Justin Baldoni Adds Fuel To Legal Battle With New Allegations Against Blake Lively And Ryan Reynolds

Actor-director Justin Baldoni and actress Blake Lively is escalating, with Baldoni now updating his lawsuit with new claims involving New York Times metadata.

Justin Baldoni has also accused Blake Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, of “bullying” him with the character of Nicepool in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’.

Source : IMDb

The ongoing legal battle between Hollywood actor-director Justin Baldoni and actress Blake Lively is escalating, with Baldoni now updating his lawsuit with new claims involving New York Times metadata.

In his amended 224-page lawsuit, Baldoni has also accused Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, of “bullying” him with the character of Nicepool in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’, according to Variety.

Justin Baldoni's website aims at addressing Blake Lively's claims

The lawsuit, filed on Friday (Pacific Standard Time), includes a 168-page timeline and a dedicated website to host the complaint. The conflict began after Baldoni directed and co-starred with Lively in ‘It Ends with Us’, which led to a significant legal and PR dispute over the past six weeks.

One of the major new claims in Baldoni’s suit involves allegations that metadata from the New York Times shows that the paper accessed Lively’s civil rights complaint at least 11 days before its explosive December 21 report, which was titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.” The story accused Baldoni and his publicists of attempting to damage Lively’s reputation in apparent retaliation for her allegations of sexual harassment on set.

Baldoni has filed defamation lawsuits against Reynolds, Lively, and the Times, claiming they misrepresented him by twisting text messages and taking them out of context. The amended complaint alleges that the Times uploaded a version of Lively’s civil rights complaint against Baldoni on December 10, and suggests that the paper was working on the story as early as October 31.

Justin Baldoni vs Blake Lively

While the New York Times has disputed these claims, Baldoni’s legal team argues that the metadata supports their case. Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s attorney, stated, “This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along: Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through lies, false accusations, and manipulation of illicitly received communications.”

The suit also reveals that the video accompanying the Times’ piece was created on December 12, nine days before the story’s publication. The Times reached out for comments from Baldoni’s side on December 20, with a deadline of noon the next day, about 14 hours later. The story was posted on December 21 at 10:11 a.m., including a comment from Freedman.

The metadata issue was initially raised by online sleuths, and in response, the New York Times has denied the claims, calling the information false.

Both the New York Times and the Lively/Reynolds parties are expected to assert legal privileges to defend their right to litigate and the newspaper’s right to cover litigation.