Photo by wong zihoo on Unsplash

EDITED WORK

Edited: Melanie Schmitz

Byline: GMA Team

The onscreen drama of “It Ends with Us” is nothing compared to the legal battle its co-stars, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, are at the center of in real life.

The castmates have been embroiled in a heated legal feud since December 2024, when Lively first filed a complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of the film, which he also directed.

Lively, represented by attorney Michael Gottlieb, and Baldoni, represented by attorney Bryan Freedman, have launched dueling lawsuits against each other in the weeks since, dominating headlines and drawing attention at every step.

The actors are due to appear in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York March 9, 2026, with Judge Lewis Liman overseeing the case.

Ahead of their court date, Lively followed in Baldoni’s steps by filing an amended version of her original complaint, one that her lawyers said “provides significant additional evidence and corroboration of her original claims.”

Keep reading to see a timeline of the events in the actors’ legal back-and-forth.

Aug. 9, 2024: ‘It Ends with Us’ debuts in theaters, becomes a box-office success

“It Ends with Us,” based on Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel of the same name, debuted in theaters on Aug. 9.

The film, which explores themes of domestic violence and emotional abuse, starred Lively, Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Brandon Sklenar, Hasan Minaj and more. Christy Hall wrote the screenplay and Baldoni directed.

According to the box-office data website The Numbers, “It Ends with Us” grossed nearly $350 million worldwide.

Dec. 20, 2024: Lively files initial complaint

Lively first filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department in late December, alleging “severe emotional distress” after she said Baldoni and key stakeholders in the film sexually harassed her and attempted, along with Baldoni’s production company, to orchestrate a smear campaign against her.

The allegations in the California complaint were detailed in a New York Times article titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.” Included in the report were details surrounding a January 2024 “all hands” meeting — held “prior to resuming filming of ‘It Ends With Us,'” according to the complaint — that was held to address Lively’s workplace concerns, adding that it was attended by key stakeholders in the film and Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds. Lively said she laid out specific demands at that meeting to ensure a safe and professional working environment to which she says Baldoni and Wayfarer agreed.

Lively claimed Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios, which produced “It Ends With Us,” then engaged in a “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” Lively’s reputation, according to the complaint.

Freedman, the attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, denied the allegations, calling Lively’s claims “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.”

Lively was criticized during the “It Ends with Us” tour for her conduct during press interviews and from some who felt she did not highlight the film’s focus of domestic violence enough.

Dec. 31, 2024: Baldoni sues The New York Times

Baldoni filed a lawsuit against the New York Times for libel and false light invasion of privacy on Dec. 31 after it published the article about Lively’s California complaint.

The lawsuit claimed the Times, which included the alleged text messages and email exchanges between Baldoni’s publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, had relied on “cherry-picked” and altered communications, with details “stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced” to “mislead.”

Baldoni is seeking $250 million in damages in his suit against the Times and also listed nine other co-plaintiffs including Wayfarer Studios LLC and his publicists, Abel and Nathan.

Freedman claimed in a statement to “GMA” that the Times “cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting of the revered publication by using doctored and manipulated texts and intentionally omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative.”

A Times spokesperson told “GMA” that the they “plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit,” adding, “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”

Dec. 31, 2024: Lively formalizes details from California complaint into a lawsuit against Baldoni

On Dec. 31, Lively formalized her initial California Civil Rights Department complaint into a lawsuit filed in New York, which reiterated details she previously presented in her California complaint.

Attorneys for Lively said in a statement that the actress’s “decision to speak out has resulted in further retaliation and attacks.”

“As alleged in Ms. Lively’s federal Complaint, Wayfarer and its associates have violated federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns,” Lively’s attorneys claimed. “Now, the defendants will answer for their conduct in federal court.”

Baldoni denied the allegations.

Jan. 7, 2025: Lively and Baldoni’s lawyers issue dueling statements

In a statement obtained by ABC News on Jan. 7, Lively’s lawyers said their client’s “federal litigation before the Southern District of New York involves serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation, backed by concrete facts.”

“This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation,” Lively’s attorneys added. “As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set.”

The statement continued by asking “everyone to remember that sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and in every industry.”

Freedman, Baldoni’s lawyer, responded to the statement from Lively’s camp by saying, “It is painfully ironic that Blake Lively is accusing Justin Baldoni of weaponizing the media when her own team orchestrated this vicious attack by sending the New York Times grossly edited documents prior to even filing the complaint.”

“We are releasing all of the evidence which will show a pattern of bullying and threats to take over the movie. None of this will come as a surprise because consistent with her past behavior Blake Lively used other people to communicate those threats and bully her way to get whatever she wanted. We have all the receipts and more.”

Jan. 16, 2025: Baldoni sues Lively and Reynolds

Baldoni formally filed a civil lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds, the couple’s publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s public relations company Vision PR for, among other things, extortion and defamation.

Baldoni accused Lively of having “robbed” him and Wayfarer Studios LLC of control of “It Ends with Us,” as well as destroying Baldoni’s “personal and professional reputations and livelihood.”

Baldoni, Wayfarer, Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel, Melissa Nathan — a crisis PR specialist hired by Wayfarer Studios — and Baldoni’s friend, podcast co-host, and Wayfarer CEO Jamey Heath are listed as plaintiffs. They are seeking $400 million in damages.

The suit claims Lively pushed a “false and damaging narrative” against Baldoni that was “rife with lies and doctored ‘evidence'” in accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of “It Ends with Us.”

Baldoni’s suit accuses Sloane of having gone “so far as to propagate malicious stories portraying Baldoni as a sexual predator” and Reynolds of using the term to describe Baldoni in a call with Baldoni’s agent. The suit claims Reynolds told Baldoni’s rep to “drop” him as a client.

The suit also claims Baldoni and the other plaintiffs were “the targets of a calculated and vitriolic smear campaign” lodged by the defendants, and that Lively, leveraging her and her husband’s star power, took control of the film — including Lively having her own cut of it.

Freedman called the lawsuit “a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media.”

Lively’s lawyers responded with a statement calling the lawsuit “another chapter in the abuser playbook.”

“This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.”

“They are trying to shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni. The evidence will show that the cast and others had their own negative experiences with Mr. Baldoni and Wayfarer,” the statement continued. “The evidence will also show that Sony asked Ms. Lively to oversee Sony’s cut of the film, which they then selected for distribution and was a resounding success.”

Read more at Good Morning America.