Justin Baldoni Wants This Evidence Kept From Jury in Blake Lively Trial
Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively’s lengthy legal battle will finally go to trial on May 18, 2026. Lively filed a lawsuit against her This Ends With Us co-star in 2024, accusing him of sexual harassment and of orchestrating a smear campaign to destroy her reputation. Baldoni’s team wants to limit some of the witnesses and evidence presented in the trial.
Blake Lively accused Justin Baldoni of orchestrating a smear campaign
While filming This Ends With Us, Lively accused Baldoni, the film’s director and star, of inappropriate behavior on set. In a lawsuit filed against him in late 2024, she also alleged that he hired a crisis management team to smear her reputation.
“He wants to feel like she can be buried,” a publicist working for Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios wrote to crisis management expert Melissa Nathan (per The New York Times).
“You know we can bury anyone,” Nathan responded.
Lively said that she hopes to protect other people from similar campaigns that damage their reputation.
“I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted,” she said in a statement.
Wayfarer has denied engaging in retaliatory efforts against Lively. They claimed that the lawsuit is “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation.”
His team does not want the jury to hear about the PR campaigns
A judge recently dismissed 10 out of Lively’s 13 claims against Baldoni. Now, the case will focus on breach of contract and two retaliation-related claims. As a result, Baldoni’s team has moved to limit the witnesses and evidence Lively’s team presents. They hope to keep “alleged bad experiences of other women” from the jury. This includes It Ends With Us actor Jenny Slate and author Colleen Hoover.
His team also wants to block Nathan’s past client list from the jury. These clients include Rebel Wilson, sex traffickers Tal, Oren, and Alon Alexander, and Johnny Depp.
“Any services that Nathan rendered for actor Johnny Depp in connection with his high-profile defamation litigation against ex-wife Amber Heard, for other celebrities such as rappers Drake and Travis Scott, professional wrestler Logan Paul, and actress Rebel Wilson, for politicians, or for other clients are irrelevant to whether she aided and abetted the purported smear campaign at issue herein, as alleged by Lively,” a pretrial supplication from Nathan and other defendants reads (per Deadline). “Indeed, any references to Nathan’s involvement with so-called ‘smear websites’ are irrelevant and prejudicial because Lively does not allege that such mechanism was utilized (by any of the defendants) against her.”
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni will go to trial in May
Lively and Baldoni’s case will head to trial on May 18. Baldoni is no longer a defendant after a judge dismissed the sexual harassment and defamation claims. Still, he will take the witness stand to testify. Lively will also reportedly testify.
The trial is expected to last 15 days.
