The wild amounts of money involved in Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s lawsuits
Justin Baldoni is suing for $250 million?!
In case you were too hungover from New Year’s Eve to notice, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have both officially filed lawsuits about the production of their film It Ends With Us. Blake Lively is suing Justin Baldoni and his PR team. Justin Baldoni is suing The New York Times. Here’s a rundown of how much money is involved in these very high-profile cases.
Justin Baldoni is suing The New York Times for $250 million (£199 million)
The New York Times published Blake Lively’s civil complaint against Justin Baldoni and his team, along with an article called “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine“. The article included text messages between Justin Baldoni and his publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, which seemed to support Blake Lively’s claim that Justin Baldoni organised a smear campagain in the media against her.
Now, Justin Baldoni and 9 other plaintiffs (including the It Ends With Us producer Jamey Heath and the publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan) are suing The New York Times. They’re accusing The New York Times of invading their privacy by publishing their texts, and of libel. Justin Baldoni and the others are seeking $250 million (£199 million) in damages.
This lawsuit could be pretty expensive for The New York Times. The paper made a total profit of $104.2 million (£84.2 million) from July to September in 2024.
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The New York Times has responded, “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.
“To date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the other subjects of the article and their representatives have not pointed to a single error. We published their full statement in response to the allegations in the article as well. We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
Blake Lively is now officially seeking damages from Justin Baldoni
She’s seeking damages for Justin Baldoni sexually harassing her on the set of It Ends With Us, and for organising a negative PR campagain against her. The claim says Justin Baldoni’s continued behaviour on the set was also a breach of contract.
Blake Lively’s team hasn’t specified precisely how much money she wants as compensation. Her civil complaint argues the negative PR campaign caused her, Ryan Reynolds and their children mental distress. She also claims this negative publicity claim caused her to lose earnings from all her businesses. Apparently sales of Blake Lively’s Blake Brown haircare products dropped by between 56 to 78 per cent over the summer.
She also had to cancel a big corporate event for the hair products with Target. So, it’s likely Blake Lively’s team will try to get lots of money as compensation.
How much money does Justin Baldoni even have to lose to Blake Lively?
Not as much as you might think. Although Justin Baldoni has worked in Hollywood for a while, he has mostly contributed to independent porjects which haven’t paid him as much as big budget films would have. His estimated net worth is $4 million (£3.2 million). He was reportedly paid $320,000 (£255,478) for playing Ryle in It Ends With Us. We don’t know whether this figure includes his fee for being the director, or if he also gets a cut of the film’s profits.
Justin Baldoni’s wife Emily is also an actress. They live in an area of Los Angeles where houses generally cost between $1 and $2 million.
Blake Lively has quite a bit more money than Justin Baldoni does
Her net worth is reportedly $30 million (£24 million). She was allegedly paid $3 million (£2.4 million) for playing Lily Bloom in It Ends With Us. Her eye-watering net worth pales in comparison to her husband’s, though – Ryan Reynolds is aparently worth $350 million (£279.5 million). I guess he must have sold a lot of Wrexham football merch.
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Featured images of It Ends With Us via Sony.