The New York Times moved Friday to dismiss Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios’ defamation lawsuit over its article that began the legal battle between the actor-director and his “It Ends With Us” co-star, Blake Lively.
The legal filing from New York, as obtained by TheWrap, states the the defamation claim is “insufficient as a matter of law because the challenged statement is protected opinion and because the Wayfarer Parties plead nothing but conclusory allegations regarding The Times’ purported actual malice.”
It went on to state, “While the Wayfarer Parties will doubtlessly continue their efforts to litigate this case against Lively in the court of public opinion, their legal claims against The Times have no place in this court of law. The FAC should be dismissed.”
Baldoni sued the Times for $250 million on Dec. 31, alleging that the paper conspired with Lively’s PR team to skew the narrative in the actress’ favor.
The Dec. 21 article titled, “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” alleged that Baldoni and “It Ends With Us” producer Jamey Heath hired a crisis public relations expert to “harm Ms. Lively’s reputation” and head off her pending sexual harassment allegations against Baldoni.
Ten days after the Times article was published, Lively filed a federal suit in New York against Baldoni accusing him of improvising intimate scenes and other alleged inappropriate on-set behavior.
Earlier on Friday, a judge refused to grant everything Lively’s legal team requested in the Feb. 12 subpoena for Baldoni’s phone records, and those of Wayfarer Studios, dating back to 2022. U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman called the request “overly broad and invasive,” as well as “overly intrusive and disproportionate to the needs of the case.”
Baldoni’s camp was celebratory in response, calling Lively’s efforts “egregious.”
“The Court put a stop to Ms. Lively’s egregious attempt to invade our clients’ privacy. This is a big win,” Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement to TheWrap. He went on to describe the subpoena as “a desperate fishing expedition intended to salvage their debunked claims long after they already savaged our clients’ reputations in the New York Times.”
