In a motion to dismiss Justin Baldoni’s and Wayfarer Studios’ lawsuit against him and wife Blake Lively over “mocking” him in “Deadpool vs. Wolverine,” Ryan Reynolds said that the “It Ends With Us” actor and director’s complaints amount only to “hurt feelings.”
A key passage in the dismissal, obtained by TheWrap and filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, obtained by TheWrap, says that Baldoni’s “thin-skinned outrage over a movie character, the satirical ‘woke’ Nicepool, does not even pretend to be tied to any actual legal claims.
“Instead, the motion states, “it falls into the [First Amended Complaint]’s general allegation of ‘hurt feelings,’ which in reality is nothing more than a desperate effort to advance the same curated ‘bully’ image that the Wayfarer Parties created and disseminated in the retaliation campaign they launched against Ms. Lively in August of 2024.”
The dismissal also states that the Wayfarer suit “fails to plead facts sufficient to establish a prima facie case as a matter of law” and failed to offer a “single complete statement” proving defamation, “because no such defamatory statement exists.”
Reynolds’ motion also repeated the assertion that Baldoni and his PR team “launched a retaliatory ‘social manipulation’ campaign to ‘destroy’ and ‘bury’ her because she privately spoke up about sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct” during the making of “It Ends With Us.”
The document described Reynolds as merely “being a supportive spouse who has witnessed firsthand the emotional, reputational, and financial devastation Ms. Lively has suffered.”
It went on to state, “Mr. Reynolds is a defendant in this action for one reason, and one reason only: because billionaire Plaintiff Steve Sarowitz [and Wayfarer co-founder] promised to spend up to $100 million to ‘ruin’ Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds.”
