Blake Lively seeks to dismiss Justin Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit, arguing California law protects sexual harassment accusers

(CNN) — Blake Lively is asking a judge to dismiss Justin Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit against her, arguing that her “It Ends With Us” co-star is “weaponizing” his own defamation claim to retaliate against her for publicly speaking out about her sexual harassment accusations against him.

Lively’s motion to dismiss, filed on Thursday, comes just two days after her husband Ryan Reynolds also filed a motion to dismiss, asking the judge to drop him from the case.

Baldoni, his business associates and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, are suing Lively and Reynolds, along with their publicist, for $400 million, claiming that the Hollywood power couple and their team “hijacked” his film and then sought out to “destroy” his career.

(The couple’s publicist, Leslie Sloane, has also filed her own motion to dismiss.)

Attorneys for Lively argued that she is protected under a California law that prohibits retaliatory defamation lawsuits based on sexual harassment allegations. The legislation was signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in October 2023.

Baldoni has accused Lively of working to “destroy” him professionally by collaborating with the New York Times on a “self-serving” story about the complaint she filed with the California Civil Rights Department in December, in which she accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation. But in their latest filing, Lively’s attorneys argue she was “legally entitled to file her complaint and disclose it to the public,” including with the press.

(The New York Times has previously said it stands by its reporting and has asked the court to dismiss the $250 million lawsuit the publication is facing from Baldoni.)

“The Wayfarer Parties have created more liability for themselves by their malicious efforts to sue Ms. Lively ‘into oblivion,’” attorneys for Lively wrote in their motion to dismiss.

Baldoni has denied all sexual harassment and retaliation claims made by Lively. His attorney, Bryan Freedman, previously told CNN that “anyone actively involved in any possible connection with this abhorrent conduct will be sued into oblivion.”

In asking the court to dismiss Baldoni’s claims, Lively’s attorneys state in their filing that nothing in the lawsuit “resembles an actionable legal claim,” calling it a “public relations instrument” with the sole purpose of carrying out Baldoni’s “sinister campaign” to punish Lively for speaking out about sexual harassment and retaliation.

Lively’s attorneys argue that “in lieu of concrete facts,” the complaint from Baldoni and others “resorts to implausible conjecture and conspiracy theories to allege that Ms. Lively ‘falsified’ her allegations.”

“On the one hand, the Wayfarer Parties insist that Ms. Lively is an immensely powerful Hollywood superstar who, along with her influential husband, wielded power to steal creative control over the film,” Lively’s filing states. “But on the other hand, they claim she was so powerless that the only way she could have any power was by manufacturing sexual harassment allegations almost a year in advance in a Machiavellian long game. These two concepts contradict each other and therefore cannot coexist.”

Lively’s attorneys are also asking the judge to award her attorneys fees, and treble damages and punitive damages.

In a statement Baldoni’s attorney said Lively was “abusing our legal system”and argued the motion was a distortion of a state law.

“Stringent rules are put into place to protect the innocent and allow individuals to rightfully defend themselves. Laws are not meant to be twisted and curated by privileged elites to fit their own personal agenda,” the statement continued.

In Reynolds’ request to be dropped from the lawsuit, his attorneys argued that Baldoni’s case against him amounts to “hurt feelings” and that his only involvement has been as a “supportive spouse.”

Reynolds’ filing claimed that the lawsuit filed by Baldoni and others is based on two times that Reynolds allegedly called Baldoni a “predator,” but said that nothing in the lawsuit suggests that Reynolds did not believe this to be true.

“Mr. Reynolds genuinely, perhaps passionately, believes that Mr. Baldoni’s behavior is reflective of a ‘predator,’” Reynolds’ filing reads, adding that “calling someone a ‘predator’ amounts to a constitutionally protected opinion.”

Lively filed an amended complaint last month, alleging other women also raised claims about Baldoni’s behavior on set.

Baldoni has denied those allegations.

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