debut in “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” (2005) and its 2008 sequel. She achieved stardom as Serena van der Woodsen on the CW drama “Gossip Girl,” which ran from 2007 to 2012, and built a film career across romantic comedies and thrillers while becoming a fixture of fashion and beauty campaigns. She married “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds in 2012, and the couple became one of Hollywood’s most prominent power pairs. In August 2024, Lively starred in and produced the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel “It Ends With Us,” which was released on August 9, 2024; that same month, she and Reynolds became the first married Hollywood couple to hold the top two spots at the domestic box office simultaneously with “It Ends With Us” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

Behind the film’s success, relations between Lively and Baldoni, who also starred as the abusive Ryle Kincaid, had fractured. In December 2024, Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment on set and accusing him and his production company Wayfarer Studios of engaging in a “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” her reputation. On December 21, 2024, The New York Times published an article — titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” — reporting allegations that Baldoni and his associates had orchestrated a campaign to damage Lively’s reputation, a story that immediately dominated the industry and social media.

Lively followed up in early January 2025 by filing a federal lawsuit in New York reiterating the complaint and accusing Baldoni and Wayfarer of “unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing” to ruin her reputation, seeking $500 million in damages. Baldoni fired back with a $400 million countersuit against Lively, Reynolds and their publicist for civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy, claiming Lively had “robbed” him of control over the film and destroyed his reputation; Lively’s lawyers denied the allegations and called the suit “another chapter in the abuser playbook.”

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The legal war split the industry and the public. While Lively framed the case as retaliation for speaking up, Baldoni’s team argued the complaint was a strategy to seize control of the film, and a wave of online backlash turned against Lively through 2025 as unsealed text messages and video clips were picked apart by commentators on every side. The reputational damage to both stars was substantial: Lively largely retreated from public life, while Baldoni maintained he had been smeared. A New York federal judge dismissed Baldoni’s own lawsuit in June 2025, formally ending the counterclaim in October 2025 after he did not refile an amended complaint.

A last-ditch court-ordered settlement conference on February 11, 2026, ended after six hours with no deal; Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman said he believed the case would go to trial, telling reporters “I’m looking forward to it.” Then, on April 2, 2026, Judge Lewis J. Liman dismissed Lively’s sexual harassment claims against Baldoni while leaving intact three claims, including retaliation, that will let a jury hear many of the allegations anyway.

Current Status #

As of the most recent reporting in the fetched sources, the case was heading toward a trial scheduled for May 18, 2026, with the dismissal of the harassment claims reshaping the litigation. Lively has continued to frame the fight in terms of retaliation, saying in the wake of the ruling that she remains focused on continuing “to shine a light on this vicious form of online retaliation so that it become easier to detect and fight,” adding, “This case has a long way to go.”

Impact on Their Career/Life #

Whatever the trial’s outcome, the feud has already reshaped both careers. Lively’s decade-plus status as a red-carpet favorite and box-office draw collided with a brutal, year-long public reckoning, and her victory over the harassment claims was at best partial — the judge’s ruling meant the jury will still consider the retaliation allegations at the heart of her case. For Baldoni, the fight set off an industry firestorm over how Hollywood handles on-set misconduct allegations and counter-campaigns, and his own legal defeat in June 2025 removed his extortion claims from the case. The dispute has become a defining test of retaliation claims in the post-#MeToo era, with both stars’ futures tied to how a jury ultimately weighs whose story the public believes.