Hollywood actor and filmmaker Justin Baldoni has escalated his feud with Blake Lively by releasing private messages between them on a website. These exchanges, part of a massive 168-page timeline, aim to bolster his $400 million defamation lawsuit against his It Ends With Us co-star and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.
The timeline, spanning from 2019 to 2024, includes emails, texts, and WhatsApp messages that paint a complicated picture of their working relationship. At one point, Reynolds, 48, told Baldoni, “I happen to adore you, Justin,” while Lively confided in Baldoni about her postpartum body concerns, saying, “What’s the chance we can do body scenes at the end of the schedule?” Baldoni reassured her, “You will look amazing. I just don’t want you to stress about your body.”
Their early exchanges seemed warm and professional, but tensions grew as the production progressed. Lively expressed frustration over script changes and asserted her creative input, telling Baldoni she wanted to “amp up their verbal ping pong/volley” in a scene rewrite. A meeting at Lively and Reynolds’ penthouse, attended by a “megacelebrity” (widely believed to be Taylor Swift), reinforced her influence over the film.
But things took a turn when Baldoni, struggling with a back injury, asked a trainer about Lively’s weight for a scene where he needed to lift her. Reynolds reportedly exploded: “How dare you f—— ask about my wife’s weight?” and allegedly threatened Baldoni with recasting her role-something that would have cost the production millions.
How a longtime friendship between Baldoni and Lively unraveled
Disagreements over creative control intensified. A producer warned Baldoni’s business partner that Lively was exerting too much influence: “He cannot let her have opinions about everything. Or she is going to be co-directing this film.” Later, Baldoni was blindsided when Sony removed his “a film by” credit, allegedly to appease Lively and keep Swift’s song My Tears Ricochet in the trailer.
By the time promotion began, the divide was clear-Lively and Reynolds’ company, Maximum Effort, handled PR without Baldoni’s involvement. At the premiere, he and his guests were seated separately from Lively and Reynolds, fueling rumors of a feud.
As controversy swirled, Lively and Reynolds reportedly drafted a damage-control statement calling the film a “troubled production.” But Baldoni’s PR team refused to release it. His crisis manager’s response? “No. Have to fight it. At what point do you fight? It’s now. Lawyer up. Now.”