Justin Baldoni's new lawsuit accuses of Ryan Reynolds of 'berating' him after he went to visit Blake Lively at their home under the assumption they'd be discussing their movie, It Ends With Us.
Baldoni, who both starred in and directed the 2024 movie, made the allegation in a $250 million lawsuit filed against The New York Times on December 31.
The director's lawsuit comes after the publisher released an article titled "‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine," which alleges that Baldoni and nine other plaintiffs constituted libel and false light invasion of privacy.
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As part of the suit, an incident which allegedly took place on January 4, 2024 has been brought to light involving Baldoni, other producers of It Ends With Us, and a representative of Sony.
This group is said to have been invited to Lively and Reynolds' home, and they allegedly arrived 'eager to discuss plans for the next day's filming [and] prepared with their production materials'.
However, the suit claims that the group was instead 'blindsided' by Lively and Reynolds.
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The Hollywood couple are said to have presented 'a list of grievances that were both unanticipated and troubling'.
The lawsuit then claims: "Reynolds launched into a tirade, berating Baldoni in what Baldoni later described as a 'traumatic' encounter, stating he had 'never been spoken to like that in his life'."
Reynolds allegedly demanded that Baldoni apologize to his wife for actions which have been described in the lawsuit as 'mischaracterised' and 'false'.
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"When Baldoni resisted apologizing for what he had not done, Reynolds became further enraged. Everyone, including the producer Lively had asked production to engage and a representative of Sony that was in attendance, left that 'meeting' in shock. The producer offered that in his 40-year career he had never seen anyone speak to someone like that," the lawsuit says.
The claims about Reynolds and Lively form part of Baldoni's claims that The New York Times 'cherry-picked' communications that had taken place between himself and his co-star to 'mislead' readers.
The New York Times article had been inspired by Lively's own lawsuit, in which she accused Baldoni of sexual harrassment and launching a smear campaign against her.
In response to Baldoni's suit, a New York Times spokesperson told Variety: “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.
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"To date, [production company] 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.”
LADbible Group has reached out to representatives of Reynolds for comment.
Topics: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Hollywood
Emily Brown