Blake Lively seeking nearly $7.5 million in attorneys' fees from Justin Baldoni
Attorneys for Blake Lively said in a court filing Monday that Justin Baldoni's production company Wayfarer Studios owes the actress $7,495,526.87 in attorneys fees connected to the studio's defamation lawsuit against her, which was dismissed in June last year.
According to court documents, which were filed in a federal district court in the Southern District of New York, Lively is also seeking $539,514.01 in costs and expenses incurred in relation to the dismissed defamation case.
The filing comes two weeks after U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman denied Lively's claim for punitive damages against Baldoni and Wayfarer but allowed the actress to seek attorneys' fees under California Civil Code Section 47.1, a law designed to protect anyone who reports sexual assault, harassment or discrimination from retaliatory defamation lawsuits.
Esra Hudson, one of Lively's lead attorneys in the case, wrote in Monday's court filing that fees for her work on the case were discounted from her standard rate of $1,430.00 per an hour to $1,161 to $1,287 per hour over the course of the litigation.
Co-lead trial counsel Michael Gottlieb charged an average hourly rate of $2,187, according to the filing.
ABC News has reached out to representatives for Baldoni for comment.
In a statement to ABC News on Tuesday, Lively's attorneys, Gottlieb and Hudson, said, "Thanks to this landmark decision, those considering using a lawsuit as a weapon of intimidation have been put on notice that there are consequences for doing so. The value of this ruling is in the precedent it creates, the accountability it imposes, and the protection it provides to those who may one day find themselves facing similar retaliation for speaking the truth."
Monday's filing is the latest in a long-running legal dispute between the former "It Ends with Us" co-stars, who first became embroiled in December 2024, when Lively 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 also accused Baldoni and his production company of attempting to orchestrate a smear campaign against her, allegations Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios have vehemently denied.
The two subsequently launched dueling lawsuits against one another in the months that followed, with Baldoni accusing Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, the couple's publicist Leslie Sloane, and others of extortion and defamation, among other things. The lawsuits were consolidated into one suit in January 2025.
Baldoni's lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by Liman in June 2025. The judge later gutted much of Lively's case against Baldoni in April of this year, including claims she was subjected to sexual harassment on set, determining that she could continue to pursue her claims of retaliation against Baldoni's public relations team.
Baldoni, via his Wayfarer production company, and Lively agreed to settle their ongoing dispute in May this year. Liman ruled at the time that Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios must pay Lively's attorneys' fees but denied Lively's claim for punitive damages.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
