Blake Lively Says Family Members, Witnesses Have Been Threatened Amid Justin Baldoni Legal Battle

Blake Lively says her family, witnesses and fellow cast members have received threatening messages over their support of the actress as she continues her legal battle against her “It Ends With Us” director/co-star Justin Baldoni.

“As detailed in Ms. Lively’s amended complaint, Ms. Lively, her family, other members of the cast, various fact witnesses and individuals that have spoken out publicly in support of Ms. Lively have received violent, profane, sexist and threatening communications,” her lawyer Michael J. Gottlieb wrote in a letter to Judge Lewis Linman of the Southern District Court of New York on Thursday, prefacing the document with a request for “additional protections.”

“For example, in the days after Jan. 31, 2025 — when the Wayfarer filed their amended complaint, including a 100-plus page exhibit with text threads — one fact witness known to publicly support Ms. Lively and whose texts the Wayfarer Parties excerpted (ostensibly without his permission) received a written threat indicating that the witness’ family would be sexually assaulted and killed unless the witness agreed to ‘make a statement and give the truth,'” the letter continued. “Around the same time, Ms. Lively became the target of the pornographic trolling on Instagram so vicious that Meta publicly stated that that ‘kind of online harassment is wrong and we condemn it.'”

Because the case involves “high-profile individuals,” the letter requested a court order be put in place to ensure details, like creative intellectual property or health records, related to the matter remain sealed.

“It is entirely foreseeable, probable and inevitable that the release of certain discovery information … will create a ‘defined, specific and serious injury’ to parties and non-parties, such as by violating their privacy, exposing them to threats and creating a climate of possible witness intimidation,” the document obtained by TheWrap went on. “Those potential injuries, coupled with the threats to the efficient administration of justice, established cause to extend protections to specific categories of non-public, private business and personal information.”

This is just the latest update in the two stars’ ongoing battle. On Wednesday, Lively amended her complaint against Baldoni to include similar alleged experiences from two of her female castmates, as well as adding a defamation claim.

“Ms. Lively was not alone in complaining about Mr. Baldoni and raised her
concerns contemporaneously as they arose in 2023, not in connection with some imagined power play for control of the film in 2024,” per the court documents. “The experiences of Ms. Lively and others were documented at the time they occurred starting in May of 2023. Importantly, and contrary to the entire narrative Defendants have invented, Mr. Baldoni acknowledged the complaints in writing at the time.”

“There is a woman or two that I in some way made uncomfortable by saying something or doing something that was chauvinistic or sexist. There is one million percent probability that that exists,” Baldoni is quoted as saying in the filing.

In response, his legal team once again said they have proof that Lively’s newly adjusted complaint is false.

“Our clients have been transparent in providing receipts, real time documents and video showing a completely different story than what has been manipulated and cherry picked to the media,” lawyer Bryan Freedman said in a Wednesday statement to TheWrap. “Our clients have taken this matter and these issues very seriously notwithstanding the jokes made publicly by the plaintiff and her husband. Her underwhelming amended complaint is filled with unsubstantial hearsay of unnamed persons who are clearly no longer willing to come forward or publicly support her claims.”

Freedman’s message concluded: “Since documents do not lie and people do, the upcoming depositions of those who initially supported Ms. Lively’s false claims and those who are witnesses to her own behavior will be enlightening. What is truly uncomfortable here is Ms. Lively’s lack of actual evidence.”

As things stand, their trial is expected to begin in March 2026.

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