Justin Baldoni continues to sink into his legal battle against Blake Lively. An American judge rejected the director of $ 400 million on Monday on Monday complaints of the director against the American actress, while both compete for months against the backdrop of accusations of sexual harassment carried by the actress.
Last December, the New York Times revealed that Blake Lively had filed a complaint against Justin Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath for inappropriate behavior and comments, she said, during the film “Never more” (“It ends with US”).
A “total victory” for the Lively clan?
Blake Lively had accused, for example, the actor, also director of the film, of improvised kisses that were not in the original script, and the producer of having watched her naked breasts in her lodge when she had demonstrated her discomfort.
In a statement sent to the New York Times, Bryan Freedman, a lawyer for Baldoni and Wayfarer, the production studio behind the film, had notably denounced accusations “completely false, scandalous and voluntarily salaces”.
Camp Baldoni then filed a complaint in January in the New York civil court against the actress, her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, and the New York Times, believing that this media had taken sides in his cover for Blake Lively, headliner of “Gossip Girl”.
However on Monday judge Lewis J. Liman of the Manhattan court “rejected” the complaint of the Baldoni camp, adding that the New York Times had only published information contained in a complaint initially filed by the actress before a court of California, that he had taken care to request a reaction to the opposing party and to integrate it into the article.
In his complaint, Justin Baldoni also believed that Blake Lively, whose Instagram account claims more than 43 million abandoned, had sought to “fly” and “take control” of the film and its promotion. And he had accused Ryan Reynord of having brought him, wrongly, for a sexual predator.
Judge Liman also rejected these elements on Monday. In a statement released by certain American media, the Lively clan legal team welcomed a “total victory” against the “complaint in retaliation” by Justin Baldoni. Contacted by AFP, Justin Baldoni’s lawyer did not react immediately.
Taken from the bestseller of the American writer Colleen Hoover, the film “Never more” had collected more than $ 350 million at the box office in 2024, one of the greatest successes of the year.