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Despite the case between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni being settled last week, Lively has suffered yet another embarrassing blow. According to reports, Lively has been blocked by a judge from seeking to have Baldoni pay her legal fees.
A week after Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni settled their It Ends With Us legal battle — averting a trial that would’ve begun later this month and saw Lively receive zero dollars in damages — federal Judge Lewis J. Liman denied the former Gossip Girl star’s bid to submit additional filings and information in the case.
The settlement came after the judge had already dismissed 10 of Lively’s 13 claims in March, leaving only three potential charges on the docket: breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting retaliation.
A judge has thrown out Blake Lively’s attempt to have Justin Baldoni reimburse her for her tens of millions of dollars in legal fees
Most notably, the judge denied Lively’s request to file additional briefs as she argues she’s entitled to recovery of her legal fees and damages based on Baldoni filing his defamation countersuit against her. Reports indicate that Lively spent tens of millions of dollars on lawyers and legal fees.
Lively filed the motion last September under the Protecting Survivors from Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act, which seeks to protect sexual abuse accusers from retaliatory defamation suits. Baldoni’s since-dismissed $400 million defamation countersuit is what Lively is using as the basis for her fee claim. Based on the judge’s recent ruling, however, it doesn’t seem likely she’ll be successful.
After the settlement last week, both Baldoni and Lively’s legal teams immediately went into spin mode. Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman called the settlement a “total victory” for his client, pointing out that the court had already dismissed most of Lively’s claims, including all sexual harassment and defamation accusations. Lively’s team, meanwhile, has framed the fee motion as a vehicle for advocacy on behalf of sexual harassment survivors.
Lively has starred in just one film, 2025’s Another Simple Favor, since the legal battle with Baldoni began, and is attached to the projects The Survival List and The Husband’s Secret. At this time, though, there is no indication that production on those films will begin anytime soon.
Baldoni, who didn’t have much a prolific mainstream film career prior to It Ends With Us, also has a similarly barren upcoming slate.