Blake Lively faced a setback in her defamation lawsuit against Justin Baldoni on Friday after a judge ruled against her request to obtain more than two years’ worth of his text messages and call records.
Lively, 37, had subpoenaed her It Ends With Us co-star for “documents concerning ingoing and outgoing calls or text messages” from December 1, 2022, to the present. Her demands included “call logs, text logs, data logs, and cell site location information.”
A New York court sided with Justin Baldoni, 41, ruling that Blake Lively’s request for a vast amount of data was “overly intrusive and disproportionate.”
Federal Judge Lewis Liman, in a ruling obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, stated that the large volume of data could include communications with nonparties or sensitive information, such as details about doctors and psychologists.
He also questioned why Lively needed texts dating back more than two years in her attempt to prove that Baldoni and staff from his Wayfarer production company began harassing her in 2024.
Judge Liman noted that Lively mainly argued the subpoenas would help identify “the larger network of individuals” behind a negative media campaign against her. However, he pointed out that according to Lively’s complaint, the campaign didn’t begin until around August 2024, making it unclear how communications from Wayfarer parties in 2022 and 2023 would help reveal individuals involved in the campaign.
Lively was instructed to revise her subpoenas but was not completely denied. Baldoni’s legal team sought to prevent her from requesting similar discovery materials from third parties, but Judge Liman rejected that argument. “The Wayfarer parties may assert a privacy interest in their own phone records, but they have not provided any basis for asserting an interest in the communications of non-parties,” he stated in a six-page filing.
This ruling comes months into the ongoing legal battle between Lively and Baldoni, whose on-screen chemistry helped make their 2024 adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us a box office success.
Blake Lively initiated the legal battle with a California civil rights complaint followed by a federal lawsuit, accusing Justin Baldoni – who was both the director and co-star of It Ends With Us – of inappropriate behavior. She claimed he entered her trailer while she was topless, showed her a graphic video of his wife giving birth, and bit and sucked on her lips during an unscripted kissing scene. Lively also accused him of damaging her reputation after she objected to the alleged misconduct, citing a text from Baldoni’s publicist, Melissa Nathan, which stated: “We can bury anyone.”
Lively’s explosive accusations made international headlines, especially after a 4,000-word New York Times expose was published almost simultaneously, heavily quoting her civil rights complaint.
In response, Baldoni countersued both Lively and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, flipping the narrative by claiming it was their team responsible for smearing him. He sought $400 million in damages, accusing Lively of misrepresenting his texts and emails. He also alleged she colluded with powerful publicist Leslie Sloane to plant negative stories about him in the media. Baldoni argued the whole situation was a strategy to repair Lively’s image after she faced criticism for being difficult in interviews and promotional events. He claimed any negative press about Lively was purely “organic.”
Baldoni also filed a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times, claiming the paper relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and biased version of events while ignoring evidence that contradicted her claims. The newspaper stated it would “vigorously defend” itself against the suit.
Earlier this month, Justin Baldoni’s team launched a website featuring private communications, including text messages, which were part of court filings detailing his interactions with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds during the production of It Ends With Us. Baldoni claimed in court documents that Lively’s team attempted to undermine his role as the director of the film. His team stated that the communications shared on the website helped clarify the motivations of both parties, marking a new chapter in their ongoing feud.
The website, thelawsuitinfo.com, went live just days before the first hearing, ahead of the trial set to begin on March 9, 2026. Lively had filed an 80-page civil rights complaint with the California Civil Rights Department on December 20, followed by a federal lawsuit on New Year’s Eve. Her lawsuit alleges that Baldoni sexually harassed her during the movie’s production, accusing him of body-shaming her and orchestrating a smear campaign to damage her reputation.
In response, Baldoni and his representatives denied the claims, stating that Lively had twisted the meaning of their text messages and misrepresented their interactions during filming. In her lawsuit, Lively named several of Baldoni’s collaborators, including his company Wayfarer Studios, its CEO, financial backer, and PR personnel Nathan and Jennifer Abel.
Lively told The New York Times the day after filing her complaint, “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.”