It seems the legal battles keep piling up for Blake Lively.
The It Ends with Us star is currently in the middle of legal proceedings with co-star Justin Baldoni, with their lawyers facing each other in court earlier this week (3 February) in a pretrial.
While the trial date was confirmed to be on 9 March 2026, a judge threatened to move it forwards, claiming they had 'given the public plenty to feast upon' and a jury may become prejudiced to one side.
Lively originally filed a lawsuit against Baldoni in December 2024, alleging sexual harassment as she claimed that his team started a 'smear campaign' against her.
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Baldoni then fired back with a $400 million countersuit in January this year, taking aim at Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist for allegedly seeking to destroy his reputation, while also suing the New York Times for publishing her lawsuit to the public.
While both actors have continually denied the allegations brought to the fore, it looks like Lively might have another headache on her hands from a member of Baldoni's team.
The 37-year-old actress is the subject of a new $7 million defamation lawsuit filed by crisis publicist Jed Wallace.
She had previously claimed that his firm 'weaponised a digital army' as part of an alleged smear campaign against her.
This follows Baldoni's team's move to publish an updated 168-page document laying out the timeline of events before, during and after filming It Ends with Us.
Wallace is the owner of PR firm Street Relations and was named in Lively's first lawsuit for allegedly weaponising 'a digital army around the country from New York to Los Angeles to create, seed and promote content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums'.
As part of Wallace's lawsuit against Lively, his lawyers wrote: "(Lively's legal team) conceded that Lively has no facts supporting the allegations she made against Wallace and Street in the Precursor which 'made headlines around the world' as she now, apparently under the threat of sanctions from one of Plaintiffs' attorneys, sought to 'investigate the scope of Mr. Wallace’s conduct.'"
Lively's team's response
In her own legal action, Lively requested a deposition from the crisis specialist which was rescinded on Tuesday (4 February).
In a statement to The Independent about the latest lawsuit, Lively's team said: “Another day, another state, another nine-figure lawsuit seeking to sue Ms Lively ‘into oblivion’ for speaking out against sexual harassment and retaliation.”
Labelling the move as a 'publicity stunt', they added: “It is transparent retaliation in response to allegations contained within a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint that Ms. Lively filed with the California Civil Rights Department.
“While this lawsuit will be dismissed, we are pleased that Mr. Wallace has finally emerged from the shadows, and that he too will be held accountable in federal court.”
LADbible has reached out to Blake Lively's representatives for comment.
Topics: Celebrity, Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Ryan Reynolds
Joshua Nair