NEED TO KNOW
Blake Lively was deposed on July 31, providing testimony about her behind-the-scenes conflict with It Ends With Us director-costar Justin Baldoni
Lively’s lawyers then filed a motion to strike a rough draft of the sealed deposition transcript from the court record that was placed there by Baldoni’s team
On Aug. 8, the judge granted Lively’s motion to strike
The judge presiding over Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s ongoing legal battle granted the actress’ motion to strike a deposition transcript from the docket.
On July 31 in New York City, Lively, 37, gave testimony in a deposition about her conflict with Baldoni, 41, and members of his Wayfarer Studios team over their 2024 movie It Ends With Us.
Lively’s lawyers then asked a federal judge to strike a 292-page rough draft of the deposition transcript from the court record filed under seal, arguing that Baldoni’s team uploaded it to the public docket with “no plausible legal reason to do so” except “as fodder for the Wayfarer Defendants’ media campaign.”
On Friday, Aug. 8, Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled in favor of Lively, granting her motion to strike the sealed document from the docket.
“The Wayfarer Parties’ attachment of the entire, nearly 300-page deposition — after citing only two pages of it in the Letter — served no proper litigation purpose and instead appears to have been intended to burden Lively (and as a result, the Court) and to invite public speculation and scandal,” wrote Liman in his order.
“… The conclusion is inescapable that the Wayfarer Parties filed gratuitous amounts of irrelevant pages so that, if Lively moved for continued sealing of the irrelevant pages, the Wayfarer Parties could then use Lively’s response for their own public-relations purposes,” Judge Liman added. “The Court has not only the power but also the responsibility to step in.”
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Blake Lively; Justin Baldoni
In their Aug. 4 motion, the Gossip Girl alum’s lawyers also accused Baldoni’s side of leaking details about the deposition to TMZ and The Daily Mail to promote the narrative that it was a “face-to-face showdown” between the two costars. The director-actor’s attorneys responded by saying Lively’s side provided no evidence of where such a leak had come from.
Of Lively’s motion to strike the transcript, Baldoni’s lawyers questioned why she would want to conceal her own testimony “in an action in which she is the plaintiff.”
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In an Aug. 7 statement to PEOPLE, a spokesperson for Lively said they are “pleased with the outcome of her deposition and now look forward to deposing Justin Baldoni and each of the co-defendants in short order.”
“Deposition testimony is confidential for good reason — it’s evidence in a legal proceeding and is subject to objections and evidentiary rules,” added the spokesperson. “Juries aren’t just handed deposition transcripts to read at home, and instead they listen to testimony that is presented at trial under a judge’s supervision.”
The It Ends With Us costars’ conflict began in December, when Lively filed a sexual-harassment complaint against Baldoni, alleging misconduct on the set and a retaliatory smear campaign, which he has denied. In June, Judge Liman dismissed Baldoni’s $400 million countersuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, which alleged extortion, defamation and more.
Attorneys for both sides have indicated that Baldoni and Lively plan to testify during the trial that’s scheduled to take place in March 2026 in New York.
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