“Baldoni’s team says the communications shared on the website – which already has fans talking – says makes things clear about the actions of both parties.”, — write: www.dailymail.co.uk
Dailymail.com is taking a closer look at an eye-popping excerpts – namely one that details changes Lively, 37, suggested making to a pivotal scene in the film, and the heavy hitters she enlisted in her cause – husband Ryan Reynolds, 48, and pal Taylor Swift, 35.
Baldoni’s team says the communications shared in court filings on the website – which already has fans talking – makes things clear about the actions of both parties, marking the latest chapter in the feud between the lead stars of romantic drama.
The website, which is live online at thelawsuitinfo.com, comes amid a spate of high-profile litigation between the collaborators on the film, which was a hit at the box office last August.
Lively, 37, has accused Baldoni, 41, of sexual harassment, while he has fired back with a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds and her publicist Leslie Sloane claiming defamation and extortion, claiming the trio concocted ‘false accusations of sexual harassment’ against him.
Dailymail.com has reached out to reps for Lively, 37, and Reynolds, 48, for further comment on this story.
A text exchange from April 7-8, 2023 between Lively and Baldoni surrounded the rooftop scene in the film, with Lively explaining how her acting and writing skill sets could complement the script that had been written.
Baldoni’s team said Lively ‘excitedly’ texted ‘Baldoni her thoughts on the pivotal Rooftop ‘meet-cute’ scene.
She acknowledged its significance in the story’ and asked ‘if she can take a pass at the dialogue, hoping to infuse more of her voice into the character and make it more “flirty and yummy.”‘
Lively allegedly wrote, ‘If you knew me (in person) longer you’d have a sense of how flirty and yummy the ball busting will play. It’s my love language. Spicy and playfully bold, never with teeth….’
Baldoni’s team said the actor-director welcomed her input and awaited her notes, as he was ‘eager to see her take on the moment and make the character hers.’
Days before, Baldoni informed Lively he’d picked out an intimacy coordinator for the movie, and suggested they convene the ‘next week, but Lively passed, saying she would meet the person at the beginning of filming, according to the filing.
Lively allegedly wrote, ‘I feel good. I can meet her when we start 🙂 thank you though!’
Baldoni flagged one of the producers on the movie about the issue, writing, ‘Just fyi Just wanted to tell you about this- seems she doesn’t want to meet intimacy coordinator until we start which may mess up the workflow, but I can still meet with her of course.’
The producer replied, ‘That’s fine if she doesn’t want to meet her now. You’ll just have to walk her through what you and [redacted] are thinking.’
Creative differences between Baldoni and Lively began to crop up over the rooftop scene, as Baldoni’s team said in the filing on the website that on April 9, 2023, Lively provided him with notes detailing her suggestions.
According to the timeline, Baldoni responded via voice note ‘expressing his appreciation for her passion and edits.
Baldoni said that ‘while he [liked] her changes, he [envisioned] the final version landing somewhere between her take and the original.’
Three days later, Baldoni visited Lively’s New York City apartment, where he was ‘greeted by Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds,’ who ‘enthusiastically’ praised the rewrites his spouse had made to the scene.
The pressure on Baldoni was added at the end of the meeting, the timeline stated, as an individual described as a ‘megacelebrity friend of Reynolds and Lively’ – subsequently identified as Taylor Swift – entered the room.
Swift – who has reportedly distanced herself from Lively amid the controversy – began touting Lively’s edits to the script, according to the timeline.
Lively in an April 14 exchange called Reynolds and Swift ‘dragons’ who are focused on protecting her creatively, in a reference to the HBO series Game of Thrones.
The site that contained that revelation and others went live days prior to the first hearing in what’s expected to be a series of them, as a pretrial conference is slated for Monday.
Monday’s scheduled hearing was previously pushed up from an initial date of February 12, according to Variety, ahead of a trial with a starting date of March 9, 2026 in the case.
Lawyers for both parties were in accordance with a plan to compound both federal cases filed into one moving forward, the outlet reported.
Lively and Reynolds’ legal team has been asking the court to sanction Baldoni lawyer Bryan Freedman with a ‘gag order’ regarding ‘extrajudicial statements’ he made.
Freedman last month spoke about the case on shows hosted by Megyn Kelly and Chris Cuomo, as well as in the Hulu documentary IMPACT x Nightline: Blake vs. Justin.
Among the issues on hand in relation to Freedman include the creation of the website.
Lawyers for Lively and Reynolds on January 27 said Freedman had been ‘engaging in this extrajudicial campaign to influence these proceedings and the public perception of legal filings to this Court, and there already is a serious risk that his misconduct is tainting the jury pool.’
They added in legal documents, according to the AP, that ‘the endless stream of defamatory and extrajudicial media statements must end.’
Attorney Esra Hudson, who is representing Lively and Reynolds, told the judge in a January 24 letter, ‘Requiring counsel to heed the ethical rules that bind them is not a gag order.’
Hudson said ‘it is a mechanism that would ensure the proceedings in this Court are are not prejudiced by counsel’s conduct outside of the courtroom.’
Freedman responded January 27 with a statement in response, according to the AP, stating ‘irony is not lost on anyone that Ms. Lively is so petrified of the truth that she has moved to gag it.’
Freedman added, ‘We will always respect the court; however, we will never be bullied by those suggesting we cannot defend our clients with pure, unedited facts.
‘All we want is for people to see the actual text messages that directly contradict her allegations, video footage that clearly shows there was no sexual harassment and all the other powerful evidence that directly contradicts any false allegations.’
Freedman told Deadline January 30 that lawyers for Lively and Reynolds were looking to stall the proceedings.
‘All these motions to dismiss are just yet another attempt by Ms. Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Leslie Sloan to hide and delay the discovery of the hundreds of pages of true facts and well-documented information that we remain dedicated to providing publicly, with full transparency,’ Freedman told Deadline.
He added, ‘We expect such motions to be denied and, in the meantime, stand ready to oppose each and every one of them.’
Baldoni’s team on January 30 informed the judge that they had wanted to conduct a deposition with Lively immediately, but the actress was resistant to speaking with Freedman.
Lively attributed her reluctance to do the deposition with Freedman to ‘unspecified statements made by’ the lawyer, Variety reported.
Baldoni attorney Kevin Fritz said that Lively – who appears to have rankled pal Taylor Swift amid her inadvertent peripheral involvement in the case – does ‘not have the right’ to dictate who she speaks to amid the legal process.
Fritz said, ‘We are unaware of any situation that would warrant the deposed party to have a choice in which attorney takes her deposition.
‘Parties to litigation simply do not have the right to dictate which of their opponents’ attorneys may or may not take their deposition or perform any other aspect of the opposing party’s case.’
Fritz said he is focused on flagging the issue to the court in Monday’s hearing.
Fritz last week penned a letter to the judge saying that Lively had presided over a smear campaign against Baldoni that resulted in the actor-director and his co-defendants becoming ‘objects of public scorn and contempt’ who had been ‘exiled from polite society.’
Baldoni ‘suffered damages totaling hundreds of millions of dollars due to Ms. Lively’s scorched-earth media campaign,’ Fritz said, the AP reported citing legal documents.
Lively on January 28 filed legal documents in Hays County, Texas asking it to conduct a deposition of a man she said had tarnished her image with an online campaign around the time the film was released, the AP reported.
In what appears to be an advance notice of a pending lawsuit, Lively said that crisis management specialist Jed Wallace – who is named but not a defendant in Lively’s federal case – used platforms including Reddit and TikTok to poison the public’s opinion of Lively, while on Baldoni’s payroll.
Lively’s legal team said Wallace ‘weaponized a digital army around the country, including in New York and Los Angeles, to create, seed, manipulate, and advance disparaging content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums.’
The filing indicated that Freedman is acting as attorney for Wallace.
Lively in December sued Baldoni amid claims of sexual harassment during production of the motion picture, which was a hit when it arrived in theaters in August.
In Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni, the Gossip Girl alum accused Baldoni of sexually harassing her in multiple ways – including body shaming her – and orchestrating a smear campaign against her to damage her reputation.
Baldoni has denied all of the claims against him in Lively’s legal filing. He and his reps have said in response to the lawsuit that Lively twisted the meaning of text messages and mislead the public about their interactions while making the motion picture.
Lively – who is mother to four kids with the Deadpool star Reynolds – filed an 80-page civil rights complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against Baldoni December 20, before officially filing a federal lawsuit on December 31.
In her lawsuit, Lively named a number of Baldoni’s collaborators, including his company Wayfarer Studios, the studio’s CEO and financial backer, and PR personnel Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel.
‘I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted,’ Lively told The New York Times the day after she filed the complaint.
Baldoni subsequently sued the newspaper for $250 million in a defamation claim over a December 21 story titled ‘”We Can Bury Anyone”: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.’
Attorneys for Baldoni in mid-January distributed letters demanding various entertainment industry figures safeguard evidence linked to claims that Reynolds wrote a character named Nicepool into the Deadpool 2 film, intended to parody and humiliate Baldoni.
Baldoni on January 16 filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds and her publicist Leslie Sloane, alleging defamation and extortion. Baldoni told the court the trio had concocted ‘false accusations of sexual harassment’ against him.
Since Lively’s complaint was filed, Baldoni has faced a number of professional consequences, including a lawsuit from a former publicist; and being dropped by the agency WME, which also reps Lively and Reynolds.
WME has denied claims that Lively and Reynolds leaned on them to release Baldoni from their client roster, according to Variety.
It Ends with Us, which also starred Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Brandon Sklenar and Kevin McKidd, arrived in theaters August 9 and was a hit with audiences. The film, adapted from the 2016 Colleen Hoover novel, earned $148 million in domestic box office, and $350 million globally, according to Box Office Mojo.
Lively broke out with the 2005 movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants opposite Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel and America Ferrera. That led to her high-profile role on the TV show Gossip Girl, which she starred on from 2007-2012.
She has also appeared in movies such as 2010’s The Town, 2016’s The Shallows, 2018’s A Simple Favor and 2020’s The Rhythm Section.
Prior to It Ends with Us, Baldoni was best known for playing the role of Rafael Solano on the TV show Jane the Virgin from 2014–2019. He also has directed films including 2019’s Five Feet Apart and 2020’s Clouds, and penned the 2021 book Man Enough, which tackled misconceptions of contemporary masculinity.