Justin Baldoni, the director and star of It Ends with Us, has released a website in which he details his version of events in the ever-spiralling Blake Lively scandal.
An underlying feud between the pair went nuclear in December of 2024 when Lively placed a civil complaint against Baldoni and his team, accusing him of sexual harassment and carrying out a 'smear' campaign against her.
Baldoni hit back with his own complaint against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and her team, claiming they had misconstrued events and defamed him.
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The newest update in the wild story has come in the form of a website published by Baldoni, which alleges to set straight the story by publishing an extensive 168-page timeline of ‘relevant’ events, as well as an amended $400 million civil complaint.
Within this, Baldoni mentions Reynolds on multiple occasions.
This includes a series of texts between the pair in which Reynolds and Baldoni discuss the upcoming film.
On top of this, the civil complaint directly names Reynolds, claiming he had acted to try and pressure WME (William Morris Endeavor) into dropping Baldoni.
As such, Reynolds is referenced in great detail in the timeline listed on the website shared by Baldoni’s team.
Amongst these is a set of texts, claimed to have been exchanged after an early meeting, in which he was allegedly complementary towards Baldoni.
All the references to Reynolds throughout the lawsuit, including all the texts Reynolds allegedly sent to Justin Baldoni about Blake Lively
February 28, 2023 – Ryan Reynolds and Justin Baldoni exchange texts in which Reynolds expresses ‘mutual respect’, including saying: “You’ve been a wonderful collaborator with B and that means a great deal – to both of us.”
April 12, 2023 – Describes meeting Reynolds and Lively at their apartment, and says Reynolds ‘enthusiastically’ discussed Lively’s rewrites of a rooftop scene, and that a ‘mega celebrity’ friend also praises her script.
April 22, 2023 – Baldoni claims he asked his personal trainer, a close friend of Lively’s, to enquire about her weight, in order to co-ordinate a scene in which he would lift her. He points to having several lifelong back injuries as the reason behind this in order to help him prepare to lift her safely.
April 25, 2023 – Baldoni goes to meet Reynolds and Lively, where Reynolds meets him and says: “How dare you f*cking ask about my wife’s weight? What’s wrong with you?” Baldoni claims the scene was cut upon Reynolds and Lively’s request.
The film then goes into shutdown due to WGA strike. Between April 2023 and January 2024, Baldoni claims Lively made continued attempts to take over the film creatively.
January 4, 2024 – In a return to production meeting that has been acknowledged in both lawsuits, Baldoni claims Reynolds ‘berated’ him, saying he ‘demand Baldoni apologise to Lively for actions that either never occurred or had been grossly mischaracterised.’
Baldoni claims that a Sony producer present at the meeting had shared that they ‘often reflected on the meeting and regretted not intervening to stop Reynolds’ tirade against Baldoni’ and had 'never seen anything like it' in his career.
June 20, 2024 – After a long detailing of Lively allegedly taking over editing of the film and Baldoni’s version scoring higher on test screenings, they describe how a ‘content shoot’ was arranged with Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ company ‘Maximum Effort’.
They say it was later attested by Sony that ‘Lively and Reynolds’ company were running the show’. In a later stage in the document, it is claimed that Maximum Effort’s shoot was ‘significantly more than was budgeted by Sony’.
Baldoni shared a text with Lively in which he claimed she said Maximum Effort would work for free as it is ‘family.’
July 15, 2024 – Baldoni claims that Reynolds called Baldoni’s personal agent at WME, ‘attacked his character’ and referred to him as a ‘deranged predator.’
They also claim that a week later at the premiere of Deadpool and Wolverine he approached a senior executive at WME and called Baldoni a ‘sexual predator’.
August 9, 2024 – During a red carpet interview, Lively says that Ryan Reynolds ‘wrote the iconic rooftop scene’, which Sony says there is no record of.
August 12, 2024 – Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are reportedly ‘furious’ with online chatter criticising promotion of the film as being akin to ‘a Barbie film’, with online chatter claiming the marketing is ignoring the domestic violence element of the movie.
Reynolds allegedly blames this on Baldoni’s team, and offers to personally write a letter of contrition, demanding they release it.
The LADbible group have reached out to representatives for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds for comment.
Topics: Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Film, TV and Film, Celebrity
Michael Slavin