Court-ordered settlement talks in Blake Lively\u2018s sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against Justin Baldoni have floundered, and the It Ends With Us co-stars are almost certainly going to trial.<\/p>\n
Attempts to reach a deal have proven \u201cunsuccessful,\u201d Baldoni attorney Bryan Freedman said Wednesday, speaking outside Manhattan\u2019s Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse as the first and maybe last day of a settlement conference between the parties concluded.<\/p>\n
A jury trial seemed back at the top of the agenda for the media-savvy lawyer, who said he was \u201clooking forward to it\u201d when asked about the May 18-scheduled start date.<\/p>\n
Freedman also said that while \u201cthere\u2019s always a chance\u201d of a settlement, the litigator noted that he didn\u2019t \u201cknow that we will\u201d when it came to resuming talks over any pretrial deal.<\/p>\n
Watch on Deadline<\/p>\n
Blake Lively leaves court in NYC after judge-ordered settlement conference ends (Video: Dominic Patten\/Deadline)<\/p>\n
See More: https:\/\/t.co\/8E8gK9hfUv pic.twitter.com\/Gy0q0jjHb7 \u2014 Deadline (@DEADLINE) February 11, 2026<\/p>\n
Both Lively and Wayfarer Studios co-founder Baldoni exited the courthouse around 4 p.m. ET after a closed-door session with their respective legal teams in front of Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave.<\/p>\n
Today was the first occasion they have been in court at the same time since the Another Simple Favor actress filed a lawsuit that now seeks around $200 million in damages from her IEWU co-star and director and his inner circle.<\/p>\n
Besides claims that Baldoni repeatedly harassed Lively on the IEWU set, she also alleges Baldoni had a online smear campaign launched against her in mid-2024. The most 21st century aspect of Lively\u2019s case, the accusation is that Baldoni brought crisis PR types like defendants Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel on board to rip Lively apart before the premiere of their hit movie to offset accusations he and his Wayfarer gang were worried she would make against him.<\/p>\n
Back on January 22, the lawyers argued for (Baldoni) and against (Lively) in front of Judge Lewis Liman over summary judgment in the high-profile and superstar-littered case. That hearing last month was preceded by a massive document unsealing that revealed multitudes of emails over the matter of what went down on IEWU. Among the spicer parts were a Sony exec calling Lively \u201ca terrorist\u201d over threats to quit the picture, and co-star Jenny Slate calling Baldoni \u201cthe biggest clown and the most intense narcissist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, the reference to Baldoni as a \u201cbitch\u201d by Taylor Swift, IEWU soundtrack contributor and godmother to one of Lively and Ryan Reynolds\u2018 kids, landed with the biggest bang.<\/p>\n
Still, likely awaiting the Hail Mary results of the settlement attempt he ordered late last year, there has been no decision from Liman on that summary judgment or about any trimming of Lively\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
The Wayfarer side has scheduled a session in court for Thursday over the adjacent case of Jonesworks PR boss Stephanie Jones, the former chief of Abel and Baldoni\u2019s old PR firm. It is not clear if either Lively or Baldoni, who emerged from court with his entourage and a smile on his face today, will be in attendance.<\/p>\n
However, when it comes to Lively vs. Baldoni, everybody is expected to be in court in late May in front of Liman and a jury. Everybody.<\/p>\n
Source: RhinoEasy News<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Court-ordered settlement talks in Blake Lively\u2018s sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against Justin Baldoni have floundered, and the It Ends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}