(Updated 4:46 pm PT with Blake Lively statement) The New York Times‘ December 21 exposé headlined “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” turned up the heat on Justin Baldoni and his PR team over sexual harassment and retaliation allegations made by Blake Lively surrounding the making of It Ends With Us.
Now, thousands of pages of legal filings later and with a trial date set for March 29, 2026 in New York, the Times is writing a different type of story. “The Wayfarer Parties’ FAC tells a one-sided tale that has garnered plenty of headlines,” the media company declared in a filing Friday asking to be removed from Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit. “But The Times does not belong in this dispute.”
Blake Lively agrees with her fellow defendant.
“In its motion to dismiss, the New York Times correctly calls out Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit for what it is: a shameless PR document that has no business in a court of law,” a Lively spokesperson said.
The Lively rep added: “For years, Baldoni urged men to listen to and believe women. But when a woman spoke out about his behavior, he and his billionaire backer Steve Sorowitz used a social media combat plan’ to scorch earth and try to ‘bury’ and ‘destroy’ her, along with the media who reports on it. These bullying tactics will not survive in court, and everyone should see their meritless claims for what they are.”
The Times was first sued for $250 million by Baldoni, publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel and others on New Year’s Eve, the same day Lively sued Baldoni and pals. That West Coast NYT case has since been dropped, as it was revealed in a February 3 hearing in NYC. Instead, the Times was added earlier this month to the Jane the Virgin alum’s rather large amended complaint against his IEWU co-star, Ryan Reynolds, their publicist Leslie Sloane and her Vision PR.
America’s leading newspaper has always insisted it conducted itself correctly in their text-message-rich reporting of what went down during the making of IEWU and its aftermath. Unsurprisingly, the NYT now wants out of the sprawling lawsuits that Lively and Baldoni have unleashed upon each other and their respective teams.
“Over the course of their 224-page First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) (plus an added 168-page timeline), the Wayfarer Parties breathlessly tell their side of an ongoing Hollywood drama involving actors Blake Lively (“Lively”) and Justin Baldoni (“Baldoni”), the stars of the film It Ends With Us,” the Times‘ Davis Wright Tremaine lawyers wrote. “The FAC has, to some extent, achieved its obvious purpose; the Wayfarer Parties’ story has been reported by countless news outlets during the last few weeks. What the FAC has not done, however, is plead a viable claim against The Times.”
In prose more pointed than usually appears in the paper outside of the NYT Opinion section, the memorandum accompanying the dismissal motion adds: “Throughout their blunderbuss complaint, the Wayfarer Parties seek to drag The Times into their larger feud with Lively. But the only thing The Times is, in fact, alleged to have done is engage in newsgathering and publishing an Article and Video about the Wayfarer/Lively dispute.”
Facing off against allegations that it was in cahoots with Lively’s team over her December 20 sexual harassment and alleged smear campaign complaint to California’s Civil Rights department, and that they sandbagged Baldoni’s side, the Times’ lawyers cut to the chase in the 36-page memo, writing, “Despite the Wayfarer Parties’ hundreds of pages of screengrabs, outrage, and rhetoric, this is a very simple case: the Article is absolutely privileged as a fair report, and the Wayfarer Parties’ defamation claim fails.”
There was no response from Crisis PR chief Nathan and lead Baldoni lawyer Bryan Freedman today over the Times‘ dismissal motion.
The often staid Times, on the other hand, was quite forthright.
“As our motion shows, this case should never have been brought against The New York Times,” the paper’s Danielle Rhoades Ha told Deadline today after the filing. “Blake Lively raised serious concerns about the way she was treated on the set and after the movie’s release. We did exactly what news organizations should do: we informed the public of the complaint she filed with the California Civil Rights Department. Mr. Baldoni’s misbegotten campaign against the Times — questioning our ethics, attempting to discredit our reporting, filing a baseless lawsuit — will not silence us.”
No date for a hearing on the NYT‘s dismissal motion has been set. However, as today’s mixed ruling on telecom subpoenas by Judge Lewis J Liman made clear, it’s a long way to trial.
