In a dramatic turn of events, Justin Baldoni has updated his ongoing legal battle with Blake Lively, making new claims in his amended lawsuit that targets both the New York Times and Ryan Reynolds. The suit now includes accusations of defamation, media manipulation, and bullying, with Baldoni claiming that Reynolds used his character “Nicepool” in Deadpool & Wolverine to mock and ridicule him.
Filed on Friday, the amended 224-page complaint, which includes a 168-page timeline of events, takes aim at Lively’s involvement in a Times article, published on December 21, 2024. The article titled ‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine reported allegations that Baldoni had worked with publicists to tarnish Lively’s reputation in retaliation for her complaints of sexual harassment on set during their collaboration on It Ends with Us.
Baldoni, who directed and co-starred with Lively in the movie, has accused Lively, Reynolds, and the New York Times of intentionally manipulating the media narrative. His legal team points to what they believe is incriminating metadata from the Times, which allegedly shows that the paper had access to Lively’s civil rights complaint against Baldoni well before the article’s release date. Baldoni’s suit suggests that the article was in the works as early as October 31, 2024, with a version of the complaint uploaded to the Times’ website on December 10, 2024.
A key point in the lawsuit is the claim that the Times prepared a video accompanying the article on December 12, nine days before its official release. Baldoni’s lawyers also criticize the Times for a rushed comment request just hours before the article went live, accusing the publication of working with Lively’s team to create a biased narrative against Baldoni.
The New York Times has vehemently denied the allegations, asserting that the metadata issue is a misunderstanding and dismissing Baldoni’s claims as “inaccurate.” They insist that the date shown by Google software was not an indication of early access to the complaint and defended their right to report on the case.
In a separate section of the lawsuit, Baldoni has gone after Reynolds over the portrayal of the “Nicepool” character in Deadpool & Wolverine. Baldoni claims that the character, a “vicious caricature of a ‘woke’ feminist,” was a thinly veiled mockery of him, created to demean and ridicule his persona. The lawsuit alleges that the character’s violent death at the hands of Lively’s “Ladypool” was the culmination of a personal vendetta stemming from a confrontation at Lively and Reynolds’ apartment, where Baldoni was allegedly verbally attacked by Reynolds.
Both sides are scheduled for a federal court hearing on Monday, February 5. Lively’s legal team has requested that the court intervene to curb what they call Baldoni’s “PR campaign” and prevent public filings from influencing the jury pool. Baldoni’s camp, however, believes the public release of court documents is vital to uncovering the truth behind the alleged smear campaign.
As this legal battle intensifies, the public awaits to see how it will play out in court, with both sides gearing up for what promises to be a high-profile and closely watched case.