At a court hearing on Tuesday, a lawyer for Justin Baldoni blasted Blake Lively’s hope for more than $200 million in damages in the warring “It Ends With Us” stars’ coming civil trial as “pie in the sky.”
The Baldoni attorney, Amir Kaltgrad, made special note of $35 million in damages the actor lost from a never-made sequel or prequel to the hit movie that a Lively expert hopes to testify about.
“There was no way they were going to work together,” Kaltgrad told the judge, saying the expert’s math was unsupported.
A lawyer for Lively, Naeun Rim, countered that Baldoni had pushed for a sequel. “He had suggested at one point that she direct,” Rim told the judge.
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Lively’s retaliation case is set to go to trial in a month before a federal jury in Manhattan. Lawyers for both sides were in court on Tuesday arguing over whose experts should — or shouldn’t — be allowed to testify.
Lively says she suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in career and business damage due to an online smear campaign she says was orchestrated by Baldoni.
Lively says she was targeted by her costar after she raised concerns over on-set misconduct, including allegations of sexual harassment. The judge tossed out most of Lively’s lawsuit claims — including for sexual harassment — earlier this month, ahead of the May 18 trial date.
Lively’s experts are prepared to testify that in early August 2024, an onslaught of negative comments on TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, and other online platforms caused her to lose between $39.6 million and $143.5 million in projected income from her Blake Brown hair-care line and her Betty Booze beverage line.
US District Court in Manhattan
The negative “campaign” quickly damaged a decadeslong acting career and upended a hair-care line launch that had been seven years in the planning, said Rim.
“We have here an actress with a twenty-year track record of starring in major productions,” the lawyer for the “Gossip Girl” star told the judge.
“It was the biggest hair-care launch in Target history,” Rim also said, referring to the Blake Brown brand.
“Within a matter of days, all that investment was erased due to this conduct,” Rim added.
In fighting to keep Lively’s experts from testifying, Baldoni’s side is arguing that the negative online comments and any losses she suffered in her career and business earnings had nothing to do with their client.
“These are not the kind of earnings she has ever seen in the past,” Kaltgrad told the judge on Tuesday.
The negative comments Lively suffered in early August 2024 coincided with the movie’s premiere, another Baldoni attorney, Fabien Thayamballi, told the judge.
At the time, Lively was facing a backlash for trying “to get cast members to unfollow Baldoni” on social media, Thayamballi said.
She also faced press criticism for cross-promoting her alcoholic beverage line “at the same time as the premiere of a serious movie about domestic violence,” Thayamballi told the judge.
Baldoni is also fighting Lively’s plan to call an expert in “betrayal trauma” to the stand.
US District Judge Lewis J. Liman said he’ll wait to decide on all expert questions until the sides file additional arguments and another hearing is held, set for Tuesday.
