Blake Lively wants $8M US in legal costs from Justin Baldoni in It Ends With Us aftermath

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni may have agreed to settle their differences, but that hasn't stopped the drama — Lively is now looking for just over $8 million US in legal costs from her It End With Us co-star and director.

In a court filing Tuesday, Lively's attorneys asked for $7,495,526.87 US in attorney's fees and $539,514.01 US in other costs. It's the price, they say, of Lively having to defend against a $400-million US defamation lawsuit that Baldoni, co-founder of production company Wayfarer Studios, filed against her in January 2025.

"This gross abuse of the legal system was not meant to win in court — its aim was to retaliate against Lively by falsely branding her a liar, intimidating witnesses and the media, and discouraging others from speaking out," the filing reads.

"The Wayfarer Parties employed scorched-earth litigation tactics designed to drain Lively's resources."

Lively and Baldoni have been engaged in a high-profile conflict since working on the 2024 romantic drama film, which is an adaptation of a 2016 Colleen Hoover novel. Baldoni directed and co-starred in the film, which was produced by his production company, Wayfarer Studios.

Lively, 38, sued Baldoni, 42, and Wayfarer Studios in December 2024, accusing them of conspiring with publicists to pre-emptively destroy her reputation after she privately accused him of sexual harassment on the It Ends With Us set. Baldoni denied the accusations.

A few weeks later, Baldoni countersued Lively, her husband — Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds — and the couple's publicist.

Judge Lewis J. Liman dismissed the countersuit in June 2025. In April, Liman dismissed Lively's sexual harassment claim. Lively and Baldoni agreed to end their legal battle last month — two weeks before a trial was set to begin regarding Lively's claims that Baldoni conspired with publicists to destroy her reputation. Lively received no money in the settlement, but Liman subsequently ruled in June that she is entitled to recover some legal costs.

In allowing Lively to recover legal costs, the judge cited a California law designed to protect survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination from retaliatory lawsuits meant to intimidate and silence victims.

Liman said the law requires that the plaintiff must pay the defendant's legal fees and costs if a defamation claim made in response to a lawsuit is dismissed, even if the facts of the case have not been developed through the gathering of evidence.

Liman said an exception would be made if Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios could prove malice fuelled Lively's claims, but that they had produced no evidence to show that.

CBC News has reached out to lawyers representing Lively and Baldoni for comment, but has not yet received a response.

The filing says that Lively's lawyers — Esra Hudson of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and Michael Gottlieb of Willkie Farr & Gallagher — gave Lively a slight break on legal costs.

"All time billed to Lively reflects 10 and 15 per cent discounts from Manatt and Willkie's standard rates, respectively," the filing says.

Gottlieb wrote in a court declaration that he charged her an average hourly rate of $2,187 — a discount from his usual $2,795 per hour. He said he billed 224 hours for work on her defence to Baldoni's countersuit, totaling $457,000 in fees.

Lively appeared in the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the TV series Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2012 before starring in films including The Town and The Shallows.

Baldoni starred in the TV comedy Jane the Virgin, directed the 2019 film Five Feet Apart and wrote Man Enough, a book challenging traditional notions of masculinity.